Hood Supports Useful Addition

[david4451]

The gas filled supports are often too weak to hold hood up. This is especially true if engine is cold and you're working under the hood. Personally I've been hit on the head twice and very painful.

I've solved this by adding two aluminium tubes around each gas strut with cut outs to allow hood to close and aluminium tubes stay in place when hood is closed.
The tube is simply rotated so cut outs are away from strut support to hold up hood. The bottom small notch locates tube on strut support for closing.
The aluminium tube is 1 inch od, with 1 mm wall thickness. Other dimensions can be taken from photo.
Top & bottom photo shows position of support when hood is closed.
Middle photo shows tube supporting hood.

 

[toypaseo]

That a pretty cool idea

 

[LoquetusofBorg]

That is a great idea. Think I would paint them black. May have to incorporate this into mine just for the winter season.
Loquetus

 

[Indispensable Explorer]

I sorta regret replacing my support struts now, this is cool.

 

[Mr. Alligator]

I have used vice grips on the lower section of the struts to lock the hood up. Practical, but not ingenius.

 

[J_C]

Nice idea! Heh, that reminds me that with winter coming on, I better get down to autozone and get my crappy lifetime warrantied failing "Mighty Lift" hood struts replaced for free again. Autozone's struts no longer have a lifetime warranty though, now only 1 year so don't buy them.

 

[lobo411]

I replaced mine with Monroe Max-Lifts ($11 each on Amazon) 5 years ago...no problems...still going strong.

 

[CDW6212R]

Ditto, new ones are not very high, and they should last about 10 years.

 

[david4451]

I replaced mine with Monroe Max-Lifts ($11 each on Amazon) 5 years ago...no problems...still going strong.

Ditto, new ones are not very high, and they should last about 10 years.

My experience was that the gas strut worked fine for 12 years plus. Then one day out of the blue the hood, very silently came down and the corner hit me on the fxxxing head. Had a bloody depression in skull and my language was choice. I replace gas hood struts and worked fine for 1 to 2 years then another bashing.

If the hood is up after driving the gas struts work fine, but NOT on a cold engine or in a very moderate wind.
My honest opinion is not IF but when WHEN struts fail hope you're not near the hood!!!!!
How members protect from this is their choice, my method to this problem one of many, think of it as a safety device!!!!!

 

[lobo411]

Ouch...I don't blame you for not trusting the struts! In my case, I replaced them when the hood needed more "help" opening up. It would open fine in the summer or when the engine bay was hot, but I'd have to give it a bit of muscle to get it to lift all the way open when cold.

 

[J_C]

My originals lasted almost 7 years. 1st replacement from Autozone lasted 2.5 MONTHS, 2nd replacement ~ 3 years, 3rd replacement almost 2 years, 4th replacement 3 years, and probably a 5th between then and now considering the timing. Pretty sad but at least they only take a couple minutes to swap and I pass by Autzone every other day.

 

[CDW6212R]

Ouch, that's too often. I've bought about three or four of each pair for my five Explorers. Not every one of my trucks needed hood shocks or the hatch shocks. I have had the hood stab me in the head twice though, both from my 99 shocks being bad. I replaced those in 2007 and gone about 70k miles since then, the same pair are still on that. Maybe it's time to replace those again.