Hood Dampers, Hood Lifts?

[vw2p5]

Would anyone know where I might be able to pick up a decent pair, not over priced set of hood dampers, hood lifts for my protege 5?

[wildo]

I made my own out of angle iron and trunk props from the autoparts store. Just look at the pic for the kits, and you'll see the design is quite simple. I think it cost me about $45 to do it myself. ($40 for the props, and $5 for the iron)

[D_Roc7822]

I know redline sells them... also you can check out the Tein ones too. They are kind of expensive though.. like around 100.00. Thats to rich for my blood.

[vw2p5]

I made my own out of angle iron and trunk props from the autoparts store. Just look at the pic for the kits, and you'll see the design is quite simple. I think it cost me about $45 to do it myself. ($40 for the props, and $5 for the iron)

Not bad, I bought a pair of hood lifts for my VW, and those cost me 40 bucks, slapped them on the car and done. If I could find a pair like that for my Protege 5 I would pick them up. Do you have a picture of the ones you made?

[Judge Mills]

My car has some nice gas charged hood lifts.... lemme go check what brand they are....

Autoexe is the brand... came with the car, so i can't tell you where to get em'

[vw2p5]

My car has some nice gas charged hood lifts.... lemme go check what brand they are....

Autoexe is the brand... came with the car, so i can't tell you where to get em'

How do those dampers work for you, any trouble with opening or closing? I am checking in to them. Thanks

[wildo]

Not bad, I bought a pair of hood lifts for my VW, and those cost me 40 bucks, slapped them on the car and done. If I could find a pair like that for my Protege 5 I would pick them up. Do you have a picture of the ones you made?


Sure thing. Even though I have a pretty nice camera, it's quite dark in the garage, so sorry for the bad quality pics...


Here's a couple overview pics:
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n216/willydemis/OverView1.jpg

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n216/willydemis/OverView2.jpg





The lifts attach to a stock location (I did drill it out a bit bigger and tap it, IIRC)
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n216/willydemis/BottomMount.jpg

Here are the dimensions of the lift. Sorry, there's no numbers on it what-so-ever. I got it at an advanced auto parts store...
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n216/willydemis/PropDemensions.jpg

And the lift attaches to the top via the brackets:
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n216/willydemis/SideView2.jpg






The brackets are nothing more than angle iron purchased at Lowes. I used 1 1/4" angle by 3/32" thick. Note that this is really thick, but I wanted to make sure there was enough material to thread the lift mounts into. Note that the lift mount is the little gold ball thing. It came with the lift:
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n216/willydemis/Profile1.jpg

The bracket was put together with no real measuring on my part, just eyeballing... Some things to note, though:

1) The 1 1/4" side is too wide for the bottom piece. As such, you see in this picture (accented by the red line) that the side has been trimmed down:
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n216/willydemis/Bottom2.jpg

2) As you can see from this side shot, the other side of the angle (that is- not the bottom) is also too tall, so it is trimmed down, and a nice curve was put into it. Also note that the majority of material on this side is waste:
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n216/willydemis/SideView.jpg

3) The side that the lift hooks too will need to clear a small ridge in the hood. This has been accented by the red lines in this pic, to help clarify:
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n216/willydemis/SideGap.jpg

4) Lastly, note that the prop bracket goes below the hood bracket, as seen in this pic:
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n216/willydemis/Bottom.jpg

One last misc pic to help you see the profile of the bracket:
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n216/willydemis/angleIronEnd.jpg





All told- the steel probably cost me about $5 at Lowes, the prop lifts were $20 each at Advanced Auto Parts and then, you've got some cost in paint if you don't have any laying around- I used VERY cheap ($0.99 per can) black that I had laying around with no primer, and it has held up for the two years I've had the mod with no problems...

Enjoy- hope the pics help... (cheers)

[808MP5]

Sweet...

How about creating US a How-To
Pretty Please :)

[wildo]

You think this is worthy of a how-to? I mean, I don't have dimensions or parts numbers or anything...

