Sorry to leave this hanging. I realized after I took the pics that it was actually a 944 hood latch spring...I think.

Here's the pics. One side is just ever too slightly short, I'm going to disassemble it and add a washer as a spacer.

 

^ thanks Greg. That is helpful.

And you were able to make that with a single hood spring that you cut to make both sides work?

 

Yep, one hood spring, cut in half. I wish I had some way of keeping the spring centered on the post. So far it hasn't been an issue but it would just make it more complete that way.

 

Kudos to gregeast! Defiantly can build off of this concept. Pilkington’s idea to use a solid urethane spring was promising seeing urethane springs don’t corrode, protect against marring, don’t produce noise, etc. The down side, these types of springs fatigue prematurely in a warm environment. Vehicle roofs are in direct sunlight a lot. And, heard that this issue has been more prevalent for Saratoga top owners down south.

I’m going to obtain one of those exact Porsche hood latch springs, cut the spring in half, measure the spring rate and install height. Then, search for off-the-shelf springs with the measured parameters. That will provide a baseline. After that, obtain springs with higher/lower spring rates and swap them in until the optimum spring is identified. Lastly, machine some urethane cups to capture the spring, so to keep the spring centered and from marring the glass top. This will be an elegant, very low cost solution to the problem at hand.

 

Sign me up!

 

Sounds like a plan !!

 

I'm in as well.

 

If you have an OSH-Orchard Supply Hardware store nearby, check their hardware selection. They have a wide variety of springs and I recall something similar to Greg's spring. No cutting needed.

To centre the steel spring, use the original urethane spring and trim down its outside diameter to fit inside the new steel spring.

 

Thought about that but had the hood spring on hand. I've looked at Ace Hardware but my local one didn't have any springs with sufficient stiffness to mimic the original urethane spring.

 

+1 - I'm in too.

 

Zermattsilver, take a look at the Century Spring catalogue. Most likely the spring you seek is in their inventory. Also McMaster.

 

Orchard supply is in California only. Maybe other West Coast locations, but certainly not everywhere. But Lowes owns them, so maybe Lowe's has similar products in stock.

 

The trick is that the spring needs to be relatively short but stiff. The length of travel that the latch goes through is very small.

Definitely not saying that the hood spring is the only solution, it would be great to find a commercially available spring that works, just hoping to help narrow down the search.

Wonder if Lart is hoarding hood latches already...

 

Greg, could you please provide some measurements of your cut-down spring?

- OD
- ID
- coil wire thickness
- number of coils
- free height
- installed height open
- installed height closed

Thanks

 

Assuming you have a 944, you have one of these springs on your hood latch. My car is in storage and I don't have easy access to the roof right now.