Radar24
08-05-2009, 01:10 AM
I had to get a GM part today for my S-10 A/C and while waiting for the part to come from the warehouse I took a look at the new 2010 Camaro in the showroom. It looked nice and sounded great with the dual exhaust on the 3.6 L V6 RS model. The highway MPG estimate was 29! I doubt it but I suppose it is possible under ideal conditions and a stiff tail wind. But that is another story. My intent here is to discuss what might be a good way to install a Hood damper to hold the hood up on Gen-3s without the prop.
On the ’08 CR-V there are the Right and Left Rubber Hood Seals P/N 74146-SWA-A00 and P/N 74196-SWA-A00 that get in the way of installing dampers on either side. Besides there is very little clearance for the dampers even without the seals.These parts can possibly be modified to make room by cutting them but that would compromise whatever it is that they do. Honda engineers apparently decided they were important enough so far be it for me to cut or eliminate them if I do not have too!
Then today I saw an even better solution that would eliminate having to make any custom difficult to make fender reinforcements so that the damper could be attached at the corner of the headlight and the fender without having an impact on the 5-star frontal crash protection. Instead the approach used on the 2010 Camaro and described below might work just as well and be simpler to implement without any significant crash protection impairment.
It involves a bracket that is welded to the right strut tower on the Camaro with two mounting holes for the damper body to attach to. A ball stud would work here too but I did not notice what the Camaro had. The opposite and rod end of the damper rod attaches with a ball stud to the under-hood reinforcing sheet metal near the front edge. A few Riv-Nut can be used on the CR-V hood so that a simple small L-bracket can be attached so that the stud can be attached to the bracket.
The Camaro bracket on the strut tower might not be available separately without buying the strut tower itself so a custom bracket might have to be made for the CR-V. If the Camaro bracket is available, it could be slightly bent to accommodate the CR-V strut tower angles. Then painted black or the color of the CR-V. Fortunately it does not look that complicated to fabricate one using a 1” by 1/8” thick aluminum angle (I prefer to work with aluminum since my carbide tools can easily cut it but steel could be used just as well). A 1.5” by 1/8” aluminum angle might even work better as base stock out of which to make the bracket.
I did not have a tape but guesstimating using the max finger span on my hand and then measuring with a tape measure at home the distance of the corresponding number of my finger spans, the damper dimensions are as shown below. Incidentally that span figure is about 8 inches on my right hand. The Camaro damper has a body about 17.5” long and the extended damper is 30.5” long. In reality the hood might be limiting the fully extended measurement so the damper might be slightly longer than 30.5”.
A substitute damper might be a lot cheaper than the GM part but you have to make sure it has the same gas pressure as the Camaro unit or the hood will not open or close properly. There are two standard power dampers as far as I know so this would probably be the stronger of the two for the narrow damper body.
The Camaro hood looks slightly heavier than the CR-V but not by much in my estimate. So if the Camaro damper is used operation will be slightly snappier on the CR-V than on the Camaro I saw. While operation was just about right on the Camaro, at 0F degrees I think it might be lacking some lifting capability. So if the CR-V hood is lighter it might be an even better fit.
The big advantage of this approach is that it is impossible to bend the hood as Serj did on his CR-V. Geometry of operation is similar to that of most props. One other variable that must be taken into account is the distance from the hood front edge to the strut tower adaptor bracket. If that does not work out we might have a problem.
Attaching the bracket with screws on the tower might be practically impossible with the strut in place so once again resorting to a few M6 Riv-Nuts might be the best approach for fastening the bracket. Tentatively that is what I would do in any event. I have the installation tool and many hard to find grooved Riv-Nuts that reduce spin-out of the insert during use.
I will have to visit the Nashua Chevy dealer and measure things more accurately. Especially the tower to hood front edge distance I need to look at carefully. The CR-V implementation should be similar to keep the same geometry as on the Camaro. Actually when the hood is closed it has to be less than 30.5” (the max extension) according to my rough finger span measurement. If I can I will take pictures.
Any and all suggestions are welcome. The jest of this post is not to develop the standard two prop approach as I am quite convinced that if the tower to hood front edge distance works out that a single damper prop is the way to go. Just the same opinions are welcome. However I prefer not to go off in a tangent about the advantages of two dampers. I am well aware of a symmetrical two damper approach as I have retrofitted it twice on other vehicles. But based on the CR-V constraints a single damper on the strut tower looks very promising.
