Well, I have been having nothing but trouble with my eas for the past couple of weeks and I'm contemplating a coil swap. I'm one of the few who actually like the eas system so I would really hate to get rid of it, plus most of the coil kits put the truck just above the stock normal setting height. This would also mean a whole new wheel/tire combo for me as my current low setting is about where the stock normal setting is (I get slight wheel rub at this setting), my normal setting is just above the stock extended setting and my extended setting is a couple inches above the stock extended setting.
The reason I'm thinking about swapping is that I have been chasing issues on the eas non-stop for about a month now. Coming home from a 3 hour trip, I blew an air line for the right rear side about 2 miles from home. I cut the bad section out and replaced it and everything was good. 2 days later another section of the old line on the same side went out. I decided I didn't want to deal with the old line any more and replaced the entire section. Aired back up and everything was fine for another few days. Then on my way to work yet another section of old line went out. At this point, I can't decide if the old line is all just that bad or if I have a different problem. Each time I replace a section of line, the truck airs up fine and lasts a few days so I know the pump is working and the bags are holding air.

I'm thinking that either the pump doesn't stop running when the truck reaches the current height setting and the pressure just builds until a line breaks, or all the old line is crap and I need to replace it all. Either way, I'm weighing the cost and time against a coil swap just to be done with eas issues. Any thoughts? The truck is a 98 RR HSE 4.6 w/ 140k miles.

 

I wish mine still had EAS. Its a very fun feature. Having said that, I'm glad I don't have to deal with the issues. The airlines are probably just old and worn out and need to be replaced. If the pump just kept running, it would have burned itself out already. Do you know what air line it is specifically?

 

Huh? One of the few?? I thought everyone like the EAS. The EAS system is awesome when it works as it should. It gives the truck an amazingly smooth ride. You're lucky that you got 140K on your truck before you started having EAS problems. I had them before I hit 80K and I had the same year and model RR that you have.

I can tell you that the coil springs don't give the RR as nice of a ride compared to the EAS. I converted mine just before 100K miles due to many EAS problems, even after I had replaced all the bags and the pump. When I picked up the truck from the shop after they did the swap and I started driving away, I said to myself "oh this sucks ...and this cost me how much?". The ride seemed bouncy yet rigid. You may want to give your EAS system a second chance and see what's causing the issues before you swap to coil springs.

 

Its not my first eas issue, I had a bag go out in front last year and a bad pot the year before kept causing a fault from the eas thinking one side wasn't rising. Those were both easy fixes though, I just don't know what's causing this problem unless its just bad airline from age. I find it strange though that every time I replace a section, another section goes bad a couple days later. If it happened once every few months, i'd chalk it up to bad air lines but it all seems to be happening at once. I just don't want to sink thousands in to the eas system of a truck this old only to still have issues. If its just airlines, I have tons of that laying around. It seems to mostly be rear airlines that are giving me issues right now so maybe ill pull it all out tomorrow and replace it and at the same time see if I can find any other issues that may be causing this.

 

I love my EAS and I haven't had a single problem with mine. The catch is that I when I bought my truck I replaced all 4 bags with Gen IIIs, replaced all lines and rebuilt the compressor. It's been a year and it is working as it should. Should be good for another 10 years.

 

Mine has coils that were installed by the previous owner. The ride is not so good. One of these days, when I get some time, I am going to return it to EAS. It sounds like your air lines are just old and need to be replaced. All of the lines are the same age, so it makes sense to me that they would all fail at about the same time.

 

If you can keep the EAS do it, the ride is so much better and it is a fantastic system. I would replace all the lines and see what you get, it is fairly cheap and not that hard to do. So far everyone I know who has coils say if they could get a good EAS they would go back, so try to rescue it.