After having the rear tailgate smack my mate in the head as it dropped unexpectedly, I figured best to replace these before the same happened to the missus. Even though it may be as funny, I’d never hear the end of it.
I purchased my replacement set from ebay, i think this is their website http://gasstrutguys.com.au/.
Good price good service quick delivery and a few pointers.
This is a pretty straight forward fix, if you don’t know what you are doing or aren’t sure, go to a mechanic.
This shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes, if it is taking excessively longer, you are probably doing something wrong.
- Support the tailgate with something that is sturdy and something you can change the height off. You’ll find out why later. I used a ladder.
- Remove both of the old struts starting with the lower mounting. The reason for starting at the lower mount is because if you start on the top mount, it can push the strut against the body of the car , adding pressure to the lower mount, making it difficult to remove.
- Starting at the upper mount , tighten both the left and right struts into place. DO NOT OVER TIGHTEN. I had a look for a workshop manual tension, but could not find one. Other tensions for bolting into the body were around 10Nm. So use this as a rough guide.
- Adjust tailgate up or down so that the lower mount aligns with the bolt on the strut and screw in. Essentially, you do not want any weight/pressure on strut for this as it may change how tight you think you have done up the bolt. Again DO NOT OVER TIGHTEN
- Carefully remove the support used to hold the tailgate in place. Inspect that the struts to ensure they are holding and test the operation of the tailgate checking that the struts are freely moving.
- After a week, just for peace of mind, inspect the struts 🙂
And there you have it! A tailgate that will stay open when it is meant to!