Driving with trailer air suspension dumped

Not really a good idea. Good chance the tires will rub. Depending on what kind of suspension it is, you could destroy bushings and the bumper stops too. Big difference between pulling ahead slowly and driving down the road.

I have plugged the air line to a blown bag and stuffed a block between the axle and frame using a ratchet binder to hold it in. This was just to get it back to our shop to fix.

 

Hendrickson supposedly has rubber bump stop inside of bag. I never saw inside of one.

I know Freightliner bags don't and tractor frame has iron bump stop. Iron on iron - ouch!

 

And chance of getting a ticket, found out the hard way.

 

my trailer has a Hendrickson suspension and it said in the manual that there are rubber bumpers inside the bags and you could safely drive with the suspension dumped as long as the distance was minimal and you kept the speeds down. I had to do it once when I blew an airbag out in the middle of nowhere and ended up driving about 80 miles with the suspension dumped until I could find a shop that had a replacement. There was no damage done.

 

I have kenworth 8 bag air suspension on the truck I drive in the oil fields. The way the saddles sit on that type of suspension allows small rocks to get in under the bag and I have bags pop regularly. So far this summer I have had 4 pop due to this problem. What I do is either crimp off the line to the bag or cut the lines and put in a coupler to by-pass the bag. With the 8 bag system it depends what bag has popped as to whether it can be crimped or has to be by-passed. I have worked a near full week with a by-passed bag and haven't had any problems so far. Keep in mind though that with the 8 bag system there are 2 air bags per axle end, so that lessens the effect of a blown bag on one axle quite a bit.
A truck in the field with the usual 4 bag system blew out a bag last week and he was down until they got it repaired. The 8 bag is good in the sense that when a bag goes out the truck can keep working until the time is there to get it repaired.