I purchased four of them for my two vans.  One of them failed almost
immediately, thank God.  My wife's hatch is very difficult to close (Hmmmm,
that's appropriate!)

Karl Wolz
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Reynolds" <kayakjr@juno.com>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2000 6:20 PM
Subject: Re: rear hatch STRUTS on '90 Westy stopped working

> ---SNIP--- You can get them at bus depot but boy oh boy are
> they strong.  It takes some muscle to really close the hatch now.  I
> think
> it was advised to replace both at once but not really sure why now.
> ---SNIP---
>
> Yeah, I think that they are ridiculously  strong , I can barely close the
> hatch with two hands!  Try it with one and you'll pull  a groin muscle.
> To put numbers to it, it take 23 Lbs of force to start the hatch back
> moving with the force increasing to an even 50 pounds on this hot day!
>
> To be fair, I complained to Ron, and he offered to take them back.  He
> stated that I was only the second person to complain - so all you westy
> owners must be a lot stronger than me!  I did not take him up on the
> offer since I thought they would "loosen up" - they did not.  My wife
> could never close this hatch back though.
>