Need a rear hatch strut for 71 Z

[lonetreesteve]

my mistake. I apologize. What is the diff between the new one and the oem one?

About a $100.00... other than that, I guess we'll find out if someone else has already bought one or if not, I will buy one and I'll let you know.

[rtaylor]

I don't know about the new strut on ebay. But as I mentioned earlier, I bought one from Rock Auto that worked for around $25. But I just wasn't satisfied with an aftermarket strut that did not have the original brackets. So I looked around on the net and found a place named LS Technologies out of Saskatoon. I spoke with a guy named Steve Fenner who owns the place. They rebuild, regas old struts. He told me to send him my old original 240 strut (keep in mind that the Z cars that have two struts have different pressure in those struts than the 240Z struts) and he would build a new strut using the old brackets. This appealed to me as I want to keep my car as original as possible.

It took one day for him to do the work and then return the rebuilt unit to me. The replacement strut has a little thicker body and a little thicker ram. Both the original hatch bracket and original body bracket were reattached to the new strut. It is a dual action gas charged strut, which Steve explained is different technology then struts had 35 years ago. It works perfect.

I wanted to wait until I had pictures to post to this thread, but I figured I can do that later. I bought a decharged strut on ebay last week so I could lay them out for you all to see side by side, but it has not arrived yet As soon as it does, I will take the flicks and post to this thread. Then the strut is going up to Steve so he has one already in stock in case anyone needs to have done what I had done.

The down side you ask? Postage. Saskatoon is in SK Canada, so it was about $50US there and back. Good for all of our Canadian members, bad for us yanks.

[CNIXZGO]

I just wanted to second the use of this company in Canada. My strut was worthless also and it wouldn't hold even a 5-lb hatch up! I read this thread and figured why not? They completely rebuilt the insides and regassed it and sanded it down and painted the tube and bracket for me. Looks and works lke new! $127 well spent. Guy at MSA wanted $255 for a new Nissan strut! I said um yeaaahhhh let me get back to you on that one. Now my hatch stays put and it keeps that originality.

Nick