Rear Strut Mount Surprise! ~Large Images~

[JDKruger4]

Some of you may of seen the photos I put up yesterday with my two reinforced subframe mounts. Well the rear of this car has definitely been worked on and not in the way I wanted. Took a look today at my rear upper strut mounts and found that one of them has a reinforcement plate which has been welded in, and the other has a piece of what looks like scrap metal welded in around each bolt.

What can I do with this side? Since its cracked already I can't very well fit a reinforcement plate in there unless I hammered it out and then welded the plate in? :(

Passenger Side Rear: Notice the cracking
http://i333.photobucket.com/albums/m392/JDKruger4/DSCN0719.jpg

Passenger Side from the top: its been welded but only two tiny little plates, again you can see the crack on the right side
http://i333.photobucket.com/albums/m392/JDKruger4/DSCN0721.jpg

Drivers side: Full plate was welded in, think this side is solid for the most part
http://i333.photobucket.com/albums/m392/JDKruger4/DSCN0724.jpg

[Brent 930]

Remove the puddy around the plates and cut them out. Buy new plates, then weld them in and re seal. The plates are like $10 each.

[Nik1703]

Remove the puddy around the plates and cut them out. Buy new plates, then weld them in and re seal. The plates are like $10 each.

+1

such a major pain though. good luck. keep us posted.

[erobinson]

I'd try to get the original shop to fix it for you, and make sure they do it right this time. A proper weld should not fail before the surrounding metal. Those welds look like crap too, my guess is they used too much heat and nearly burned through, thus weakening the area. The BEST fix would be to replace the entire strut tower and then add reinforcement plates. The tower is just spot-welded in place, so the spot welds need to be drilled out, and and a new tower welded in place. They are only like $20 from the dealer.

[JDKruger4]

Unfortunately I have no idea what shop originally did this. I only discovered it while making a list of parts I want to replace when I do my subframe mounts. Makes me kinda sick there are so many problems with the rear of my car... rust on the underbody, cracking mounts...... anyone want to buy it? 10k, brand new headgasket and head!

Anyways I'm going to check into getting a new strut tower, sounds like a royal pain though!

[acthad]

Sorry you have to go through this, its like looking a kid with cancer.

Mine is a bit rusty from Chicago winters, but nothing like yours. Did you do a carfax on it before you bought it? May be it sat in flood waters?

Hopefully you know of a good body shop or race shop that specializes in precision welding. I would just put a little into it and just drive it. Either way its going to cost you in depreciation vs repairs. I hope you would not pawn the car off to someone else in it current condition.

[JDKruger4]

Yeah I did do a carfax, came up clean. Obviously it has had work done and not reported, shows how unreliable carfax can be. The car is originally from MD, NC now, but there is a surprising amount of rust on the underbody now that I'm scraping off the coating. Its a sinking feeling in your stomach when you see that (esp as a grad student with very limited income)... I'm def not going to pass my problems off on someone else, at least without being straightforward to them.

Back to the problem at hand. I'm considering the following approach: drivers side that has reinforcement plate I am going to grind out the rust on the underside and prime and coat and not worry any further. As for the passengers side I will do the same, hammer done the area where it has bent up by the crack and then weld a plate across the cracked area. This seems like it would be easier than getting an entirely new strut tower. How much do you think a shop would charge for welding in a new strut tower? Then theres always the question of getting it there...