I am swaping my trunk lid from the stock SE trunk lid to the stock GXE spoilerless lid. I am doing this because my spoiler is pulling up and the look of that bothers me....plus I like spoilerless cars. Anyway here are a few pictures. My question is what do I do about the torsion bars? They do not fit snug in the stock holder/brackets. The GXE torsion bars are skinnier than the SE ones because the spoilerless trunk is lighter. Anyway I know a few guys have done this swap I am wondering what you did about the torsion bars. Right now the trunk will not stay up.

here is what I started with




stock torsion bars fit sung


GXE/spoilerless torsion bars do not fit very well in the SE holders/brackets

 

I used 'hood shocks' instead of the torsion bars to create room for the stereo, but you could use them as well for yours.

I wonder if you have them set in there correctly as well?

 

Do you have pictures of your set up? I am just going to be replacing the 6x9's with some different ones so I don't need room there, and I will be mounting my amps to the back of the rear seat, so I am good there too.

As for having them set correctly....I think I do. I am hoping someone will chime in that has done this swap before.

 

I would go to the junk yard, cut off part of brackets which hold the bars from a spoilerless GXE, align said pieces over your brackets, weld in place or drill a couple holes for screws.

 

yeah I know I could do that but I was under the impression that other people had done this swap, and I don't remember any one mentioning anything about welding in new brackets. I am also open to the hood strut idea I just don't know where i would mount them.

 

has anyone done this before? I was pretty sure a few members have done this.

 

i duno about trunk swap but for hood struts i have seen someone here with self made hood strut i think it was GREENY

 

Matt mentioned that he did that, and I am not against that, I don't know where I would mount them though. I am guessing a custom mount would need to be made for the lower mounting point.

 

I drilled a hole on the vertical part of the inside edge of the strut tower, and then screwed it into a hole already drilled in the trunk's arms.

 

did you just use the same strut from the hood of our cars? or took it from some other make/model car? also does it open up all the way by itself, or does it just make the trunk feel 'lighter' but you still have to lift it yourself?

 

That hood strut idea is something I never thought of. Might be something to consider for my '97 Altima once the weather breaks. Very creative thinking!

 

VERY VERY CREATIVE MAN! Buy hoodshocks and mod away!

 

nice rack lol but that looks good though

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/BMW-E...Q5fAccessories

anyone familiar with BMW's? Do you think these would be long enough? I like the Idea that I could put bolts though either end rather than using those pivot ball things.

I have an extra set of jeep lift gate struts but that is much heavier than my trunk so I don't thing those would be good to use in this application.

Also matt, does your trunk actually open on its own or do you have to pull it up once it is popped?

 

i think you'd be better off with the struts with those ball joints. otherwise you'd have to add some washers to space one side out if necessary. with the ball joints, you have a little leeway.

before you buy them, make sure you measure the distance between the points where you'll mount them with the trunk both open and closed. then you can decide how big to get them.

 

excellent advise on both points.

 

What about taking the spoiler off and body work the holes, prime, and paint.

 

I got a trunk that matches from the junk yard for 35 dollars. That's why I am going this way.

 

They're just about the same length, but they have the ball joints on both ends.
You can't see it in the pics, but the rods are at angles from the trunk bars. i.e. you MUST have ball joints on both ends of the shocks.

All I did (as mentioned above) was climb in the trunk and measure closed vs. open lengths. Then I went to the parts store and dug around in their shocks until I found one that fit the needed lengths. I found one within about 1/2" or so, so I took it back home and measured the compressed length. I added 1/4" or so to that so I wouldn't have the shock bottomed out all the time while closed, then drilled a small hole on the inside edge of my strut tower at the shock's compressed length. I mounted the ball joint on there and put everything together. voila!

took me 30 min from start to finish.

At first, the trunk would actually open by itself as soon as I pressed the release button. Over time, The shocks habe weakened to the point where they don't hold it open at all. BUT. I have about 20lb of dynamat on the inside of my trunklid + the stock SE spoiler. The trunklid is VERY heavy on my car.

A stock GXE trunklid without any/much damping material would weigh about 1/3 of what mine does. You can probably get 5+ years out of a set of shocks with them.

