Additional photos by Bob Holliday
After a beautiful day on the trail with the Las Vegas FJ Club the Sunday before SEMA 2014, I am looking around the parking lot and everyone is hunched over airing up and checking their PSI. That is, except one person. I looked at him having an “adult beverage” and still socializing with his hood up and these hoses attached to all of his tires. I immediately stopped what I was doing and went to investigate. Well, his air compressor is running, he is not hunched over watching each individual tire, and he still has a smile on his face. What is wrong with this picture?
He starts to tell me about the 2Way Air system that he came across at a local 4x4 meet and greet in Vegas, purchased, and installed. It seemed simple enough and after explaining how it works, I was a more than a little intrigued. It is a manifold system that runs to a “whip” connector near each wheel. You connect each whip to each tire valve stem, turn on your compressor (in his case), and sit back and watch one gauge controlling all four tires. You can even install a pop off valve in the system so when you reach your preset inflation level, the valve pops and you are done.
When he was done inflating his tires we looked around and just about everyone with us still had one if not two tires left to air up. Running through my head was the fact that he was done faster than almost everyone there but he was also not complaining about a sore back or achy knees. He just walked around his FJ and disconnected his whips and put them in a nice little storage bag, closed up his hood and asked where everyone wanted to go for dinner. I think somebody might be on to something here. When we were about to leave he gave me the company info from 2Way Air and told me that they would have a booth at SEMA that week.
Just about every product ever created or any new way of doing something stems from someone getting frustrated with the way things “have always been done”. With that being said, one of the biggest frustrations that come with off roading is the time and pain that come with airing up and airing down. Pat Hickman shares that frustration, well he used to.
Pat was tired of running around his Toyota Rock Buggy and deflating each tire, one at a time, and then inflating them in the same fashion when it was time call it a day. So instead of just gritting his teeth and doing this routine over and over again, he decided he would come up with a real solution to this annoyance. You see, Pat is the founder and engineer behind Rock Smasher Engineering (a rock buggy suspension company). Pat came up with his “whip & manifold” system to create a way for us to deflate and inflate all of our tires equally and efficiently.
The 2Way Air system features flexible, easy installation along with durable and reliable materials. The polyurethane tubing in the kit (3/8” for the manifold and ¼” for the whips) are chosen for being more flexible and durable than a nylon or rubber tubing. “Push to Connect” fittings make assembly simple and straight forward. Where Teflon is needed, they come already wrapped. The fittings for the whips are a quick connector to make connecting the Shrader Valve for the tires to the brass inflation valves clean and simple. The kit works great with every possible way to air up. You can use onboard or non-fixed air compressors, as well as CO2. The 2Way Air Kit can be ordered by number of axels on your vehicle; 2 wheels for a trailer, 4 wheels for a car or truck, all the way up to 10 tires on an RV or Semi Tractor and Trailer. Installation is even flexible; you can mount all of the pieces where they work best for you whether in the cabin, under the hood, or in a trailer.
2Way Air was created not only for the off road community, but is used with RV’s and 18-Wheeler’s just the same. Though the users may vary, the usability is equally simple and straight forward.
This is one of those products that once you see it in use, you must own a kit yourself and once you use it you will ask yourself what took you so long to install it!
[flickr set=72157652263531305]
To get your copy of the
April 2015 issue:
FIND US ON:
Twitter | Facebook
Additional photos by Bob Holliday
After a beautiful day on the trail with the Las Vegas FJ Club the Sunday before SEMA 2014, I am looking around the parking lot and everyone is hunched over airing up and checking their PSI. That is, except one person. I looked at him having an “adult beverage” and still socializing with his hood up and these hoses attached to all of his tires. I immediately stopped what I was doing and went to investigate. Well, his air compressor is running, he is not hunched over watching each individual tire, and he still has a smile on his face. What is wrong with this picture?
He starts to tell me about the 2Way Air system that he came across at a local 4x4 meet and greet in Vegas, purchased, and installed. It seemed simple enough and after explaining how it works, I was a more than a little intrigued. It is a manifold system that runs to a “whip” connector near each wheel. You connect each whip to each tire valve stem, turn on your compressor (in his case), and sit back and watch one gauge controlling all four tires. You can even install a pop off valve in the system so when you reach your preset inflation level, the valve pops and you are done.
When he was done inflating his tires we looked around and just about everyone with us still had one if not two tires left to air up. Running through my head was the fact that he was done faster than almost everyone there but he was also not complaining about a sore back or achy knees. He just walked around his FJ and disconnected his whips and put them in a nice little storage bag, closed up his hood and asked where everyone wanted to go for dinner. I think somebody might be on to something here. When we were about to leave he gave me the company info from 2Way Air and told me that they would have a booth at SEMA that week.
Just about every product ever created or any new way of doing something stems from someone getting frustrated with the way things “have always been done”. With that being said, one of the biggest frustrations that come with off roading is the time and pain that come with airing up and airing down. Pat Hickman shares that frustration, well he used to.
Pat was tired of running around his Toyota Rock Buggy and deflating each tire, one at a time, and then inflating them in the same fashion when it was time call it a day. So instead of just gritting his teeth and doing this routine over and over again, he decided he would come up with a real solution to this annoyance. You see, Pat is the founder and engineer behind Rock Smasher Engineering (a rock buggy suspension company). Pat came up with his “whip & manifold” system to create a way for us to deflate and inflate all of our tires equally and efficiently.
The 2Way Air system features flexible, easy installation along with durable and reliable materials. The polyurethane tubing in the kit (3/8” for the manifold and ¼” for the whips) are chosen for being more flexible and durable than a nylon or rubber tubing. “Push to Connect” fittings make assembly simple and straight forward. Where Teflon is needed, they come already wrapped. The fittings for the whips are a quick connector to make connecting the Shrader Valve for the tires to the brass inflation valves clean and simple. The kit works great with every possible way to air up. You can use onboard or non-fixed air compressors, as well as CO2. The 2Way Air Kit can be ordered by number of axels on your vehicle; 2 wheels for a trailer, 4 wheels for a car or truck, all the way up to 10 tires on an RV or Semi Tractor and Trailer. Installation is even flexible; you can mount all of the pieces where they work best for you whether in the cabin, under the hood, or in a trailer.
2Way Air was created not only for the off road community, but is used with RV’s and 18-Wheeler’s just the same. Though the users may vary, the usability is equally simple and straight forward.
This is one of those products that once you see it in use, you must own a kit yourself and once you use it you will ask yourself what took you so long to install it!
[flickr set=72157652263531305]
To get your copy of the
April 2015 issue:
FIND US ON:
Twitter | Facebook
