Decklid gas spring

Have a look in the Coach stickies, 18 pages of information to view. http://pantera.infopop.cc/eve/...s/a/frm/f/6450045562
My stock struts no longer held my trunk lid up. I tried the Autozone ones but after a few months they also could not hold the lid up. I went with Wilkinson Pantera I think and they have worked well. If the mounting brackets are broken it would be best to fix them before mounting a strut again. If the strut mount rips loose it can cause quite a bit of damage, to your head also. The trunk lid is heavy.

http://www.ipsco.org/Pantera%2...id%20Shock%20Kit.htm


Ron

quote:

I went with Wilkinson Pantera I thick and they have worked well.

+1 for the Wilkinson struts. I've had them on my car just over a year and they seem to work well.

I just walked in from the garage where I was working on a 1986 GT5-S with Wilkinson's shocks on the decklid. It hit me in the head several times !!! The owner was complaining about the fact that they will only hold the deck open when the engine is hot. His car has a wing .


Ron

quote:

It hit me in the head several times !!!

And if that happens to a spectator at a car show .......

I've seen some owners using this on their cars at displays.

Do a Google search for 'hood lift support"

quote:

Originally posted by bdud:
Have a look in the Coach stickies, 18 pages of information to view. http://pantera.infopop.cc/eve/...s/a/frm/f/6450045562
My stock struts no longer held my trunk lid up. I tried the Autozone ones but after a few months they also could not hold the lid up. I went with Wilkinson Pantera I think and they have worked well. If the mounting brackets are broken it would be best to fix them before mounting a strut again. If the strut mount rips loose it can cause quite a bit of damage, to your head also. The trunk lid is heavy.

All I know is that I had to press pretty hard on my decklid to get those Detomaso 18126A to close, and when I measured the pressure in a press, the pressure measured 160 (each). So I bought another set thinking it may have been off, but got the same pressure reading. I would just suggest anyone buying any struts to measure the pressure before putting them on, and at least then you will know what you have. I have since gave up on it and resorted to the screw clamp shown above.

I have the ipsco on my car that Ron showed. I love them, granted they are not stock, but they take all the pressure off of the mounts and hinges. Work smooth and are not excessive forces for operation. Plus they look great.
Jeff

McMaster Car has them and you can order whatever pressure you think you might need. I put the 80 lb ones on my car and they work great. Deck lid opens right up and takes very little pressure/effort to close.
http://www.mcmaster.com/?order...#gas-springs/=uqy28i

I got about six years out of the Autozone Omni struts, had to get a new set at the beginning of this season. +/- $40 for the pair I think.
I'm starting to consider them as consumables, very few things last forever.

Those small diameter gas shocks are used on millions of cars today and given the low price, some quality is better than others. They come in 5 lb incremental pressure ratings which you can check by hand with a bathroom scale, and depending on your lid weight, you can choose what you need. Most Pantera vendors will not sell shocks rated at over 100 lbs due to hinge & bracket breakage and roof warping, so if your winged decklid is too heavy, use a clamp.

The more internal pressure, the more likely the pressurizing gas will leak and given the small volume inside, it won't take much leakage to wreck the function. I'm too lazy to search around to save a dime so I added ones from Larry Stock's Pantera Parts Connection around 8 yrs ago and they still work flawlessly hot or cold. Note the rod ends unscrew to match different brackets but the bases are one type.

quote:

Originally posted by Bosswrench:
Those small diameter gas shocks are used on millions of cars today and given the low price, some quality is better than others. They come in 5 lb incremental pressure ratings which you can check by hand with a bathroom scale, and depending on your lid weight, you can choose what you need. Most Pantera vendors will not sell shocks rated at over 100 lbs due to hinge & bracket breakage and roof warping, so if your winged decklid is too heavy, use a clamp.

The more internal pressure, the more likely the pressurizing gas will leak and given the small volume inside, it won't take much leakage to wreck the function. I'm too lazy to search around to save a dime so I added ones from Larry Stock's Pantera Parts Connection around 8 yrs ago and they still work flawlessly hot or cold. Note the rod ends unscrew to match different brackets but the bases are one type.

So what is the pressure on the Larry Stock struts? I thought those were a bit long, risking contact of the decklid with the roof if not careful. But maybe I was thinking of some others.

quote:

Originally posted by alasorsa:
McMaster Car has them and you can order whatever pressure you think you might need. I put the 80 lb ones on my car and they work great. Deck lid opens right up and takes very little pressure/effort to close.
http://www.mcmaster.com/?order...#gas-springs/=uqy28i

Yes, someone mentioned those before, which was my next choice if I was to do some more struts. Can you list all the specs of the one you chose?

