Good Morning, just purchased new hatch struts and noticed the existing ones are wired for the rear defroster. Before tackling this project, I thought I'd ask if anyone has any tips or suggestions for me? Is this a simple process or do I need to bring the car into a mechanic to change them?

 

What year is your car? 79? Not all years had the wires attached to the struts.

 

yes, it’s a ‘79. I’ve called all over to find the ones with the defroster cable attached, but it appears they don’t make them like that anymore. Wound up replacing just one of the struts, so the other one is still attached to the rear defroster. One new strut is more than strong enough to hold the hatch open.

 

The defroster wire is just held in place with a large piece of heat shrink tubing. However, the 79 struts also have contacts on the strut shaft. The wires are attached to them and they are designed to make contact only when the hatch is closed and struts compressed. They break contact when you open the hatch. As far as I know, no aftermarket struts ever had these contacts built in.

You can send your original struts to a place in Canada (Strutwise) who can rebuild them and make them function as new again. It's a little more expensive than throwing on a cheap pair of aftermarket ones, but you retain your stock struts and defroster capabilities.
https://strutwise.com

I've also heard of some guys switching over the stock contacts to a pair of aftermarket struts.

 

Great, thank you!

 

The new structs I bought More Information for STRONGARM 4709, have the end that screws on. I had the cut the end off the factory struct and transfer the part the makes the electrical connection. Before putting the screw on end back on, I slide heat shrink on and assembled everything. After everything was back together, then I applied heat to the heat shrink. At $9 per struct + shipping, it was a good deal.

Check out this thread: https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generati...wires-1169487/

 

Thank you for the feedback!