Thanks Ron,

I was curious about the strut strength as I have a bunch of used struts that I roughly judge the strength by pushing them against the workbench. I used a pair of used struts on my homemade pop top assist strut set up (jackbombay copy).

Now what puzzles me is that my friends van  hatch struts seem to be as equally strong as my hatch struts, ie same force to close. But his go up easier. It is as if my struts have internal friction retarding extension.

Thanks again for the info

Alistair

On 2013-08-17, at 7:36 PM, "The Bus Depot" <vanagon@busdepot.com> wrote:

>> http://www.busdepot.com/251829332hd
>> 
>> Ron,
>> Do you happen to know the pound force these HD struts exert?
> 
> 
> The German manufacturer lists it as 610N (about 138 lbf), which is about
> twice the rating of the stronger of the two original struts. (The original
> configuration called for one stronger and one weaker strut.) That being
> said, there seems to be some variation in the accuracy of claimed specs
> between brands, as I have tried some cheaper aftermarket struts that looked
> similar on paper but in actual use were clearly weaker. So either those were
> overrated or these are underrated, I'm not sure which. In any case they do
> about the maximum job that you would want them to do.  Much stronger and the
> hatch could be difficult to close.
> 
> - Ron Salmon
>   The Bus Depot, Inc.
>   www.busdepot.com
>   (215)  234-VWVW
> 
> _____________________________________________
> Toll-Free for Orders by PART # :  1-866-BUS-DEPOT 
> 
> 
>