It would be cool to be able to open/close the hatch from inside the car, and perhaps by remote (alarmsender) too.

Any ideas on how this could be done, not too expensive?
Hydraulics would of course do the trick, but I was thinking something in the line of a swingarm on the forward mount. Don't know how it could be done though, I'm not a fab wiz myself.

In the drawing, I though of some kind of contrapment, electric perhaps who would elongate or shorten the length of the strut, and by doing so, making it go up and down.

So what do you think? Any way to make this work?

 

how about somthing simpler.


replace one (or both) of the struts with a linear actuator.

 

Agreed. Linear actuators are cheap and come in tons of sizes to duplicate the original struts. The only trickery would be the wiring of an amperage toggle relay to stop movement at full open or full closed positions if you want it to be a one button operation. Pretty easy really...

 

Where do you get these linear actuators, and what do they look like? The wiring would be the easy part. I have a couple of mercury switches who vould do the trick. They only need to be adjusted be bending the mount. Relays and other things would also be easy. Hard part is the mechanicals, especially if anything needs to be fabricated. But I could get it done in a mchine shop of course.


But will a linear actuator be strong enough? The hatch is really heavy you know...

 

There is someone on the boards who I have talked to about this, that has actually done it. He says he only needed one linear actuator (kept the stock-replacement gas strut on the other side.) Using 2 actuators creates the issue of a possible difference in speed between the two sides, and BIG issues if one of the actuators was to quit working and the other was to continue. You should be able to get an actuator with as much pull/push strength as you need (although stronger=more expensive.)

Wish I could remember who it was that had done it......

 

Mostly automotive electronics shops. Search online and you'll find a ton of them in different price ranges. You'll be surprised at how little fabrication is involved... We did one about 10 years ago at a stereo shop I worked at after college and I had a similar thing done to my '95 Neon coupe demo car.

We used two actuators and wired a toggle relay and amp surge shut off relay to it for one button remote operation. If one would quit, the other side tripped it's surge relay... at full open or full closed positions, both actuators would trip their relays to stop movement. We removed the stock latch since it would have been much more complicated to keep it. We used the stock strut mounting points, but made our own studs from hardware purchased at a local home improvement store, mainly some cold steel 3/8" bar, drill/tap the ends for the all thread to screw into the hatch.

 

I was just thinking about this at work today. I think it would be really sweet to do this to your hood too. Just replace the hood struts with actuators. Can anyone draw up a simple diagram of what you would need to do this project and how to wire it, either for the hatch or hood.

 

Why not convert it to a power one. The actuators should transition smooth enough to not burn the motor of the pull down and then you have an even slicker set-up.

 

That's what I have in mind. You could even use the factory motor switch (the one that tells the motor to go up) to initiate the actuator on opening, to make it a true "one-touch" operation from the stock switch. Then a simple pushbutton inside the hatch to close it, and it'll ease itself down to the latch, and the pulldown motor will seal her up as you climb into the car. Totally slick!!!!

Even if the transition from actuator to pull-down wasn't smooth, all you'd have to do is add a flexible mount to the actuator (i.e. soft rubber bushing at the body end) to keep the pull-down and actuator from binding each other. That wouldn't affect the sealing of the hatch, since the stock latch and pull-down would be retained.

 

I really like the idea, but it would be hard to choose the right actuators unless i keep trying some, and then it surely would become expensive. If I knew axcatly what would fit I wouldn't be so reluctant.

 

I'd be interested in this kind of thing for my hood (my trunk too maybe but it isn't as big of a deal considering how small/light my trunk is. I've been googling "automotive linear actuators" and I'm coming up with a HUGE sea of topics and I'm somewhat confused. Does anyone have any hands on knowledge that could share?

 

No, they don't transition well at all. When the actuators have no power to them, they don't move at all (to the tune of several hundred pounds of resistance!). When they do have power to them, they are moving... also to the tune of several hundred pounds of pressure. If the latch would fail, the actuator starts busting parts and bending hoods/hatch glass, etc.

Nope, not quite. The stock pull down motor has a surge relay to toggle power off. As fragile as these things are in stock form, I wouldn't trust it bend some rubber bushing out of the way. You're better off without the pull down motor. Just use the stock switch, a surge relay switch, and you could probably use a similar circuit too to toggle power for going down too... all with one button.

 

If the latch mechanism was completely removed from the hood, would something like an actuator hold the hood down at speed? Even over 100?

 

Damnit. I have all these ideas floating around and no one has any more input! How do the auto hatches for all the new cars open? Same with all those auto minivan doors? What kind of systems do they use?

 

Yes, it would hold it down providing your brackets stayed in place and nothing becomes loose on the hardware end. I would recommend hood pins, locks, or some other type of safety measure though since you would be removing the safty latch to do it...

 

Would there be a way to fabricate a clasp style lock to go with that that could be motorized to slide open instead of the stock version needing upward motion to unlock completely?