Tailgate strut

Very helpful post Dagzook, it's a shame that it looks like it won't work out. I'm not worried about opening the door more, but a stronger strut with a locking option would be ideal. Sounds like that's not viable either. I'll probably just go for the stronger strut, at least it'll stop the door closing on me so often when parked on a slope. Can you confirm that you need new ball socket bits to go with the sgs strut? The oem ones don't mate with the sgs strut?

Bill Portland wrote: Very helpful post Dagzook, it's a shame that it looks like it won't work out. I'm not worried about opening the door more, but a stronger strut with a locking option would be ideal. Sounds like that's not viable either. I'll probably just go for the stronger strut, at least it'll stop the door closing on me so often when parked on a slope. Can you confirm that you need new ball socket bits to go with the sgs strut? The oem ones don't mate with the sgs strut?

Bill, The OEM Stabilus Ball joints look permanently fixed to the strut. So if you're going to order an SGS Strut you'll need two M6 threaded 10mm ball joints. If you want a bit more power for your Strut I wouldn't advise that you go much higher than 350N The one I ordered felt plenty and that was 300N didn't get a chance to test it on an incline though. No idea what power NWO ordered, his nearly tipped the Jimny over when he opened it! (You specify this number before you add the strut to your cart).

Strut (450mm in length):

www.sgs-engineering.com/gs8-18-200-250

Ball Joints (you'll need two) :

www.sgs-engineering.com/b1-push-fit-plastic-ball-socket

Total length of strut from ball joint centres 450mm + 32mm = 482mm (Near as damn it identical to the OE strut).

I'm going to continue hunting for other companies that sell gas struts. I've heard good things about a brand called 'Camlock'. I'm determined to find a safer locking strut for the rear door so that my doggo can hop in and out without risk of the door falling closed.

Here is my DIY strut lock. Made from 25mm plastic conduit. Keyhole cut in the end that pushes over the ball mount, to hold it in place. I hot glued a washer to the end of the tube and put shrink sleeve over for a bit of protection. The shrink sleeve also gives a bit of friction, just enough to stop the conduit sliding about round corners. When rear door is open, just give it a slight nudge to allow the lock to drop into place.

Nicely done Soeley! great work as always. That actually works in exactly the same manner as the one I received from SGS (All be it defective). It slid over the rod end of the strut, it had a 15mm thick collar that was held in place by the ball joint which screwed onto the M6 rod thread. It was the thickness of this collar that affected the struts compressed length!

I've complained that SGS don't mention the compensation required when offering the safety lock tube as an option of their configurator tool.

I watched an autocar review recently on YouTube (I think it was the new landcruiser?) the rear boot strut locked with a simple quarter turn? must have been an adjustable valve or something within the strut. Very neat idea!

*EDIT* found the video I was talking about. Scroll to 2.00minutes, this is the kind of locking strut I'm looking for. May try and find out the specs for that part!

That's quite neat!

As a side note, I have just bought the wife a Ford Ecosport (side opening rear door) when you oper the rear door it only opens about a third of the way, give it another push and it opens all the way. I have got as far as measuring the strut and it is longer (can't remember the number now). I do intent to try it on the Jimny to see how it works out. I think a two stage opener will be quite useful at times.