Last January while on a trip down to Geelong the roof lifting gas strut on the front left hand side of the van gave up and leaked black oil everywhere.
I bought a replacement from Jayco in Geelong but then was unable to fit it 'in the field' so it had to wait until I returned home. Then when packing up the missing strut caused the roof to go out of alignment and none of the latches would engage the catches on the roof. Luckily, I had a 20m pack of 6mm rope in the boot so I used that to hold the roof down for the tow back.
Anyway, I was unable to find much information of how to compress the new gas strut to install it. The local gas strut re-gassing business told me they didn't do caravans, nor did they install struts. They were unable to give me any hints of how I could compress the strut to fit it onto the roof.
So after giving the problem some thought I hit on the solution just before dropping off to sleep one night!
First I fitted the bottom strut onto the ball mount. Then I put a small shackle (8mm size turned out to be just right) onto the neck at the top of the barrel. Two loops of about 30cm were made up from cord - I used venetian blind cord which I had on hand. One loop was wrapped around the bottom strut mount and the other put through the shackle pin at the top. Next the hooks of a 25mm ratchet tie down were put through the loops and while the strut was held up the ratchet was cranked down. When the strut was compressed enough the top was guided onto the ball mount and locked in place.
I did the job single handed so all your partner has to do is to hold the ladder steady!
Hope that helps others who have to replace gas lifting struts.
Hi Murray,
I just replaced my struts on my canopy on the ute. The door had to be fully opened so as to get the strut to fit in the holes. May be that might have been the ,easy way for you to do yours. (Have the pop top up, with a brace in each corner)
I also found that one new strut made the door crooked as the new strut was stronger than the other older one, (maybe a bit worn as well) so I replaced both.
Are you finding that your roof is lifting a bit easer on the other corners? I hope not. Interesting post mate, thanks..... Sarg.
When the van roof was at full height the strut was about 20cms longer than the distance between the ball studs so it had to be compressed to fit.
By the way, when I bought the replacement I found that there were about five different struts all the same length. The difference was the number of 'n' (could it be Newtons? If so the letter 'n' should have been a capital); for our Jayco it was 330n.
Regarding your ute canopy, you may have had a slightly higher 'n' number that provided more lifting force. Or more likely the other strut had lost some of its gas and did not exert the same lift.
By the way, you have obviously already found out but for others that need to remove and install gas lift struts the ends are held onto the ball studs with a 'C' clip. Use a small flat blade screwdriver to prise the 'C' clip up then to remove the strut tap it back down when the ends are on the ball stud.
Hope this information is useful to anyone who has to replace a gas strut.
I replaced my gas struts on a Jayco expanda. Like you I found that the strut is longer even with the top up. I prefer your method to mine - using a long clamp on the strut with one end on the ball and compressing till the other end fitted onto the ball. I was replacing them with 300n struts as I had installed 2 solar panels and had a roof top air con - too heavy to raise the roof with 150n struts.
For those taking on the job, also be aware that there are two sized ball fittings as well as the travel length of the strut- ensure you get the same as what is already on your van. Also be careful with those C locking pins - you have to get the pin thru both holes before you rotate into a locking position.
Glen
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Glen
A diesel Nissan Pathfinder towing a Coromal Element 542.
Thanks for the info about ball sizes - I took the old one in and bought the same type. But there are another three struts left so if I have to replace one in the future I'll be aware.
By the way, my brother replaced a strut on his Jayco a while ago. He told me that he managed his by using a 25mm ratchet tie down and simply wrapping the webbing longwise around both ends of the strut and joining the two hooks together then cranking. I first tried that way but just before I had the strut compressed enough the ends poked through the webbing at both ends!
It ruined the webbing. As it happened I had bought a pack of two from Bunnings so they were a reasonable quality. Anyway, I used the second tie down to do the job perfectly.
I was interested in the rating of the struts you installed. My van is a Jayco Freedom, which is not overly large and only has a TV antenna on the roof. Yet the struts were 330n, a higher rating than yours with the aircon on top. Still, if the roof lifts up easily then the 300n must be OK.
My pop top is hard to lift (its new). I looked at the label on the Chinese made gas struts, and they are stamped 20N. This surely cannot be right. Maybe that's why its so hard to lift, but I suspect the labelling is wrong. Probably should be 200N if anything. Anyone have any thoughts or come across this?
