Replacing hood springs with gas springs ???

[ACII]

Hy all

on my chevy pickup i have cleaned / smoothed the firewall...

therefore i would like to use some nice gas springs instead of the original hood springs.

Its a 51 pickup....

What do u think is that possible ??

thanks
Achim

[crossfire84]

I thought of that myself at one time, was going to use struts from a dodge mini van but kept it stock. Post pic's if you do this.

[_Ogre]

Originally Posted by ACII

What do u think is that possible ??

anything is possible and i don't see why a gas shock wouldn't work
though it will be further forward than any spring and it won't save you any money

mcmaster carr has a wide variety of gas shocks and ball mounts
all sorts of lengths and psi ratings on the shocks

you need to do a little engineering to figure the holding weight
and a little more to figure out where to mount them so they fully extend and retract

i use gas shocks to hold up the trunk and tonneau cover on truk

[mobileortho]

I played around with them for awhile on my '50. It will work but you have to be careful and make sure you get some that don't have too much pressure because they will cause the back of the hood not to close properly and also cause you to bend the hood trying to close it. I found that out the hard way.

[greg_h]

One of the local show car guys used the remote operated lifts from a boat engine cover. They are nicely milled aluminum and he said you can cover a lot of the sins of a poorly fitting fiberglass hood by pulling it down just enough to flatten the high spots.

[_Ogre]

^^^ fab porn