The front strut towers on my 93 SE are starting to tear out from the bottom, due to rust. Does anyone have ideas or experience in reinforceing these? Possibly running heavy strap(s) from the 3 top strut mounting studs down to the rail that the engine mounts are fastened to?

This may be curtains for the car, but most of the rest of it is in good shape.

 

Oh my! This is a very important structual area. If these areas are rusting out, I think it's time to dump this car asap. I don't believe there is any economical safe way to rebuild this area.

 

duct tape....fixes everything.... (sorry, couldn't resist).

 

Nah, This Calls for JBWeld Baby!

 

how much do u "love" your car??

 

sounds dangerous, be careful and if you're going to get it fixed do it the right way, god forbid those things give out and then they shoot through your hood

 

You have two options.

1. dump the car and buy something else.
2. take it to a body shop and pay them a couple thousand bucks to fix it, then they will tell you to dump the car and buy something else.

 

I had the same problem with my car, they use salt on the roads where I live so rust is a big problem. Before I could have them reinforced I hit huge pothole and the driver's side strut tower spilt, it was scarey as hell. I took it to a good body shop, they took everything out of the way, cut out the rusted metal and welded in new thick braces. It was around $400, then I took the other one to a back yard welder and he reinforced it by welding a thick wide sheet of metal over the whole thing. This was much cheaper, around $100, and he did awesome work. I had this done over a year ago and no problems, except the driver's side is 1/8th of an inch higher when the hood is closed. Hope this helps, people who live in place where cars don't rust as much are too willing to quickly write things off!

 

I assume you will keep this car until it dies? Because I really doubt you would really be able to sell it after you opened the hood

 

u don't think they use salt in NY?
it all depends on the extent of the rust. i don't care how good of a welder you are...if all you have is rotted steel then it's done.

 

I'll take pics, it actually doesn't look that bad, but yes I do intend on keeping the car. I don't know what they use in ny, i hate salt it's killed so many good cars I had more than enough steel left to weld, it was if the towers were more cracked then rusted.

 

Where are you located? Hopefully your near Texas so you can bribe Matt to take a look at it and maybe beef it up (and thats a maybe).

It would be really good if you could get pics aswell.

Also an old friend and I were working on a old 280zx project, had everything just about set when he scraped the whole project. Why? because he didnt like the idea of the rust eating threw part of the sheet metal and working on the frame. Personally I would have salvaged it, but nope, he scraped the whole car. We had just lined up a fresh interior, taken delievery of a very low mileage motor and had finished cleaning and stripping the car. Man that would have been awesome. Just goes to show how serious it can be.

 

I don't want to touch anything like that. I may have an engineering degree and a welder, but I'm not going to be held responsible when that car collapses when it hits a pothole on the highway and kills half a dozen people.

 

If you are an engineer and a welder, why do you drive a 11 year old car? The market is tough, ay?

 

could you post some pictures?... I'm kind of confused about all of this...

=->Evil Twin<-=

 

You caught him!! Good job. No one else had figured out that Matt was lying. You are the man! Now go fuck yourself. Oh yeah, 2003 - 1993 = 10, not eleven.

 

Do you know of 1/8th of the stuff Matt has done to his car?


Besides... no one suspects the 3rd gen

 

But model year 2004 - model year 1993 IS 11 years.

 

Being someone who USED to live in a rustbelt area and KNOWS rust, dump the car. Take whatever you want or can sell off the car, but get rid of it. If it's rusting that badly in a structural area, then the body has to be right behind it. Usually the body goes first but I HAVE seen bodies rust from the inside out when the owners have been faithful in keeing the body waxed without having the bottoms washed during the winter.

Once rust has settled into a car it's game over. You could buy several cars for what it will take you to CURE the problem. You could probably buy antoher car for what it would take to keep it covered up.

 

My car was manufactured in April of 1991. Therefore, it turned 12 in April of this year. It is possible that Matt's car was not manufactured until November or December of 1993. That would mean that is barely or not yet 10 years old. The original poster made no distinction between technicalities like model years. He implied age. I stand by my post.

 

Nobody said I'm an engineer with a JOB.
Nobody said I'm a professional welder either.

 

Oh.. FYI.. my '93 was built in 7/92. She's showing her age.. turned 200k miles today, in fact..

 

Yeah, but say had both jobs, you'd still keep the 3rd gen right?

 

Your better off dumping the car. Those strut towers are $350 each plus about 20 hrs of body labor (or more)... You'll never get rid of the rust. Besides when it comes to rust, it's always five times worse once it's opened up. What you can see, and what's really there are two diffrent things..

Think about this too, if you see the car you could be liable if you dont inform the new owner of the structural pre-existing condition.

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the ideas on this. I think the strut tower (also driver's side on mine) started tearing after jacking the car up using the front jack point just behind the bumper. There seemed to be too much flex while jacking - the jack and front end went up a bit before the rest of the car followed! The car has just over 250K and has seen too many Wisconsin winters.

 

Bummer man. 3rd gens are a dying car these days.

I wish you luck in finding a VE 5spd.

 

No silly, the 2004's are out now! Matt's 93 was probably first purchased in Late '92? I see you have never bought a new car either. You guys need to get a job or something. Maybe a paper route!