Air suspension questions, 1985 Voyager

Greetings.

I have 2 bikes, a 1984 and a 1985. I bought both of these bikes about a month ago, got both of them running and have been trouble shooting / fixing issues on both bikes since then. On the 1984 the air suspension components seem to be ok (compressor, switches on the right side of the fairing, air pressure gauge, ...). On the 1985 I have some issues:

1) At first, the compressor would not turn on when pressing the up button for either the front forks or rear shocks. I traced that down to some disconnected wires and a suspect solenoid.

2) After connecting the wires and putting in a new solenoid, the compressor would 'sometimes' turn on when pressing the up button, but most of the time it would not. When I disconnected the 6 pin harness from the suspension switches, turned the key on in neutral and jumped the red wire to the green wire, the compressor would turn on every time. So, I thought, the switches must be bad.

3) So, I removed the switches from the 1985 bike and hooked them to the 1984 bike and everything worked as it should

4) So, I cleaned all the connections, smeared on a bit of dielectric grease and reconnected everything up. No change. Sometimes the compressor would turn on, but most of the time it would not. And, something that I did not notice before, or perhaps did not happen before, when I press the up button for the front forks, all the console lights go out like there is a dead short.

Trying to chase all the wires down and locate all the connections has been difficult and I most likely missed something.

What I am going to try in the morning is to take the switches out of the 1984 bike and put them in the 1985 bike and see what happens.

But, any suggestions would be appreciated.

Another question related to the above:

On my 1990 Harley FLHTC, the front forks and rear shocks are air assisted. There is no on board compressor. There are shrader (sp?) type valves and a special hand pump that you can use to add or subtract air. Simple, basically bullet proof. Has anyone removed all the air suspension compressor components and fitted a simple hand pump type system to their bike, and if so, does it work OK for you? In the 25+ years that I have owned the Harley, I set the front and rear shock pressure once and never messed with it again so if I cannot figure out what is wrong with my bike, I am inclined to just remove or bypass it and go with something simpler.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

RIde safe.

Good morning, I know on my 79's the front forks have a shrader valve on each fork (the fork tube cap) and air pressure is added or subtracted depending on the ride you want (within the service limits for the pressure range) and you could buy S&W rear air shocks for it to replace the stock rear spring shocks so there is another option available if the front fork tubes are the same dia. and thread pitch are the same. Not sure about the rear's on your bikes though.

good morning,

4) So, I cleaned all the connections, smeared on a bit of dielectric grease and reconnected everything up. No change. Sometimes the compressor would turn on, but most of the time it would not. And, something that I did not notice before, or perhaps did not happen before, when I press the up button for the front forks, all the console lights go out like there is a dead short.

I suggest to check the ground connection to the switch, console
maybe run a temp wire direct from the battery to the console ground cable and switch ground
in general, a bad ground can give you many weird issues

You've probably realized this by now (and this doesn't really sound like your problem) but... the compressor only works when the bike is in neutral. You'll notice at night when you put the bike in gear, the light for the compressor pressure gauge goes out.

Thanks for the reminder, but yes I knew that after reading the manual. And, you are right, that is not the issue.

I have not actually ridden either of the bikes yet, except to put them in my workshop. I have a Honda CBX-1000 also, so, it will be interesting to see how the bikes compare.

Well, I most definitely had a bad ground. There is a ground wire that goes from the air distribution gizmo to the frame via a ring terminal. When I removed the bolt that connects the ring terminal to the frame, the paint underneath the terminal was not scraped off. Probably came like that from the factory. So, I scraped off the paint, smeared on some dielectric grease, put it back together and just like magic it started working, kind of.

Now, when I try to pump up the front shocks, it seems like there is a dead short as all the lights on my console go out when I do that. I gotta figure out what the problem is with that, or find a replacement on ebay. But, at least 1/2 of the system works now.

Thanks for the tip.