[Art]

Some bays will be easier than others but the process was the same for all of them.

Only work on one strut at a time, never both one the same door.

Put the bay door up, support it (I used the locking bracket) but a 2×4 would work too. Then I used a flathead or a hose clamp pick to just pull the little spring clamp out enough to pull the strut from the ball joint. Do this on both sides of the strut. Putting them on is easy, just snap them into the ball joint. You shouldn’t even have to mess with the spring clamp.

Now, I say some bays will be more difficult because it’s hard to reach back and high. I used a longer flathead screw driver for these.

If you’re doing the “extra heavy duty” struts for the first bay doors, then the process is slightly different because the the springs need to be slid into place with makes it much more difficult on the hard to reach upper strut ends. For the first bay doors, I had to unbolt the upper ball joint. Once I had it removed, I just put the new strut on the ball joint and then bolted the ball joint back up. Two wrenches is all that is needed, however, you will have to lay on your back and reach way up in there.

If you’re not doing the extra heavy duty struts, then this job is much easier and very straight forward.

[Ken]

Yes I agree on the difficulty on some of the bays particularly the second bay on the drivers side where you have your inverters (Marathons). The back side of both struts was pretty hard to get to, I used a 24 inch flat head to pry them off, and it will be a little difficult to pop them on because you have limited leverage. But all the other bays were pretty straight forward.

[DON]

I did all mine a couple years back, when you install them make sure you don’t put stronger ones than needed, it will be hard to close the doors.