Sorry guys, new here so if im not in the right spot, please tell me where better to voice my questions.

So, i have an 89 firebird 305 TPI V8, and like ive seen in other posts though i could not find an answer, the strut towers have a nasty habit of rusting out, especially around the bracket like in the picture below





Now, ive since had it repaired by a supposedly veteran welder, has 10 years experience, etc. On the surface, not having welding experience myself i saw no problem with it, shown below is the fix. Following this fix, less than a week later the cap that he rewelded to the frame snapped free, nearly causing an accident had i not kept control. Below the picture of the fix are 2 pictures, one view of the top of the cap, and one below the cap. Mind you, there was a sheet he welded under the wheel well which hid the fact that he welded straight to the rust, and upon it snapping, that sheet detached completely and disappeared completely, thankfully not shredding my tire in the process.









Removed the strut, but you can see through the whole where the rusted metal was never touched.




Underneath the strut cap from the wheel well. Here you see the rust, and also youll see little beads where he tried to weld to the rust.

Now, you see whats happened and been done to it. Im trying to fix this, and my first step is getting the cap welds removed and reposition the cap, but ive been trying to think of alternatives to fix it and have come up blank. Ive thought about an air ride suspension, ive thought about doing a tube frame over it and connecting it to the rest of the front end via strut tower braces, but i dont know a whole lot about framework, so im looking for advice, theories, etc on how best to fix my baby. Ive done a lot of work to her already and i dont want to give up now. I apologize for the excess of reading required in this post, but i felt it best to explain what all happened beforehand, to better have an idea of what now needs to be done. Any help is appreciated!

 

You are lucky!

You have to get all the rust/rot out of there. This could be expensive. You have to get one from the JY - lots of cutting and welding. Can it be repaired - yes. Expensive and time consuming - yes. Install is critical to possibly make alignment possible. Is the rest of the car like this, too?

You might be better off finding a roller car and xfer everything over to.

check this out: http://crzyz28.sytes.net/mycars/84ca...h5_towers.html

 

I'm curious, where is that car from?

Honestly I've never seen the strut towers rust around here, and I don't remember them rusting in Buffalo (deep in the rust belt) where I grew up. I have an originally Indiana car that has rusted out subframe rails to the point where I don't see a point in fixing it (I've turned it into a parts car) and there isn't a spot of rust on the strut towers.

All that said, I have to wonder if your strut tower is that bad, what is the rest of the car like? I mean is it really worth saving/would it be easier to just find a good body and swap whatever you have worth keeping over?

That said I don't see why it would be all that hard to do this job right, assuming that you can cut the rust back to good metal without removing half the car. Based on what I'm seeing it looks like the person that did the work before was clueless.

 

I know this thread is almost a year old but I was curious to know if you ever figured out a solution for your strut tower rust? I've repaired rusted strut towers and can post some picks if it's something you're still interested in tackling.

 

Best solution for a situation like that is to jack the car up and drive another one - NOT from the Salt Belt - in underneath it.

Then drive the no-salt one out of the way, and throw the other in the trash.

That sort of thing is not "repairable". Sure, we can all say "anything can be repaired", and that's true to some extent ... OTOH, why would anybody with 2 neurons they could rub together and get one to fire, however weakly, think that it's A Good Idea to cut up a perfectly good car just to get pieces to fix something like ... THAT? At some point, one bumps up against economics; it's simply cheeeeeper to buy a 1-way ticket to AZ or TX or some such, and buy another car, than to mess with all that. Not to mention, faster, less stressful, lower risk of failure, more original, ... I'm sure there are other powerful arguments favoring that approach.

And at the same time, the strut towers are some of the relatively thicker metal on the car. If that THICK metal looks like THAT, and is THAT BADLY in need of repair, then what do you suppose the THIN metal parts are going to be like? Door skins, inner fender wells, floor pans, the place the windshield sits, ... have you ever TRIED to fix any of that? By the time that THICK metal gets to looking like swiss cheese that way, those other parts have pretty much DISAPPEARED.

Those pics up there of d00d's "repair" are A PERFECT EXAMPLE of why this sort of thing shouldn't even be attempted. Once a car gets past some certain point, best to just kiss it goodbye, however fondly (or not), and move on to an other one. NO WAY IN HELL I'd trust ANYBODY to take a car that's THAT FAR GONE and "repair" it to the point I'd put, say, my children in it.