Yes and no.

My experience was that w/o both sides of the stock spring/cable assist
working, the Bombay setup would assist lowering, up to a point. The
last 1/3 the top got heavy. When raising, it was tough for the first
1/3.

Those stock springs are very skookum and "carry" a lot of the weight.
The stock assist system is actually quite ingenious. As top is
lowered, the cables pull the spring coils closer together (compresses
spring) thus taking the weight. Of course when lifting the top up, the
springs are allowed to expand thus providing some assist. By the time
you have top mostly up, the springs have expanded,  done their job,
and you now have the mechanical advantage of the push bar and struts
working more in your favour. Not that you asked about all this......
:)

The testing I did with the Jack Bombay kit but no stock assist, is a
somewhat distant memory. But IIRC, I posted my experiences with strut
rebuilding, Jack Bombay kit, over on thesmaba.

Bottom line IMO: you need the stock spring assist. The struts get
weaker as the top gets closer to closed position. There's physics and
stuff involved that I don't understand but I can kind of see it. Yes
one could buy stronger struts, but then w/o the added weight (canoe
etc.) the top would be tough to lower for first 2/3 or so.

FWIW, I wrote an article on the spring/cable setup on the Vanagon
wiki. I also have some tips here on how I made a new cable:

https://picasaweb.google.com/musomuso/PopTopStrutCableAndSpringEtc#

Neil.

On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 6:14 PM, Stuart MacMillan <stuartmacm@gmail.com> wrote:

> Are these strong enough to work without the cable/spring assist? �Mine are
> broken and this doesn't look like an easy fix.

-- 
Neil n

65 kb image Myford Ready For Assembly �http://tinyurl.com/64sx4rp

'88 Slate Blue Westy to be named.

'81 VanaJetta 2.0 "Jaco" �http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/

Vanagon VAG Gas I4/VR Swap Google Group:

http://groups.google.com/group/vanagons-with-vw-inline-4-cylinder-gas-engines