[jamesandlouisa]

hiya derek

i have made my own gas strut setup on my ak bonnet and boot. as though it would be cheaper than the factory kit. works really well and looks quite professional if i do say so myself.. anyway heres what i did.

company called echols or something 02476 307555 based in coventry suppliy tha gas rams to dax, so got in touch with them and got a set of 90's and 30's (based on newton poundage to close) them have nice little swiel ends on which just need a piece of bent ally and an m5 nut on to finish.

find a good soild place to mount the based of the rams within the engine bay i chose the bolts holding down the top rad mount (those with an ak will know where i mean)

i then mesured the closed length of the rams, and created a dummy closed ram from a piece of old copper tube (left over from the central heating nightmare of the year before).

i fitted this to the solid postion in the ngine bay, closed the bonnet, rolled under car and genlty threaded my arm through engine bay and positioned the other end of the gas ram setup on the bonnet. (having cunningly put some tipex on the other end so it would leave a mark on the bonnet as to where it should be refixed)

stood up got a drill and fitted the rams permanently (made sure that with a real gas ram that when in the open postion and alined with the marks the bonnet was open enough for my liking, lucky it was, other wise would of needed to find a different position for the base of the gas rams.)

hope you get the jist of this rather long ramble

cheers

james