I had my Wheaties, put on some good shoes that grip well, but for some strange reason I cant determine why my hatch is so heavy. Wasnt like this a couple years back. Anyone else ever have this problem? Im blowing through struts right now.......

it's heavy because it is . get your next struts from a local parts store like NAPA etc. that gives a lifetime warrenty . good luck .

The rear hatch is actually ALOT heavier than most think it is. The struts give the illusion that it is fairly lightweight when we lift it up or push it down. One time I unscrewed one of the struts from my hatch while it was in the full open position. I didn't realize the weight so I didn't see it coming when the strut let go of the hatch and it came slamming down on my head like a ten ton hammer. Lucky my hard head didn't shatter the glass


Even lifting it up with the other one strut still attached it made a HUGE difference. Felt like it weighed almost 3x as much.

Our hatches without spoiler weigh in around 91lbs. Heavy, you bet your ***. I have 2 blown struts and hate needing to go into the hatch. Picking some new ones up soon.

It's definately a two man job if you want to be safe.

if you have the orginal aero spoiler wraparound style that thing is redicuously heavy by its self, atleast 50lbs. Get a fiberglass spoiler and new structs. Mine are almost 8 years old and still hold fine. Infact GM used a different part number for the Aerowing for the stucts that was stronger. I have the stronger ones. When I put on the fiberglass wing I could hit the release button and it would open all the way up on its own. The structs I have are from autozone or advance (I think advance) at the time their computer listed two part numbers still for aerowing or not.

We carry the hood and hatch ones too. Here's a link to them if you want to check it out. Camaro Hatch Struts

Which ones are for the early style fiberglass hoods found on 82-83 camaro's? otherwise known as the low tension struts used for fiberglass hoods.

These for fiberglass hoods? 1ALSP00083

And hatch 1ALSP00085

do you have the wrap around spoiler?

More like 125lbs...

Glass is friggin heavy man. If you have t-tops you know those things are pretty heavy and way smaller than that rear hatch. I've seen plexiglass T-tops before and they are really light. I wonder if they'd make a plexiglass hatch so I could lighten the curb weight of my car.

Try again
http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/bo...on-thread.html (The Weight Reduction Thread!)

Number 4 is the hatch and glass without spoiler. Maybe with spoiler like the 50lb wrap around would be in the range of 140lbs.

Getting this resolved on the site for yah,bear with me.

So you are telling me that when I weighed my old hatch and it came out to 124lbs or so - I was wrong? The darn decklid weighs almost 40lbs by itself...

Percys' sells speedGlass rear hatches for our cars in several different thicknesses for about $400 or so. It is less than half the weight of the stock glass. Then all you need to do is ditch the stock aero spoiler, and you'd probably loose at least 100 lbs from the car.

TA

To add my I just used my trusty digital bathroom scale and weighed a hatch with an aerowing ... Hatch, heated glass, aerowing, provisions for a 86 style high mount brake light, but no light attached and it was dry... let see what other things can I say to make this a credible scientific experiment... well anyway it was 109.4 pounds.

I'm sure I should add some fine print here somwhere that says " while I believe this scale is accurate, it's not legal for trade" ... or something.

No, if you read the quote you made from me it stated if you had the aero wing (about 50lbs) then yes the hatch would weigh around 130+...which is right around the weight of yours. So no I didnt say you were wrong, just didnt know our wings weighed 50 damn lbs.

Take care

I used to have a Percy Speedglass offer but nobody wanted them so I took it off, I was getting the hatch for like $312 through Summit, but that offer has long since been gone.
http://store.summitracing.com/partde...5&autoview=sku

I dunno about you guys but my struts on my hatch don't work right now, but I consistently lift it without the struts to get my stuff out of the back, so with one hand, but I'm sure it's a lot heavier than a notch or something.

Unless you just want to save weight for drag racing or the like I wouldn't switch out just for that reason, especially since the weight bias is front heavy already. Lexan also doesn't work well for a daily driver it gets scratched up to easily.

The right struts should last years, just make sure you get the right one if you have the aero spoiler.

The vice grip method works to for extended access to the hatch area if you don't want to buy the struts.

I had the site broken out and listed better for you guys.See I listen to yah.

That's odd, When I weighed my hood it weighed in at 51lbs... not 67lbs. Same hood too.

Hy 1A Tony.. Lets talk struts both front and rear.. Please pm me a price for hood struts and your heavy dutys for the rear..thanx.. THis must get resolved.. I feel like Im goin to blow my back out everytime I walk behind the car.

PM Sent

Lol, when I replaced the rubber wrap around on my car with a fiberglass wing I had the wing sitting on the glass when I removed the spoiler.

As I lugged the damnd thing into the garage the struts snapped the hatch open and threw the wing at me!

It actualy landed on the hood I'd have been pissed but honestly the car was a mass of dings when I bought it so no loss there lol.

Kinda like the James Bond ejection seat.

We just itemized all of these on our site for you guys with the correct strut tensions vrs options.

ha ha mine is heavy too but my fin is roted out so i took it off and the first time i opened it up without it on there the hatchback nearly racked me in the chin it came up so fast haha

Lol get a glass wing on there. Mine was weak enough I had to use the key and heft it up by hand and with out the spoiler it would snap open hard enough to make the back of the car hop. With the wing on it's perfect Cheapest way to fix worn struts is the $14 junk yard wing mod I even got it in the same color!

The rubber wing also gets water in the cracks and make it weigh even more than normal. I find it kindof cool to hit the release button and it open all the way up, most people think its some type of automated gizmo.

Its heavy because it has the largest piece of glass ever used on an automobile.

The rear on my friends Porsche is a bit biger, but it's all glass so there is no metal portion like ours.

It even has a huge solid rubber spoiler lol.