I know I know, not another mushroom thread... This has a twist though that I've not seen before in searching around on NAM. I'm actually experiencing cracking in the metal of the strut tower itself, not just the rubber mounts.

Recently swapped out of my ungracefully aging Megan Coilovers to H-Sport camber plates & TSW springs. I'd also been running the M7 strut brace that comes with the thick reinforcement plates. I've included a couple of photos for your enjoyment...

Here's my rig:



And a nice juicy closeup of the crack...



I'll be keeping my eye on this. The new plates obviously use a different mounting point, thus a new place to begin growing mushrooms. I tend to doubt that the crack will continue to grow because now the pressure is at a different location. Because of the different bolt pattern, I'm unable to use the strut brace/tower supports, but it appears that they didn't totally prevent this from happening before.

As I said, I did search around on NAM looking for others who'd experienced this, but only saw reference to the cracked rubber strut mount, not any with actual metal failure of the tower. Other side looks much better, but appears to be going this direction as I can see a hairline crack in the finish.

How repairable is the crack in the pictures? Could a body shop pound it back flat & weld the crack? Any one else seen similar issues?

 

well if it were my car and I was doing the work/mods you describe yes I'd probably cut out / grind the crack a bit to get clean edges then weld it up.

But I could do that work in my garage ......

otoh I'm no professional mechanic or inspector. I just have a nice welding kit and know I've repaired MUCH worse on my 79!!!!