Newage strut rust options
Discussion
Hi, was running some wiring along to the boot in my Blobeye yesterday and when peeling back the covering in the back found out that the struts have rusted from the inside out!
Looks like moisture gets trapped in the factory nvh covering and then goes to work on the interior metal, the outside wheel well cosmetically looks fine and the rest of the car is pretty mint rust wise with none on the sills or arches and has relatively low mileage for the age so was very surprised/mortified to find this.
The passenger side is in even worse condition with the rust going all the way up the strut and poking with a screwdriver went straight through.
Was wondering if anyone produces repair panels/strut towers?
Cutting ones out of a breaker is a gamble with cars of this age, rang around for a couple of welding quotes and initially got some around £400 per side but no one seems to want to touch it after I sent them pics.
Looks like moisture gets trapped in the factory nvh covering and then goes to work on the interior metal, the outside wheel well cosmetically looks fine and the rest of the car is pretty mint rust wise with none on the sills or arches and has relatively low mileage for the age so was very surprised/mortified to find this.
The passenger side is in even worse condition with the rust going all the way up the strut and poking with a screwdriver went straight through.
Was wondering if anyone produces repair panels/strut towers?
Cutting ones out of a breaker is a gamble with cars of this age, rang around for a couple of welding quotes and initially got some around £400 per side but no one seems to want to touch it after I sent them pics.
Jesus, never seen that before.
Is this a problem on saloons or wagons, or both?. Best option might be to find a good shell and cut the required areas out, Mattyb on Scoobynet is forever breaking STi's (saloons mostly), I've dealt with him before and he is as good as his word, always up for a deal as well. I'm not sure if he has any wagons in, but he certainly has saloons, all in pretty good shape for the most part.
Is this a problem on saloons or wagons, or both?. Best option might be to find a good shell and cut the required areas out, Mattyb on Scoobynet is forever breaking STi's (saloons mostly), I've dealt with him before and he is as good as his word, always up for a deal as well. I'm not sure if he has any wagons in, but he certainly has saloons, all in pretty good shape for the most part.
I'm not sure if it's exclusive to Wagons I did some research and there's quite a few rusted wagon strut threads on American forums https://www.toronto-subaru-club.com/forums/showthr...
This is the state of my factory sound deadening you can see how discoloured with rust it is
Was meaning to have a more indepth poke around the previous weekends but the weather has been atrocious.
I've now got (a very old) welding machine so I'm gonna have a go myself, it doesn't have to be pretty as it's going to be covered and I can't justify the prices I was quoted for what is to all extents and purposes just an MOT patch job which will eventually come back.
Further down the line I may get it done professionally, I got a quote of £3k (at mates rates) of a family friend who specializes in older american cars, due to the fact that to do it properly the whole rear quarters would need to be cut out, if I went down this route then would be using Sedan rear quarters so would be a widebody Wagon which would be pretty unique.
Finally got a chance today to work on the car so stripped out the wiring loom, the floorpan is fine the rust ontop is what's fallen out as I poked the strut towers.
The rust doesn't look too far advanced but when you peel back the outer layer it goes back pretty far
Used a flap pad on a grinder to take the rust back and it doesn't look too bad underneath, still pretty solid.
I'm tempted to drill out the spot welds and then peel back the whole layer, treat what's underneath with rust converter and then spot weld a sheet back into place though the best way would be to cut everything out but worried about alignment of the struts/car if I do that.
This is the state of my factory sound deadening you can see how discoloured with rust it is
Was meaning to have a more indepth poke around the previous weekends but the weather has been atrocious.
I've now got (a very old) welding machine so I'm gonna have a go myself, it doesn't have to be pretty as it's going to be covered and I can't justify the prices I was quoted for what is to all extents and purposes just an MOT patch job which will eventually come back.
Further down the line I may get it done professionally, I got a quote of £3k (at mates rates) of a family friend who specializes in older american cars, due to the fact that to do it properly the whole rear quarters would need to be cut out, if I went down this route then would be using Sedan rear quarters so would be a widebody Wagon which would be pretty unique.
Finally got a chance today to work on the car so stripped out the wiring loom, the floorpan is fine the rust ontop is what's fallen out as I poked the strut towers.
The rust doesn't look too far advanced but when you peel back the outer layer it goes back pretty far
Used a flap pad on a grinder to take the rust back and it doesn't look too bad underneath, still pretty solid.
I'm tempted to drill out the spot welds and then peel back the whole layer, treat what's underneath with rust converter and then spot weld a sheet back into place though the best way would be to cut everything out but worried about alignment of the struts/car if I do that.
That price is really good, I couldn't get anything near phoning around places nearby (live in London).
The rest of the car is OK rust wise, engine bay looks like it was painted at some point by a previous owner and the subframe is in good condition.
The weather is really annoying ATM, I work Monday to Fridays and there's been storms for the past 3 weekends.
Was going to use gasless flux to weld but got some out of date fire extinguishers so the welds should be quite a bit better now, also got a 3D printed guide for the wire tensioner as it's a common fault with the plastic breaking.
The rest of the car is OK rust wise, engine bay looks like it was painted at some point by a previous owner and the subframe is in good condition.
The weather is really annoying ATM, I work Monday to Fridays and there's been storms for the past 3 weekends.
Was going to use gasless flux to weld but got some out of date fire extinguishers so the welds should be quite a bit better now, also got a 3D printed guide for the wire tensioner as it's a common fault with the plastic breaking.
I broke the wirefeed on the welder so ended up doing a Euro torch conversion and fitting the feed motor from a better machine, it took longer than anticipated as had to wire in a solenoid for the gas and redo some of the wiring inside.
|https://thumbsnap.com/DWRyM0Jl[/url]
Did some work on the strut tower today, I'm using 1.5mm sheet metal and it's quite an effort to weld in, have resorted to doing stich/spot welds as it's so windy at the moment.
|https://thumbsnap.com/XYGxz2eb[/url]
Doesn't look pretty with the flash from the camera but it has good penetration so will hopefully be strong enough, still learning on the welding technique.
|https://thumbsnap.com/DWRyM0Jl[/url]Did some work on the strut tower today, I'm using 1.5mm sheet metal and it's quite an effort to weld in, have resorted to doing stich/spot welds as it's so windy at the moment.
|https://thumbsnap.com/XYGxz2eb[/url]Doesn't look pretty with the flash from the camera but it has good penetration so will hopefully be strong enough, still learning on the welding technique.
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