Jack and the Beanstalk

Hi All

Has anyone tried to mod the bootlid on a sierra/sapphire saloon to operate with gas struts rather than with those annoying spring loaded boot/trunk hinge springs?

Also on that note the mod for the bonnet struts?

Will be interesting to do if haven't done before. I was thinking of bolting a bracket with ball nut where the spring is attached on the 3 hole bracket and then attaching the other end with another ball nut to where the other end of the spring is attached?

Thoughts?

Cheers

Ade

Anything better than the stupid old floppy springs would be good!

nicolai23

Hi.
I'm just working with the same idea in Denmark. Going to test it in my 2,0 dohc sierra.
It is important that the gas strut has started to get longer just when the bootlid is closed. In this way the gas strut pushes to keep the lid closed, when opening the lid the gas strut are pushed pass the shortest point and start to push the lid open.

What spoiler do you have on your Sierra?
Wkr Nicolai Tolstrup, Denmark.

Jack and the Beanstalk

I have sierra sapphire cosworth spoiler. Where will you attach the ends ?

When you have successfully completed this mod. Would you mind posting up some pics please

Cheers 🍻

cossynut2

Is it really that much of a pain? How often are we opening the boot? Its never bothered me in the last 21 years of owning my 2wd and I personally dont like trying to make an old car "modern". Boot full of speakers, dvd players etc in the headrests have never been for me but if that is what others like fair play to them.
I did a gas strut conversion on my Sons Subaru Impreza WRX STI bonnet but its a modern car compared to our 30 year old Saffs.

Jack and the Beanstalk

Well Ford should've thought of it. They designed alot of things that contributed to revolutionising car motoring.....almost. I mean abs, electric windows. Electric sunroof, heated seats, power steering, height adjustable seat belts, adjustable steering, good styling and in some later granada models airbags. Why didn't they do something simple to help people when opening Car bonnets and boots. Most of these aspects are found in modern cars, even still today.

Cheers

cossynut2

I guess when Ford were designing the Sapphire it wasnt considered a problem. How many other saloon cars built at the same time had gas strut bonnet or boot openers?

Adam-M

My only grudge with the springs is the crude noise they make while expanding lol, other than that they operate fine I suppose.

costina

iTrader: (1)

Pull them to the next notch.

Sorted

iansoutham

Been there, tried it, don't bother.

To make it look anywhere near factory the angles would be all wrong and the strut would hit the underside of the shelf. At the same time, the strut would push the boot lid up from the boot rubber.

Even mounting the strut to the shelf itself would not work as the hinge goes too high when open.

A strut, when compressed, needs to be 2/3 of the extended length to work. When the hinge is lowered, it is almost 1/3 of the length which is too little to make the boot close or open properly.

The reason that they used the springs was for these reasons. The Granada which utilises a strut has different angles.

The nearest I found was the MK4 Escort Cabriolet strut, but this leaves the bootlid only 3/4 open when fully extended.