 

i see.. eventually i am going to switch to one of those hollow fiberglass spoilers that don't weigh so much.. so my trunklid will be somewhere between that of a stock GXE and stock SE lid. Do you think there is any way to mount the struts in a less leverage-y way so that it won't ever open up all the way by itself? I sort of fooled around with the idea of using struts a while ago, but i didn't actually have a good set to work with. Just sort of on my trunk to-do list, along with that spoiler, and ColdCathode lighting.

 

why don't you want it to lift on its own? are you afraid of getting hit in the face with it, or something? i think it has to be able to lift on its own, or else there's no point it doing the mod. if you don't want it coming up too fast, just get ones with less lifting force...maybe 25 lbs. i think most people get the ones with 40 lbs of lifting force. just don't go crazy and get the 70 lbs. ones

 

eh, just personal preference.. in general, trunks don't open on their own, and i want it to functino like stock, basically. I'm just switching torsion rods for now.. earlier tonight i took the torsion rods off y SE parts car, and tomorrow i'm gonna put them on my car (which didn't come with a spoiler, but has one now)

 

i know ours don't, but those trunks on luxury cars that open and close by themselves are pretty nice.

 

hey cardana, i swapped my torsion bars today (from gxe to se) and they fit just fine... can you take pics of your torsion bars with the trunk open on both ends? and then maybe a video as you close the trunk? They are NOT the same on the left and right.. you might have them backwards. As Matt93se says, don't ask me how I know

 

cape, here is all I have for right now. They GXE bars are smaller. I can hold them up together and show you. so I am not sure how yours fit in the brackets unless the gxe has something to make the bars fatter when they meet the brackets.

 

if you hold the bar straight out, off the car, you'll notice that the ends are not co-planar.... they are on 2 different planes. one is slightly clockwise, the other slightly counterclockwise. I think you just installed them backwards, causing the bar to be pre-rotated away from the bracket. matter of fact i'm going to put my GXE bars onto my SE parts car and take a few pics and videos to show you how i installed them. I installed mine backwards the first time, and although they fit, they didn't hold the trunk up worth ****.

 

ok i took a few pics. I didn't get them on, because i'm a pathetic weakling, but the way i put them on WOULD have worked if i weren't so damn weak.

OK. First off, here's what i mean by a left and a right side. Holding the end that goes like this _n___ together flat, note that the curly ends are not flat against each other? They deflect by 45* each, for a total of 90*. That means you have one right, and one left. See this and this.

So when you have them off the car and need to know which one is which, stand behind your car, facing forward and lay the _n____ part flat like this (pic) and the curly end should point mostly back, and slightly down, like this (pic). If it's pointing up, just turn it around because it's on the wrong side.

So, to install them, first swing the hinged thing on the trunk arm all the way up (pic). Then put the _n___ end in the 2 hooks like this (pic). Rotate the whole thing forwards until the _n___ end makes contact with the hinged thing and rests underneath it, and then hook the curly end onto its hook (like in your picture) by bringing the bar down an inch (green arrow) hooking the round part of the loop onto the part of the hook facing the rear of the car (red arrow), then carefully just let it snap into place (blue arrow) (pic) . Rotating the torsion bar enough to hook the loop onto its mounting location requires TREMENDOUS arm strength. As you see, I failed to get it on, but this just shows you how much you have to turn it to get it to get into the hook. Once you've done that, use a screwdriver or something else as a lever, and push the hinged thing down until the "n" part of the _n____ end of the bar slides into the slot. This took me about 10 attempts per side.

Then just do the other one, and put the plastic anti-rub clip thingies in place and you're done.

(oh.. yea that's my parts car. no way i' be driving that rusty POS on the streets!)

 

Thanks for that info. I'll give it a shot hopefully this week and let you know how it goes.

 

I suggest wearing thick gloves when you are doing the curly end onto its bracket, because you're going to have a lot of tension in your hands and if it slips it's gonna hurt.

 

Thanks for that good info cape!! I got it re done and in right in about five minutes just now. I turned the bars around and I hooked the "n" then pried down on the other side until I could hook the hinge bracket into place. So every thing is good now. I did use a pry bar that was about 2' long so that made this all possible so quickly. Thanks again I'll put up a pic soon once I do the rear parcel shelf conversion too for the third brake light.

 

glad i could help!

o and i just spotted your awesome licence plate that you made a thread about a while back. 'tis sweet

 

Do you work with one shock or both? I mean both sides or just one side (left)?