Part number 9416K17 80lbs. There is an article in one of the POCO magazines about these struts. I have it at home and can post it later. I did not like the suggested mounts so I fabricated my own.

McMaster has a wide variety of gas shocks. When I put on my fiberglass decklid I looked at the weight, the hinge point, lift point then calculated the weight on the shock at that point.

Then I picked a shock which was quite a bit heavier so it would hold it there but not too heavy to make it hard to close or hard on the deck lid. I experimented a little but they were cheap enough to do so.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#

Jon Haas at Pantera-Electronics has that set up. At one time he offered it for sale as a kit. Apparently he had issues with customers not being able to follow the installation instructions and blaming him for exploding the car. Therefore he decided it was more trouble than it was worth to sell the kit.

The issue with using the McMaster struts is simply that you need a manual on off switch to operated the little compressor the struts work off of. You have to turn it off otherwise the thing will keep pumping and stress out the decklid hinge assemblies which on this car are on the fragile side.

Also if the car sits for long periods of time where you loose power from the battery, you cannot open the rear deck.

The advantage to them though is that when the deck is closed, there is no pressure to the decklid and will drastically increase the life of the attachment of the hinge flange into the decklid. They do come loose and it is not easy to repair them at all without warping the thin sheetmetal of the decklid. Been there...done that. Trust me...you want to avoid that scenario.

The struts from McMaster Carr we are referring to are gas springs and are an enclosed unit just like to originals. Not a air spring or air shock that are controlled by a remote compressor or air supply.

quote:

Originally posted by alasorsa:
The struts from McMaster Carr we are referring to are gas springs and are an enclosed unit just like to originals. Not a air spring or air shock that are controlled by a remote compressor or air supply.

My apologies for speaking out of turn. I will remove my post if you feel it is out of place? Let me know ok?

quote:

Originally posted by PanteraDoug:

quote:

Originally posted by alasorsa:
The struts from McMaster Carr we are referring to are gas springs and are an enclosed unit just like to originals. Not a air spring or air shock that are controlled by a remote compressor or air supply.

My apologies for speaking out of turn. I will remove my post if you feel it is out of place? Let me know ok?

That is an interesting concept, and reminded me about a high end custom Merc I saw in Huntington Beach a couple months ago where he showed me an electronic set up for his hood, but I recall it stopped when it reached a certain opening. It looked pretty impressive just seeing it operate. I was going to follow up with him, but forgot all about it until now. I may call him to see how and who did it.

No problems, I was just clarifying what was being discussed. Looks like your post may have stirred some interest and a new discussion.

quote:

Originally posted by alasorsa:
No problems, I was just clarifying what was being discussed. Looks like your post may have stirred some interest and a new discussion.

As being a person who can be easily confused, I'm not looking to create more of that. I'll leave it up to the moderator, whether to move my post to another thread or not.

I've already have a splitting headache this morning and am not looking to pass it on to anyone else at all.

I thought it was appropriate at the moment but have demonstrated poor judgement before.

quote:

Originally posted by DOES 200:

quote:

Originally posted by Bosswrench:
Those small diameter gas shocks are used on millions of cars today and given the low price, some quality is better than others. They come in 5 lb incremental pressure ratings which you can check by hand with a bathroom scale, and depending on your lid weight, you can choose what you need. Most Pantera vendors will not sell shocks rated at over 100 lbs due to hinge & bracket breakage and roof warping, so if your winged decklid is too heavy, use a clamp.

The more internal pressure, the more likely the pressurizing gas will leak and given the small volume inside, it won't take much leakage to wreck the function. I'm too lazy to search around to save a dime so I added ones from Larry Stock's Pantera Parts Connection around 8 yrs ago and they still work flawlessly hot or cold. Note the rod ends unscrew to match different brackets but the bases are one type.

So what is the pressure on the Larry Stock struts? I thought those were a bit long, risking contact of the decklid with the roof if not careful. But maybe I was thinking of some others.

The Larry Stock struts were installed on my Pantera a few months ago and there are no problems with them, install nicely, work great and nice amount of lift, not too strong or weak.
Cheers, Tim.

Another choice not mentioned before are the decklid lifters made by Ted Mitchell in OK (www.tmitch.com) This unique system does not use any sort of gas spring. Instead it uses a linkage system and flat-coil spring similar to what OEMs used to provide for hood lifts. Advantages are, it does not stress the hinges, is not temp sensitive, there is nothing to leak out and it lasts forever. It is, like all Ted's stuff, meticulously engineered but a bit pricy.