mine could be from years of hard cornering and roaching the tires, ive never had good enough traction to get the wheels up...
ok so after weeks of welding and removing the weld and putting in a new one and having a friend who builds motorcycles stop by and tell me to stop being anal.... here are some pics of what i have done: pics of the engine compt side unpainted (finishing work should be done today)
here are pics of the suspension side. you may notice i added a heavy duty bolt to the top hole where the engine mount assy. attaches to the tower. it clears the spring so far by an inch and is a painfully obvious way to strengthen that spots hold... although as my biker friend pointed out "20+years of abuse isnt too bad at all!":
one other note for those interested, my friend also pointed out that we could probably get square tube steel and make a cage that fits inside the tower and acts as a brace to the whole assembly. i dont plan on doing that at this time for the grabber but may toy with it for the comet....... i can see where it could be built to clear the whole range of movement for the suspension and at least double the strength...
I guess I lost track of this thread and totaly forgot about it . After seeing that plate in another thread , I don't have the plates after thinking about it. I did put a steel plate across there, but it looks like sh!z. My thoughts were to just get the car back together and painted and running THEN see what can be done. sierra, I don't see any cracks . Looks like it will be tricky to clean those welds with the engine in there.
I used a piece of c channell to go across the two bolts from edge to edge of the tower. I hate it! I just think that once it starts cracking, it won't stop.
yeah im only talking about prevention. i used a whole new shock tower from maverick_maniac (dave) and replaced the old one. any mods i am talking about are not to one already cracked. Blu, you know a quite a bit more than me about metal working, the shock tower is a thicker steel would it be possible to clean and grind then weld the cracks? maybe liquify the steel closed? over all the replacement isnt too bad, with the motor out and some previous wire welding experience i probably could have done it in two weekends...
I had the cracks worked on by a frame and body place a long time ago. The car hardly seen any street use and it has new cracks. I may replace the whole towers but i'm thinking that if I have to do that I may as well do the MII conversion. If I could get two excellant towers I would just do that. ...This sucks.
so here is the finished product, i have driven it a few times and now plan to cut the front coils once i get the hood back on. nothing too drastic, maybe an inch. Warning! HUGE PICS. you can see the smaller ones in my gallery if your network is slow.... http://mmb.maverick.to/gallery/show...le&direction=ASC&imageuser=3753&cutoffdate=-1 http://mmb.maverick.to/gallery/show...le&direction=ASC&imageuser=3753&cutoffdate=-1 here is a new one of the engine compartment without power steering and you can see the stock driver side shock tower (man that engines dirty ) : http://mmb.maverick.to/gallery/showimage.php?i=9607&original=1&c=member&imageuser=3753
yeah they were posted earlier in the thread. if you want them bigger\more detailed though i can PM them to you this weekend
Nice work indeed. Do you have pics of the initial damage? Or, can you tell me where to check for cracks, assuming I can do so without removing major components? You've really got me thinking about beefing up my chassis, especially considering the way my car is sprung and the way I drive it.
Sorry for the delay.. I post WAY too much here is the pic of the tower crack in the thread that started my whole nightmare: http://www.maverick.to/mmb/showthread.php?t=57166&highlight=shock+tower&page=4 mine was fairly easy to see from the fender with a flashlight..
