I haven’t counted, but I think there are 14 exterior baggage compartment hatch covers. All of these use a gas spring to hold the cover open, and also help hold it closed.
At 17 years old, most of these gas springs have lost some of there springiness. The larger doors used a SL30-60 spring, the smaller doors used a SL33-40 spring.
I ordered 8 of the SL33-60 from e-bay. Cost on these was about $13 each after postage.
My intention was to replace the -60 with new, then any -60s that were good, but lost some of their compression, I’d use those to replace the -40s. In all I had 4 gas springs that were completely bad, no springiness at all.
Most of the springs had loose hardware on the doors, so I bought a pack of #12 x 3/4 inch screws. I’d first attempt to tighten the door screw, and if it was stripped, I’d replace it with a #12 screw.
On one door, a screw on the bottom bracket was broke. I couldn’t get the old piece out so I just moved the bottom bracket down 3/8 inch and drilled and tapped new screws (10×24)
REPLACING SPRINGS
Look carefully on the end of the gas spring, there is a small clip that you pry up, when the clip is up, the spring will pop off of the bad mount. Replace the spring with the shaft pointing down.
