this gas shock situation is KILLING my patience

So I built a flipper door for my window and it's time to put up the shocks to keep it up. I've gone from 80#, 20# & 40# and nothing so far has kept this door up. LOL  I'm shooting for 60# next... It's only FRP wood and a 1/8 sheet of metal. How heavy can it be damn it...

If you have a scale push the door up with it and see what max reading you get, not perfect but will give you an idea of the force required to lift it.
 

sadly I don't have one of those types of scales. The 40# shut slower than lightspeed this round unlike the 20's which would have probably knocked me out had the door hit me in the head. LOL  I guess i'm trial and erroring it at this point. Im just glad that the ppl I bought them from have been very understanding and working with me.

Well if you have a bathroom scale , just hold it from the base and push up on the door with it, that will give you some idea of the force required.  

Get these, then it doesn't matter:

http://www.grahamtool.com..dshocksupportclamp.aspx

It is what I have, and they are great.

where you mount the shocks will have a lot to do with how much they will hold up, the farther out on the awning, the lower they will raise it, but the more weight they will support
 
you might find those 80 pounders are the cats meow if the mounts are moved in closer to the truck on the awning
 
also, they are designed to hold max weight at full extension, so if your not letting them extend all the way that may have something to do with it also.....
 
can you take some pics of what you have..... maybe support the awning in the open position so we can see the shocks and how they look ??
 
also again...... the colder it is the less better they work, so if your in your winter cold spell, those 20 pounders might be great this summer........ 
 
 
here is a "how to select" guide.....
http://www.trailerparts.net.au/pamphlets/Gas_Struts.pdf

the mounts are pretty much as close to the truck as I can get. When the flipper door is open, they are close to the edge by the truck.  ( vs farther out towards the street )  I will get some pics this weekend, possibly tomorrow. The 80's wouldn't close and were ripping away from the wall where mounted.  I really think i'm floating somewhere between 60-70lbs hopefully I can get them by mid week. Just tweeking my nerve lol

they have automatic locking struts, that lock in the fully open position, but they are 500% the price of a regular ol' strut

link?

oohh i was just saying in general...... they are expensive though, 65 bucks and up each
goggle self or automatic locking struts, should get you a few sites

i ended up doing that and found something like $650. i'm gonna still look. I wonder how safe they are

Dog....here is a pic of my door....look where the struts are mounted.

Don't know how your window and door are mounted, but gives you an idea of how they were mounted in the recessed window and flush mount door.

I have to replace both of mine, they were going bad, then just sat for 2 months, they are completly dead now.

Chef... thanks for the pics... On the flipper part of the window, where yours are mounted is the same place i mounted mine. I mocked my set up on my trailer to match the new truck. Mine are only 21" roughly fully extended. so my other end placement is much higher.

Mine are 35"

the flipper is heavy for what it's made of, I really think i'm floating somewhere between 60-80 and 80# was too much and 40# was too little. i hope i hit it on the head with the 60's  the ppl im working with are REALLY going above and beyond by shipping me out new ones as they aren't strong enough. i have 3 sets of shocks I have to send back still.

OP, try cateringtruckparts.com, it's where I got mine. The shocks were shot on the truck I purchased but were clearly marked 187 pounds (yikes!) and I was having a devil of a time finding them, but ended up paying only $23 each for them. Napa, O'Reilly's, Autozone, nor our local RV garage were any help. He's really easy to deal with and shipping was fast, plus, he seemed really knowledgeable as he said he's been doing it for 25 years.

i went through amazon.com and dealt with API  they were awesome, they ended up sending me 4 different sets. I landed on 60lb struts and that worked.. got it done today. It's all about placement on the flipper window part.

Never mind.

?? lol
 

While you were posting about your solution, I was searching thru a 243 page thread of RV mods that had a temporary solution for weak gas struts. I had the text but was searching for the three pics that went with the post. When I finally got my post up, I realized that you had posted your fix. So I removed my post. Hence the "Never mind".

ah man, thank you so much for going through those lengths to help out. I was getting frustrated, When I first put them on tonight they didn't work and that's when I figured it had to be a placement issue. I drilled a few extra holes in my inside alum trim but I can fix that, maybe even replace it with some left over that I am going to have. but still that was an awesome thought and I really do appreciate it and your time :-)

Great pics. These will help, as my service awning did not come with recommended shock positioning. I was going to trial and error. Size looks similar to above at 40" x 64".
Thx

shock length is 20" and they are 60lbs of pressure.  My window is 48x36