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Hal,

you can check the spring load by putting a small piece of plywood on your
chest and one on you bathroom scale and pushing down till the strut starts
to moves. be careful not to tilt the plywood on your chest to much or you
catch the strut in your throat. I made a little holder for the tip in the
center of the plywood pieces (a small piece of a 2x4 with a hole drilled in
the middle). the moving (lower) value is the strut rating.

you also may want to check out my double strut design. I used two Volvo
units that weighed as much as the one unit supplied by Lancair and produce
150 lbs force (total). since the units are on both sides of the trailing arm
they have no tendency to bind and it moves down and locks much nicer than
the old unit I had. it also give you a factor of safety in cold weather. you
can see this design on my web page at:

http://www.itsnet.com/~dahlgren/airplane.htm

I will be updating my web page with pictures of the actual installation and
my carb air box with a full sized filter if any of you are interested.

Scott