Looking into hood struts

I emailed Redline Tuning and asked them about making hood struts for our 'Birds to replace the prop rod. This is the email I received back.......

Hello,

We do not have plans at this time to create a QuickLIFT system for the 86 TBird - most of them came stock with gas springs so we do not look to design a QuickLIFT system - if this is not the case, we will look into it
Thanks for your interest in our products.

Brian
Redline Tuning

Before I email them back and tell them they're wrong, I need to confirm. What year did TBird/Cougars start appearing with gas struts. AFAIK, all TC's up into SC's had prop rods. Does anyone have hard numbers/years?

87-88 have hinge springs. There is a thread about using just the springs from a Mark VII and maintaining original 86 hinges. no need to play with hood adjustment.
HTH
Mike C

yeah i have an 87 and mine are hinge, i got a new hood from this place in texas and i would love a new set of springs, does the Mark VII really work, what yr?

Here's the thread. Looks like any '84-'92 Mark VII will work.
http://natomessageboard.com/ultimatebb.p...632#000000

I think the gas shocks didn't come out until the Mn12 bird/cougars. If anything grab the setup from a junkyard. Also there are many Chevy's that have the gas shock hood prop. I got a setup from a 93 Grand prix. Haven't installed it yet.

The Mark VII spring assemblies work great and it's a bolt in operation with the hood up. No need to remove the hood hinges. I got mine out of an '85 Mark VII.