Land Cruiser Build Bonnet Struts

In this part of the Land Cruiser build we take you through which bonnet struts we chose to add to our Cruiser and how to install them.

BT Cruiser Struts

The 70 (76) Series Land Cruiser bonnet is bloody heavy. So we decided to be lazy and we also want Shayne (Wifey) to be able to open the bonnet just in case. Stock standard this was a struggle for her and with the height of the Cruiser as well this was a bit of an issue. So we decided to get some bonnet struts. There are quite a few different options out there in the online marketplace but from what we looked at the ones that you get from BT Cruiser Struts looked right for us. They do not have an online store, so you need to send a message to them through Instagram, bank transfer the funds, send them a screenshot of payment and they then send you the struts. It then takes a couple of weeks to receive them. They cost $165, freight included.

What You Get

They look good, went with black, I think you can get a few different colours to match your Cruiser. We chose these particular struts over the ones that we had seen mainly due to the bracket. The other kits we saw had really large brackets that just don’t look good. The BT Cruiser Strut bracket is smaller and follows the shape of the bonnet, so overall looks a lot better. The instructions provided are OK, they explain the install well enough but see my tips further below. The kit comes with a pair of gas struts, mounting brackets, the necessary fittings and instructions.

Fitting the Bonnet Struts

Let’s take you through what is involved in fitting the bonnet struts in this part of our Land Cruiser build.

Replacing Factory Bolts

So fitting the struts is straightforward enough. You will need to drill eight holes into your bonnet in order to mount the bracket – you will be drilling holes into your bonnet no matter what kit you go with. The first step requires you to remove two factory bolts in the engine bay, one on each side. You need a fairly small socket wrench here as there is limited space on the passenger side. It requires a 12 mm socket to remove these two factory bolts. Once removed you replace these with the supplied bolts and washers. Easy part done.

Fitting the Brackets to the Bonnet

Fitting the bracket is a bit more time consuming. The instructions tell you to measure 70 mm from the top of the bonnet bracket and make a mark. Fairly difficult to work here as the bonnet is at a weird angle. We measured this about 10 times, when drilling holes into our 4WD we want to make sure we get this step right! Once you have worked out where the bracket needs to be mounted, we placed the bracket on the bonnet to try and work out how this should sit as the instructions don’t tell you much more here. Once you have a look though you will see how it should fit as the bracket follows the shape of the bonnet as well as certain recesses, hard to explain in a blog post.

Marking and drilling each hole one at a time is a little painful due to the awkward angle you are working at. Make sure you’ve got some good metal drill bits and drill pilot holes first. We used a 5 mm drill bit for the final holes. Make sure you lie a sheet or something similar over the side of the car while drilling your holes as small shards of metal will go everywhere.

Use Good Quality Pop Rivets

Once all holes have been drilled, you secure the bracket with pop rivets. The supplied pop rivets we found to be of average quality and learnt this the hard way fitting the first bracket. We had to drill one pop rivet out as it snapped. We had a bunch of good quality ones in the shed, which we should have just used from the start, and once we changed these they worked absolutely fine. Anyway, was fairly annoyed about having to drill one out. Using the good quality pop rivets made it much easier and quicker. Make sure you oil your pop rivet gun before hand and test before you start pop riveting your 4WD.

Fitting the Gas Struts

Once the two are brackets mounted it is just a matter of fitting the two gas struts. You need to remove the pins, I added a bit more grease to the balls on the brackets, secure each gas strut and slide in the locking pins. You will need to open the bonnet higher in order to fit each strut. Once both gas struts were fitted we tested out how they work, see the video below. They work really well, super easy to open the bonnet now, even Wifey can open it with no effort at all. When you unlock the bonnet latch, with one hand you start to open the bonnet and then the gas struts do all the work.

Bonnet Height Adjustment

So after the first drive we realised that the bonnet now moves around a lot especially with a bit of wind or driving past a truck. This must be caused due to the pressure the gas struts are putting on the bonnet now. So in order to eliminate that movement, we used the adjustable rubber stoppers in the engine bay by screwing them higher. This gave the bonnet a far tighter fit and removed all movement. However, this then caused an issue with the bonnet sitting about 1 mm higher which is a little frustrating. We must have fitted the brackets 1/2 mm out which is causing this issue.

Overall Verdict

Would we recommend these particular bonnet struts in this part of our Land Cruiser build?

From what we have seen online for other kits, we did prefer the look of these ones mainly with the brackets being far less bulky. They work well and make opening the very heavy 70 Series bonnet exceptionally easy. If you do buy a set we would highly recommend using good quality pop rivets. Also make sure that you fit the brackets in exactly the correct location or you will have an issue with how flush your bonnet sits.

Here is the BT Cruiser Struts Instagram page if you are interesting in seeing where we purchased ours from – click here.

To see other posts on our Land Cruiser build click here.

Thanks for reading and we hope you have found the bonnet strut install part of our Land Cruiser build helpful. Message us on Instagram or comment below if you have any feedback or questions.

Cheers legends.

The thoughts of Peter.

This is not a sponsored post, we bought this gear and it’s an honest review of what we think about it!