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Fitting bonnet struts to my VN s1

JetJackson

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Dec 15, 2012
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Baxter, VIC
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1990 VN Exectutive Wagon
Why do we mess around with 23 year old cars???

Because we can and because it can be fun. :idea3:

I have been reading through the many 100s of posts and How-Tos for VNs and found some very useful tips and ideas. I read a post started by Shortstuff back in 2006 about his job fitting bonnet struts to his s1 VN and I thought I would have a go at this. Heaven knows why the struts weren't fitted originally, the holes are there in the bonnet for the strut ball, just no welded nut inside.

I bought a pair of struts from my friendly wreckers - Harveys - and set about making the "bent wire" as shown in Shortstuff's post. A piece of coathanger wire, pened around a short length of 13mm hex bar, and so it wouldn't open I had a go at welding the open bit with my "gass-less mig". Surprise, surprise, I welded it without melting the wire, couldn't have done that with my old stick rod welder.

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This idea proved to be very good and I was able to hold the nuts on the inside of the bonnet skin while the ball was screwed in. The wire was a bit on the soft side and wouldn't allow for good tightening, would hate the nuts to come undone and rattle around inside the bonnet and most likely cause the struts to jamb the bonnet, so I made a second "special" spanner from an old tube spanner, cut short and a length of hard 5mm wire welded to it. With this I was able to hold the nuts, put a couple drops of Loctite on the ball thread and tighten securely.

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So thanks to Shortstuff I now have struts fitted and I don't have to lift the bonnet (I have a buggered shoulder - pain)

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Cheers, Jet. :beer chug:
 

stockies

Bannana
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Aug 28, 2007
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S/E Suburbs
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G6E Turbo
Good to see the old "how to's" are being used.
Did this mod on my old VN, think it was the best one I ever did.
 
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