PanEuropean
Ready to race!
Let's assume that you have your head under the hood, working on the engine, and the little aftermarket ball fails up at the top of the strut - or the OEM stud on the hood that the ball attaches to fails (as far as I know, it was not engineered for the purpose of supporting a strut). How heavy is the hood, and what is it going to do to your head when it falls?Would love to see the statistics on mortal injuries from hood strut failures.
Next, let's assume you are standing by the car with the hood up and your hand resting on the front fender with a portion of your hand inside the area that the hood closes onto. What happens to your hand if the hood drops suddenly? It's basically a guillotine.
Maybe I think this way because I spent a good part of my career in the engineering department of a large aircraft manufacturer, responsible for safety-related issues. I've seen enough 'smoking holes' with the grieving widows wailing nearby to cause me to look quite critically at modifications that are made without a full engineering assessment of strengths and possible failure modes.
Michael