[808MP5]

Definently How-To worth IMO...

I would definently like to try this.

[Judge Mills]

How do those dampers work for you, any trouble with opening or closing? I am checking in to them. Thanks

they work great!! no complaints at all. wish all cars had them

[vw2p5]

You think this is worthy of a how-to? I mean, I don't have dimensions or parts numbers or anything...

Nice write up, and pictures. Good job on putting that together. How well to those shocks hold the hood up?

Thanks for the pictures

[vw2p5]

My car has some nice gas charged hood lifts.... lemme go check what brand they are....

Autoexe is the brand... came with the car, so i can't tell you where to get em'

checked those out, and they no longer make them of the protege 5.

[wildo]

Nice write up, and pictures. Good job on putting that together. How well to those shocks hold the hood up?

Thanks for the pictures

Thanks. The shocks hold the hood up very well. In fact, I would NOT recommend these shocks for a carbon fiber hood, as you'd probably snap it in half trying to close the thing... In one of the pics, you can see that the gas strut is not connected to the bracket- yet the other one is still holding up the hood. They are very strong...

[dmention7]

Sorry to bump this thread from dead, but I'm looking at doing some DIY struts, and the pics wildo posted were close to what I was looking for. A few notes I'd like to add though...

The struts for this project can be had fairly inexpensively from macmaster-carr: http://www.mcmaster.com/#catalog/115/1180/=pr29v

A more ideal option for the mounting points would be to reverse the orientation of the strut--i.e. the mounting point on the body of the car should be near the hinge, and the mounting point on the hood should be nearer the midpoint. This will reduce the stresses on the hood when opening and closing--maybe not an issue with an OEM hood, but certainly an issue with a carbon fiber hood (which I have).

The struts I am looking at are 18.22" total length with a 7.87" stroke, (item 9416K18 at mcmaster.com) and a 30-lb force rating. Based on the selection guide on that site, that seems to be roughly what I'll need. (brackets and ball joints are listed on page 1181 and 1182 of that site)


If anyone has any more pictures of the mounting points and/or brackets they've used for a hoot strut project, they would be greatly appreciated. I have a decent idea of how I'd like to mount them, but I'd rather not reinvent the wheel... lol

[Arnhem]

There are hood struts for sale for 60 euro's down here.
I've had a groupbuy of them before for european owners.

http://www.mazda-club.nl/treffen/hoodlifters_camping.jpg

[GraySurf]

Holy Thread Revival Batman!

Really interested in the DIY hood struts.
Anyone done this and can update with some new mounting point pictures.?

[KMac]

Definitely, I just started an earlier thread on this. I would much rather DIY a set.


Holy Thread Revival Batman!

Really interested in the DIY hood struts.
Anyone done this and can update with some new mounting point pictures.?

[Jordysoso]

Highly interested as well. Anyone with an up to date write up and pics would be very much appreciated!

[zhy]

Bump. Someone should start a group buy on hood struts.. many would be interested, like me!

[mauibuilt]

Me too :-)

[Jordysoso]

the problem is they are veryyy expensive. i believe tein hood dampers are $180 IIRC. even the cheapest ive seen are $100+. Why pay that much for a name when you can make your own for a third of the price and look at it and say, "yeah, that was all me :)". Just my $0.02 lol.

However if we can find a set that are around 30-60 bucks mayyybeee i wouldnt mind lol

[zhy]

the problem is they are veryyy expensive. i believe tein hood dampers are $180 IIRC. even the cheapest ive seen are $100+. Why pay that much for a name when you can make your own for a third of the price and look at it and say, "yeah, that was all me :)". Just my $0.02 lol.

However if we can find a set that are around 30-60 bucks mayyybeee i wouldnt mind lol

yeah this thread proposes a diy way but photos have been removed

[Jordysoso]

^ that's what I'm saying. All parts aren't available anymore we need something new or find some cheap lol