Tailgate gas strut upgrade

[mwalshuk]

Does anyone have the details on the force needed (Newtons) on the upgraded struts to work with a Thule bike carrier? I'm struggling to find what the original were and what force I need for a quote from SGS.

[gilly99]

You might have to get creative. Remove a strut, and measure (carefully if you like your front teeth) the max weight in Kg it can take before it starts to compress. Then add on half the weight of your rack + bike and convert the total to Newtons.

Can probably do similar by rigging up a scale under your open tailgate, see how much force (weight) is required to just start closing, and divide by two and convert to Newtons for a single strut capacity. Then add half your rack + bike weight in Newtons. You have to make some judgement / allowance on where the force is acting, ie mounting position of rack on the tailgate.

1kg = 9.81N

Personally, I don't think it's a good idea, as you'll probably struggle to close the tailgate without the rack & bike being loaded. Might be better keeping the original struts (maybe a re-gas to uprate very slightly?) and just fitting a fixed stay on each extended strut, eg a couple of cut lengths of PVC tubing that you keep to hand.