Winter project is to get my disco ready for spring beach camping and overnight fishing trips. Its always a PITA to let the air out of the tires and then wait in line on the return trip at the quard shack to refill tires with air.
An on board compressor and dual battery set up to support seems like a smart idea. Best installed in the front engine bay or rear cargo area. I want it to be hard mounted to the truck and then have extension lines to reach around as needed.
If you have done these mods, post up some pictures. Thanks!

 

Why not do this:

Hummer Central Tire Inflation System.

 

Thats incredible. Never knew that was possible. The uprights and special parts required to make this work must be cost prohibited. Just for fun I will check it out. Thanks.

 

You'd be surprised... Many trucks (18-wheel type) all have a center inflation system - not the same as Hummer but it's essentially the same without the air compressor. The truck tires are rigged the same (rotating valve to the air pressure stem) but then just piped back to the hub/axal so that tire changes are easier and filling is always in one center spot.

Check out a bunch of the hummer forums/sites as well as trucking sites. The parts will be cheap and easy (it's just air compressor parts/hoses/valves).

The hardest part will be the rotating valve. I bought my first disco a week ago and it's all torn apart at my mechanic's shop and I haven't even driven it yet. I have no idea if it's even possible to retrofit something like this.

My guess would be that you'd need a wheel spacer BEHIND the wheel, between the rim and the (drum/disk... I'm such a n00b that I don't even know what kind of brakes we have ) that would encompass the rotating valve. If you ran a 90* elbow stem fitting out of the tire you could run a hose between one of the spokes and then back down the back of the tire. (balancing will be fun) From there you'd pipe the hose into the rotating valve.

I don't know these things well enough yet to really make suggestions outside the fact that you'd make a lot of people jealous if you figure it out.

 

very cool.!! Why is your disco apart? You are not going to do any of the wrk yourself? Consider doing some yourself - as the information on this board is more than many wrenches know. You'll be the smart one after studying the posts!

 

If you are airing down a lot and hate to wait 20 min to fill up your tires with the baby compressor than the best route is a compressed CO2 tank that will fill your tires up in no time flat....all of those compressors out there are painfully slow and you will end up spending the same amount up front. Tanks need to be refilled $ but there are plenty of places that do it and it isnt that much. The other beauty of it is you can even run an impact gun on them which can be handy.

You can find plenty of used tanks out there too, just get it tested and you're good to go.

POWERTANK - CO2 Air Systems

http://powertank.com/products/sfID1/20/productID/464

 

I thought about a portable tank, however your link is way better than anything I had seen before. Is there a risk for having the bottle inside the truck, in the event of an accident? I dont want the risk of getting rear ended and having the valve explode off the bottle and have a rocket inside the truck. For that reason, I thought a compressor would allow me to use air as I needed - and not have to deal with storage or saftey issue. What do you think?

 

Most little air compressors by themselves will take 20 minutes or more to refill your tires. That's assuming a constant duty compressor (a lot of them have shorter duty cycles and you'd have to wait for it to cool). You would need a fairly good size tank to make it go much faster.

You can get a complete viair system for about 399 but you'd have to find a place to mount the compressor, mount the fairly large tank, and do all the plumbing and wiring. You don't need dual batteries as long as you run the engine/alternator while you're filling, but duals could cost you another several hundred dollars or more depending on whether you buy fancy AGM batteries, an expensive isolator and heavy cables etc.

A C02 tank will air up the tires about as fast as you can move the hose around to the different valve stems. You can get a 10 lb. tank for about the same money as just the constant-duty compressor (not including the tank, hoses, wires, batteries etc.)

Air compressors are better for boonie duty when you're doing a recovery that's going to take hours and you don't want to find an empty tank or run out. Provided fuel to keep the car running, they will provide way more air over the course, but they will take a long, long, long time to do it.

 

I'm probably going to use a 40 or 80 cu. ft. scuba tank rigged with a tire chuck on a low pressure inflator/quick disconnect hose. I can use the same setup with air tools, as long as the tools have the right fittings. I'll mount the tank to the roof rack I'm getting with some sort of clamp. Then, when I want to use it, I just pull it down and put it away when I'm done. Easy peasy.

Now, safety. As someone who regularly carries filled scuba tanks (some with up to 3500 psi of air in them), there is a right and a wrong way to do it. If the tanks are packed in there pretty well, the risk is minimal. Mine are usually kept with the valves facing the rear of the vehicle, so they are easy to get at when I stop, but if I'm carrying them a long distance or for extended periods, I'll make sure the valves face sideways. That being said, it takes quite a bit of force to knock a valve to the point that it leaks.

If I were worried about it moving around in the back, I'd rig it up the same way I'm going to do it on my roof rack. Have a clamp in the back where the tank mounts, and remove it if you want to use it.

For this sort of setup, you're looking at the cost of the tank, between $100 and $170 for an aluminum tank depending on size. Even less if you get them used. Or much more if you get a steel one. Then get yourself a first stage regulator. These can be had on ebay for extremely cheap, especially for the older ones. I generally have a few extras laying around just for this sort of thing. Cost will be between $20 and $100. Then $25 ish for a quick disconnect hose, and $13 for a tire inflator. And you're done.

 

The reason CTIS don't take hold in recreational 4x4's, much less Land Rovers, is because by the time you spend that much money on the car, you have many reasons to trailer it instead of driving it on the street.

I mean, most people airing down are going to want the performance a bias tire like the IROC's give at low pressures. Airing down radial all terrains just isn't that great that you'd spend for a CTIS to do it automatically. But airing your bias IROC's up for the street isn't that great either. Plenty of people will do it to get to the playground, but they probably won't keep it for a DD, and they'd rather spend the coin on axles, shocks, a four link, or suspension seats than on CTIS.