ARB under seat air compressor

[BBS & RR Nation]

This looks like a really nice compressor setup for my Ranger Raptor. I'm just wanting some opinions on it. If it is worth a $1,200 investment.

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[pablo94sc]

But that's where the sub goes.

 

[bigb]

Put it under the hood

 

[midnight270]

There's no spot under the hood of the Raptor unfortunately.

 

[Sauce]

I installed one in the bed and its worked great for me. Just another place to consider. There is a whole thread with photos somewhere on the site.

 

[BBS & RR Nation]

But that's where the sub goes.

Mine won't be delivered until next week so I can't check this but all the videos I see on YouTube show the sub behind the back seat. Maybe someone that has a 26 can help with a picture.

 

[pablo94sc]

Mine won't be delivered until next week so I can't check this but all the videos I see on YouTube show the sub behind the back seat. Maybe someone that has a 26 can help with a picture.

I'm talking about a real sub, not the bose wavetube ford calls a sub. But it was a joke, much like the factory sub.

 

[ALlex858]

I have mine installed behind rear drivers side wheel, tucked up into the truck bed. they also have an air chuck kit that you can install in your truck bed or rear bumper. the kit is from SDHQ.

https://sdhqoffroad.com/products/sd...-compressor-mount?_pos=2&_fid=1a4959dc9&_ss=c

 

[OxygenMask]

I can't wrap my head around how a compressor is worth $1200!

 

[ALlex858]

I can't wrap my head around how a compressor is worth $1200!

Its the whole mounting kit and the compressor. the ARB twin compressor is about $650 just by itself.

 

[ShadowDragon24]

Put it under the hood

But thats where the Auxiliary battery goes. lol and charger/isolator goes over by the truck battery. lol

 

[ShadowDragon24]

This looks like a really nice compressor setup for my Ranger Raptor. I'm just wanting some opinions on it. If it is worth a $1,200 investment.

theres a spot made for it inbetween the fender, and the pan. thats the 8 dimples on the passenger side are for. drill em out. add a bracket, wiring. done. 1 of the 2 rear aux wires on the raptors is even labels compressor for it. problem is getting the full kit in North America. People B.T.(Before Trump) on here were buying the brackets from aussie land and making their own wiring harnesses and putting the dual in the ford designed location.

 

[Raptor Family]

theres a spot made for it inbetween the fender, and the pan. thats the 8 dimples on the passenger side are for. drill em out. add a bracket, wiring. done. 1 of the 2 rear aux wires on the raptors is even labels compressor for it. problem is getting the full kit in North America. People B.T.(Before Trump) on here were buying the brackets from aussie land and making their own wiring harnesses and putting the dual in the ford designed location.

I second this location to mount the compressor. I have had a compressor mounted inside the passenger compartment of a jeep before—it was loud!! In fact, sometimes when it turned on automatically, it could scare the crap out of you. The location under the rear seat—someone commented was for the Subwoofer—yeah, it looks like a sound chamber to further Amplify the compressor noise—I would never put a compressor in a passenger compartment again—and they get hot!

I originally tried to get the ARB/Ford dealer accessory compressor from Australia—no Ford dealer would ship the kit here, it cost too much to have friends of mine ship it out of a third country.
In my research, I found the main things the ARB/Ford kit had were the wiring harness and a bracket that mounted on the inside of the bed. An American company made a wire harness that would allow bed mounting, and an Australian company (Ausmotion) made a copy of the Ford/ARB bracket that was in the kit—I bought the bracket from Ausmotion and had it sent here early last year—while I was still waiting for my ordered truck to be built. In one of my other posts, I figured out a way of using an induction heater to remove those pesky T40 PLuS tiedown bolts to mount that bracket. I also ordered an Air tank mount from Pirate Camp Co. (from Australia) which put a Forged end ARB air tank under the rear quarter on the driver’s side. And, ARB had just released their new “Brushless” twin compressor which was supposed to have way better cfm, lower noise, lower heat, required less current (smaller copper wires from battery to rear of truck), and it had a digital fault indicator system (which I thought might be good for a compressor that was hidden inside the rear quarter panel).

What none of the advertising from ARB said was that the compressor used an entirely different wiring system. I couldn’t just use an upfitter switch (as the ARB/Ford system did, and the wire harness I was buying from US company)—the fault indicator on new compressor was built into the special carling style switch (it has an led that flashes fault codes) which wouldn’t work. All the wiring and connectors were different, and the American company that made harnesses, didn’t make a kit for the new compressor. Also, the new compressor used a goofy cam-lock type of mount, which to me, did not seem very robust or reliable—especially in a hidden location. It also changed the location of the mounting holes—those 8 dimples already in our truck, and in the Ausmotion mount are not anywhere close to the same. I wrote Ausmotion about the difference, and they were in the design stages of making a new mount to fit the new compressor. It finally showed up 6 months later on their website as a CAD drawing, and after the new Tarriffs and shipping—almost $500, it was just too much. I was stuck, frustrated, a million other things to do, and everything sat for a while.
When I finally decided to “just pay the money” many months later—and still no real pictures of the mount (just a crappy CAD drawing), just to keep the project going, it was either out of stock, or they would not ship it to me in the U.S.

I did find SDHQ had just created a Universal Mount for the ARB brushless mount compressor —slick piece of kit made from stainless that ditches the goofy cam mount and directly attaches to the compressor—about $100. It also has nut plates —so you don’t have to try and screw on a nut or hold with a wrench blindly inside the Hollow” of the rear quarter panel. It also uses the original bolt pattern of the original brushed twin compressor. It totally solved the mounting problem for the new compressor—and inexpensively.

I don’t have a lot of installed pics yet, it is now almost completely re-engineered to work and I can now start putting it all together. I also changed from a single air tank, to dual tanks to feed a Train Horn. And ordered another airtank bracket for the other side from Pirate Camp Co. —because of tariffs, they quit shipping to the U.S. I had purchased a lot of stuff from them before, and I asked them real nice, and they sent me the second bracket—which was more than twice the cost as the first one after the tariff and shipping. That was before the De Minimus change too.

I am including a bunch of pics I have taken as I’ve tried to engineer a solution to use the more efficient compressor, mount it in the safest location outside of the passenger compartment I could find, and make it more useful powering train horns.

Some pics, you will see the cam-lock mount which I think is a horrible design for an off-road vehicle, how the holes do not align with the Ausmotion mount, and the new SDHQ Universal mount. Also, pics of Air tank, Pirate Camp Co tank mounts, and how those mounts look in the truck—and how they clear the exhaust system, both stock, and new AWE Switchpath. And not just barely clear, but have room so as not to be heated. I have almost everything needed wiring, fusing system, and will plumb it all in using stainless hardlines. I am considering using SDHQ recessed air chucks which I haven’t put my hands on one yet, but I think are the bomb—wish they anodized the mount in black. More to come later.

 

[Pwaicon]

This looks like a really nice compressor setup for my Ranger Raptor. I'm just wanting some opinions on it. If it is worth a $1,200 investment.

I did see the kit you referenced and thought about going that route. However, I wanted to go with the new ARB Brushless compressor, plus I didn’t like the location of the air chuck. So, I did something similar…I went with the brushless compressor and mounted it in the same location, but I ran the air chuck and switch to the rear of the bed. So, far I like it and it is working well for my needs.

 

[AugPal]

Excuse my ignorance. What is this air compressor used for? Tires?

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