My answer to FJ40 rear hatch supports.

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CruiserNub

CruiserNub

10 Year
Joined
Oct 14, 2011
Threads
8
Messages
30
Location
Bucks County, Pa
Wanted to design something a bit more modern and reliable for my '69 FJ40 rear hatch lifts. Fabricated my own mounts designed to utilize the original mounting holes. Searched the net and found an enormous selection of lift supports at Lift Supports Systems | Hood | Window | Trunk | Hatch | Auto Parts By Lou. The guy woking there, Lou, really helped me out sending some back in forth since I had no idea what I needed. Needed a compressed length under 13". I found 80lb way to heavy - settled on 52lbs.

This is what I ended up with:
Ball Stud 10mm 4 pack Code H91591B-4
Lift Supports 52lb Code 10574

Cost around $60
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nice work indeed...you could probably make alil $$ sell them if there's an interest

looks like a SABIC plastic sheet under them i spent a summer working for sabic
 
Did you drill and tap the brackets to attach the ball studs?

You could definitely make some cash by selling these as a bolt on kit.

Do you have a pic from farther back to show the angle of the hatch with the gas strut length you used?

Nicely done
 
I have photos from further away but I can't get them loaded - keeps telling me I'm over the limit. I don't understand a few things about posting on this site yet.

Using the original mounting sites makes the angle a little steep but works. It isn't quite as smooth as you would get on a modern car. I mounted the studs by drilling a slightly over sized hole, cut the stud just shallow in the hole, welded it from behind and sanded it flat. This kept the back flush for mounting. The studs are pretty tough but I guess if I broke one I would have start from new. Bottoms mounts were just flat stock. Tops I diagonally split 1" square tubing. This way you get a tighter angle than with the sloping bend of regular angle steel.
 
CruiserNub said:
I have photos from further away but I can't get them loaded - keeps telling me I'm over the limit. I don't understand a few things about posting on this site yet.
Click to expand...

if you buy a star...you get unlimited attachment uploads
 
Looks great. How is the spring force on those gas springs? I converted mine to gas springs similarly to yours, only I just used one instead of two and the spring "rate" was about perfect. So nice to not have to lock them off and worry if they are going to slip, plus the added inch or so of lift to the hatch will save many a forehead (mostly my own). My cruiser is in piles right now, and I couldn't find the spring I used with a quick search, but I did similarly to what you have done, except I used the existing stock braqckets and just bolted in balls for the springs where the factory struts would go. I had to slot some of the holes a touch to get everything to touch, but it worked great.
 
I didn't want to go with one strut cause I wasn't sure what kind of torque you would get if you pulled down on the non-strut side of the hatch. The ones I used are 52lbs as listed on the site I got them from. I first tried 80lbs and I could nearly do a pull up to get them started. I went to go with 40lbs but the guy Lou sent me the 52 pounders as well, just in case - big thanks that he did. I'm not trying to push advertising but that site lets you search for struts of any lengths and weights so you can dial in anything you want to put a strut on. If you change anything on your hatch that affects the weight, you can adjust.

I might try the same for the hood.
 
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Looks good!

What you did there is almost like what I did a couple years back. I worked things around to be able to get the hatch to go up higher. I was tired of hitting my forehead on the hatch. I also started with too high of poundage, and ended up with somewhere around 40 pounds and feel it is still a bit too much. I'm thinking somewhere around 30+ pounds would be closer.

Somewhere back a couple years on one of the rear hatch threads are pics and description of what I did.

Don
 
Kipper7 said:
Nice looking work. I did the same thing with mine a couple of years back, it is so much more convenient. Yours however has a cleaner look than mine. This last year I did the same thing to the hood.
Kip
Click to expand...


I am far from the hood at this point but if you had any pics or advice on the size or strength of the strut as well as location that would be great.
 
I only had it on for a little bit before i started teardown on my cruiser, but one spring didn't seem to be a problem at all the hatch itself is plenty stiff to handle it. I just hefted my hatch and it is probably around 35lbs, with the mount point for the gas spring at about the halfway point between the CG and the top edge, so one 40lb spring probably wouldn't do it. I'm not sure what mine is rated at, but 80lbs sounds about right.

Thanks for posting this, complete with part numbers and pictures, so anybody else can replicate it. Welcome to mud.
 
I just bought this system. Thanks for the great info and links to the parts to make it easy.

This should be in the FAQ me thinks.
 
I did the mod of putting the gas cartridge inside the OEM spring housing. Not happy with it. Works, but the gate does not lift high enough. Everyone is smacking their head on the handle. Did not trim the plastic rods inside too short either. Trimmed and tested until the gate would close. This mod has worked OK for others, but not for me. It's low priority, but I'm going to replace the housings with bare struts at some point.
 
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