If you are going to replace the trunk lid lift supports, and you own a Haynes manual for the 850 series Volvo, pay attention!

Last week, I made a trip back to Charlotte, NC to shop the Pull-a-Part up there for for my three vehicles down here in "No Volvo Land", Myrtle Beach, SC. When I got to the yard, I found one very clean 96 850 that had not been totally destroyed by parts pickers, and went to work on removing several items that I needed for my 93 850. One of these was the trunk lift supports which seemed like a tough project to tackle. I looked in the back seat of the donor car and found a well used Haynes manual for the 850 (mine was back at the beach) and proceeded to follow their instructions for replacing the lift supports, which included removing the back seat cushions, folding down the rear seat back, then removing the rear seat pillars and rear shelf. After all of this, there was still only a very small hole behind the seat pillars to access the front mount of the support.

When I returned home with the lid supports that I gleaned after more than an hour of effort, I started thinking about how the support mounted to the front with a "C" type of snap clamp and realized that any normal engineer would have designed them that way for relatively easy removal. I explored the trunk area with a flashlight where the lift rod went into the seat pillar and found that a long(heavy)screwdriver could be used to pry up on the underside of the "C" clamp and pop it loose, and that the clamp could be re-attached by reaching in close to the end and simply pulling down on the rod. Removal and replacement of mine took less than 15 minutes for both sides, even with the time spent surveying the project. Keep in mind that I did not even have to remove the trunk liner for access.

I hope this might help anyone that has put off replacing the trunk lid supports because of the Haynes write up, the job is much simpler to complete than the book suggests. For safety, since this lid is heavy, prop the trunk deck open while releasing the strut mounts.

Regards,