I should mention that the clearance from the prop with the hood closed to components in the engine compartment needs to be carefully evaluated for interference. It might totally make or break this approach.
-Rg
On the ’08 CR-V there are the Right and Left Rubber Hood Seals P/N 74146-SWA-A00 and P/N 74196-SWA-A00 that get in the way of installing dampers on either side. Besides there is very little clearance for the dampers even without the seals.These parts can possibly be modified to make room by cutting them but that would compromise whatever it is that they do. Honda engineers apparently decided they were important enough so far be it for me to cut or eliminate them if I do not have too!
Then today I saw an even better solution that would eliminate having to make any custom difficult to make fender reinforcements so that the damper could be attached at the corner of the headlight and the fender without having an impact on the 5-star frontal crash protection. Instead the approach used on the 2010 Camaro and described below might work just as well and be simpler to implement without any significant crash protection impairment.
It involves a bracket that is welded to the right strut tower on the Camaro with two mounting holes for the damper body to attach to. A ball stud would work here too but I did not notice what the Camaro had. The opposite and rod end of the damper rod attaches with a ball stud to the under-hood reinforcing sheet metal near the front edge. A few Riv-Nut can be used on the CR-V hood so that a simple small L-bracket can be attached so that the stud can be attached to the bracket.
The Camaro bracket on the strut tower might not be available separately without buying the strut tower itself so a custom bracket might have to be made for the CR-V. If the Camaro bracket is available, it could be slightly bent to accommodate the CR-V strut tower angles. Then painted black or the color of the CR-V. Fortunately it does not look that complicated to fabricate one using a 1” by 1/8” thick aluminum angle (I prefer to work with aluminum since my carbide tools can easily cut it but steel could be used just as well). A 1.5” by 1/8” aluminum angle might even work better as base stock out of which to make the bracket.
I did not have a tape but guesstimating using the max finger span on my hand and then measuring with a tape measure at home the distance of the corresponding number of my finger spans, the damper dimensions are as shown below. Incidentally that span figure is about 8 inches on my right hand. The Camaro damper has a body about 17.5” long and the extended damper is 30.5” long. In reality the hood might be limiting the fully extended measurement so the damper might be slightly longer than 30.5”.
A substitute damper might be a lot cheaper than the GM part but you have to make sure it has the same gas pressure as the Camaro unit or the hood will not open or close properly. There are two standard power dampers as far as I know so this would probably be the stronger of the two for the narrow damper body.
The Camaro hood looks slightly heavier than the CR-V but not by much in my estimate. So if the Camaro damper is used operation will be slightly snappier on the CR-V than on the Camaro I saw. While operation was just about right on the Camaro, at 0F degrees I think it might be lacking some lifting capability. So if the CR-V hood is lighter it might be an even better fit.
The big advantage of this approach is that it is impossible to bend the hood as Serj did on his CR-V. Geometry of operation is similar to that of most props. One other variable that must be taken into account is the distance from the hood front edge to the strut tower adaptor bracket. If that does not work out we might have a problem.
Attaching the bracket with screws on the tower might be practically impossible with the strut in place so once again resorting to a few M6 Riv-Nuts might be the best approach for fastening the bracket. Tentatively that is what I would do in any event. I have the installation tool and many hard to find grooved Riv-Nuts that reduce spin-out of the insert during use.
I will have to visit the Nashua Chevy dealer and measure things more accurately. Especially the tower to hood front edge distance I need to look at carefully. The CR-V implementation should be similar to keep the same geometry as on the Camaro. Actually when the hood is closed it has to be less than 30.5” (the max extension) according to my rough finger span measurement. If I can I will take pictures.
Any and all suggestions are welcome. The jest of this post is not to develop the standard two prop approach as I am quite convinced that if the tower to hood front edge distance works out that a single damper prop is the way to go. Just the same opinions are welcome. However I prefer not to go off in a tangent about the advantages of two dampers. I am well aware of a symmetrical two damper approach as I have retrofitted it twice on other vehicles. But based on the CR-V constraints a single damper on the strut tower looks very promising.
I should mention that the clearance from the prop with the hood closed to components in the engine compartment needs to be carefully evaluated for interference. It might totally make or break this approach.
-Rg