Strut tower rust

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Nov 9, 2008
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How thin can this metal get in the strut tower? I apparently didn't get enough FF up in there over the years, and the driver's side front strut had a fair amount of chunks falling off. No perforation, just thinner. When I get the replacement struts I'll see about grinding and painting, but, does anyone patch this these days in case it does pop a hole?

[Yes, I'm spending too much time looking for reasons to move on from this car.]

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236kmiles of near-original base model car. If I had the coin I'd move on, wife's blessing and all. :) Of course the market being bonkers puts a damper on that idea.
 
All looks like heavy surface rust to me.

Grind back to clean metal, paint with an epoxy mastic type of coating. I use Jotsun Jotamastic 87 but unsure if you can get this in the US? I know you can get Bilt Hamber products now and they do a good Epoxy Mastic. Then follow it up with Upol Raptor (wait... do you get that in the US? :ROFLMAO:)
 
Looks like more than surface rust to me. I reckon you have two prudent choices - weld in a new tower cap (which I believe are available as collision parts) or send it to the junkyard.

I would pull the strut and evaluate.

If it’s just surface rust, then yeah, grind back to bare metal, go with a POR-15 coating.
 
All looks like heavy surface rust to me.

Grind back to clean metal, paint with an epoxy mastic type of coating. I use Jotsun Jotamastic 87 but unsure if you can get this in the US? I know you can get Bilt Hamber products now and they do a good Epoxy Mastic. Then follow it up with Upol Raptor (wait... do you get that in the US? :ROFLMAO:)
The POR-15 products are readily available in Canada and the US, and sound similar. (Edit: Astro14 beat me to it.)
 
Looks like more than surface rust to me. I reckon you have two prudent choices - weld in a new tower cap (which I believe are available as collision parts) or send it to the junkyard.

I would pull the strut and evaluate.

If it’s just surface rust, then yeah, grind back to bare metal, go with a POR-15 coating.


You might be right. I personally would needlegun it to remove the layers of laminated rust and see if you perforate the metal at all.
 
It is pretty heavy rust, scaly and it was coming off in big flakes, not chunks, but you get the idea.

I'll pull the strut, need to at some point. It seemed solid when poking with a screwdriver, but with the strut in the way I couldn't really hammer away at it. I should have pulled it but I was too busy trying to get the swaybar endlinks to come free (got all 4 without resorting to cutting!).

I'll have to ask the garage about welding in a cap, that's beyond my skills. I suspect they'd have a low opinion of it as they already told me to start limiting my money on this car.
 
You might be right. I personally would needlegun it to remove the layers of laminated rust and see if you perforate the metal at all.
OP, if you've never seen how a Needle Gun works, check them out on You-Tube / great for removing rust.
Or I would use a wire wheel / no grinding.
A welder's chipping hammer may come in handy.

I would plan on removing the strut and doing any rust removal.
Then, use Fluid Film.
Several Months later, reapply Fluid Film.
 
Like all cars, it's rusting from the bottom up--can't see any issues topside. Paint on the body is clean too, if curious.

Seems more dirty in the pics in reality. I should pressure wash the engine bay at some point. All the white stuff on the tower appears to be salt left behind, that's solid metal there, albeit coated in salt.

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Ignore the acorn fragment, that's not rust breaking through.
 
I'm sure the mount is worse, that bit looked awful.
 
That engine bay is desperate for a clean. Is that salt?
Salt and dirt. It is still winter and all. Only just getting to the end of it, where I might think about hosing it off. Not in love with pressure washing the engine bay too often, I know it can take it, but sometimes I worry.
 
Salt and dirt. It is still winter and all. Only just getting to the end of it, where I might think about hosing it off. Not in love with pressure washing the engine bay too often, I know it can take it, but sometimes I worry.

If it helps, I pressure wash our engine bays every few weeks, especially in the winter and have never had any issues.
 
If it helps, I pressure wash our engine bays every few weeks, especially in the winter and have never had any issues.
I still worry. :)

I don't wash at all in winter, too cold. Plus it just doesn't seem necessary, just gets the dirt off, only to have it come back.

I do need to hose it off, the PS was leaking for some time and i should get that cleaned up, see if my hack fix is holding.
 
Pulled the strut. Made the mistake of trying to raise the knuckle at one point by the dust shield; that is basically tin foil now so it's a bit worse for the wear. Oops.

Just surface rust. With the bottom bolts of the strut removed, I pulled on the strut, so as to see if the tower had any weakness; nothing seen from watching the top. I think it's ok, which means... stuck for another year. I might as well order those struts. By the time those come in the FF should have washed away and I should be able wire brush this a bit.

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Top of the strut is a bit worse for wear, but at least half of the metal is still there (other half on the floor).
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