'94 525i Touring broken hatch gas strut

[Kit Redwine <kredwine@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Argh! And I haven't even had the car one month!

After closing the hatch of my '94 525i Touring tonite I heard a "clunking"
sound that, well, didn't sound good.  I unlocked and reopened the hatch and
a piece fell out!

The hatch gas struts connect about half-way up the body to a bolt that
screws into the side.  The strut attaches to the ball-end of the bolt.  It
appears that the bolt either came unscrewed or stripped the threads and
pulled out.  Now the strut is nearly fully extended.

Has anyone experienced this?  How hard is it to get at the strut assembly
b/c right now the strut can't be compressed (maybe I'm too weak?).  

Thanks for any help or advice but otherwise I'm getting a Bentley manual
soon.

Kit
Seattle

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