made a metal tonneau cover for my 40 ford pu. ,installed a set of gas cyl. : same type used a caddy : ,it takes two men and a boy to close cover , i have cyl. on angle ?
I am building a 39 chevy truck with a cover on it. After having a few trucks come in with the gas cylinders installed and seeing the damage they were causing from the stress I went with screw drive actuators to lift and lower the cover with a switch in the cab on both sides. The actuators are a bit more money but I think a better solution to the problem. just my 2 cents
When you're shopping online for these puppies, search "gas struts" to get the most sellers. I have a couple of vehicles that use them and I haven't had much luck finding some that last more than a few years.
Here's more than you probably ever wanted to know about selecting and mounting "gas springs" for one-off or custom applications. https://www.dictator.nl/Downloads/EN/Reg.6/614-E-Selecting_and_Calculating_Gas_Springs.pdf And the best part is you also get to convert millimeters, newtons and kilograms into more useful units of measure. As a matter of fact, any charts I found for doing this used metric measurements. Go figure. . .
X2 that you just need to get gas struts with lower force. It is probably in Newtons, may be in pounds of force. Find your current struts force rating, and then get some with the same length and ends, but less force. Problem solved.
Some rumpkin asked if I had gas struts under my leather F100 tonneau. I said, "No...it comes off with the polished stainless snaps you see..."
As I've said on other strut related threads......don't buy them off the internet because they are the cheapest or because the shipping is free, the cheap struts will cost you the same in shipping costs as the premium ones if you miss figured and need to return them, on custom applications like this it can be a bit of a guessing game. I always suggest to get friendly with the NAPA strut specification book (and the counterman), I needed to exchange struts twice on the ones for the trunk lid (heavy) on my Nova. Most custom strut projects will usually have multiple requirements besides weight considerations such as free length, compressed length as well as end attatchment styles. I even had to reengineer my attachment adapters to make the final set work correctly but when everything is right it is a thing of beauty to watch them work. My NAPA store was able to get all three sets from the local warehouse so there was no shipping costs for the two returns.
Most damage caused by struts has more to do with still trying to Lift while in full closed position. If it just goes over center at closed position the ram is now holding it closed and should not be able to bend or spring the attached body part.
I think what pist-n-broke was referring too was one side pushing up or down while the other stayed stuck in position, twisting your deck lid...
You can buy gas springs thru McMaster- Carr. They have a chart to calculate pivot point, weight, etc to get correct force. You can also buy gas springs that you can bleed off gas to get correct force.