Strut Tower Rusted/Cracking
 

Has anybody had problems with this issue on Fox-Body mustangs? Any experiences with fixing this or rough costs?

Thanks.
LHSD

It's not uncommon of the older winter driven cars to see the frame rails below and behind teh strut towers rust away. It's a really bad spot for this to happen as well, because of the structural intergrity needed in that spot. All teh front suspension loads go through that point. To fix it properly you'll need to pull the motor, cut out all the rusted sections to good metal and weld in new sections to replace the rotten stuff. Depnds on how much replacing needs to be done but you'll be into $500 to $1000 to do it right. You could cut costs by removing the engine yourself and just bring it to the shop. Then it would only be around three to five hours in labor. We've done a couple of similar repairs at BOSS Racing and that's about the only way to do it properly. Hope this helps.

Brian
BOSS Racing
www.bossracing.net

Here is a pic of the rust damage I had.
I was able to get mine fixed. They took a frame rail out of another mustang to replace mine.

In the case of your car I would have welded the sub frame in solid and plated past the damaged section.............if done properly it will stand up 100%. The secret to getting a decent repair is to not be tempted to shop price but instead go with someone you know can fix it properly.

Rick
:tup

I had the same trbl with my shock tower... It was alittle less damaged than yours(It was mostly just the tower). We cut out about 2" up the tower in the middle down to the frame rail an 1" before each corner. The frame rail we had to cut about 1/2" down 2" wide. I butt welded into the frame rail with a piece of equal thickness and did the same with the tower. Ground down the welds and welded a plate from the bottom of the frame rail to about 1" above the patch in the tower;also wrapped the patch around the corners of the tower. Ground down all the welds and painted. You really have to look at it to see it.

I was lucky my Uncle was a Manager of a Body Shop so he knew the right guys to fix it. I was very impressed on the repair.

good thing we dont see much of that stuff on the west coast :D

damn rustangs :dunno