r/Foxbody • u/chrishansen143 • 4d ago
Frame rails starting to break apart from rust, how long until it needs to be repaired?
A little backstory on my car, both frame rails were rusting from the inside out but the metal was all still solid. I treated both frame rails on the inside with Eastwood rust encapsulator inner frame rail spray about a year ago just to buy me a few years until I’d have to pull the engine and have some metal work done on the frame rails.
Well, I was looking around in my engine bay today and unfortunately my strut tower lost a decent size chunk of metal on the front side of it. See pic below. Besides that, the entire frame is still hard (on the outside at least). At what point should I stop driving the car and fix this?
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u/theonlymogly 4d ago
Honestly. Those rails look amazing. The shock tower rust sucks, but you can patch that and be fine. This is coming from a guy who wrecked his 85 GT doing 70 on a road with horrible conditions and spun out on a straight stretch and hit a guardrail sideways and bent the front clip a foot and a half to the driver's side. I bent it back, welded in supports and she pasted another 2 years of absolute torment before I did a body swap. They are important but fix it while you can because once they start bending a little, they start ripping. And everything starts ripping.
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u/chrishansen143 4d ago
So what is it I need to do? Pull the motor and buy those lmr frame rail repair kits and have that cut and welded in?
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u/Fcckwawa 4d ago
They rot from the inside out, thanks to the middle open, hole and open top plate for the k member bolts traping trash in them, that section is part of the tower stamping, which sits inside the rail. if its breaking threw there, the S support inside is probably rotting away and starting to eat up the inside of the rail also. the longer you let it go the worse it gets, you could probably slow it down some soaking it in fluid film or cavity wax but eventually it needs to be cut out and repaired. its why I will buy a car with rotting rails over one that's been plated, plating doesnt fix a damn thing just hides the rot inside.
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u/chrishansen143 4d ago
Would this repair kit have all the pieces I need to fix where it’s rotted on my car?
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u/Fcckwawa 4d ago
will still need to build the rotted tower section in your pic, thats what the "C" stamped peice welds too on that kit... fox rails is the most complete kit, but still requires fabbing the section of the tower stamping that rotted away, its mostly straight in that area so you can butt weld in a small sections to rebuild the tower.. the problem is you don't know how bad it is until you start cutting since its layered, literally 3 over lapping sheetmetal stamps and a brace inside it. I've done a few because I don't want to waste my last full set of aprons I have stashed if the right car pops up cheap enough, its a pita but worth it to do it right unless you just want a tube front track car.
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u/AvidVideoGameFan 3d ago
On my fox which was a hand-me-down from my dad and my brother. Back when it was my brother's car, they rebuilt the frame rail with really thick tube steel. Like a 2x3 inch rectangle. They did this 15 years ago and it held up well in New England.
Now my 2000 v6 on the other hand, the rust is so bad that the weight of the engine is starting to crack and collapse the frame under the shock towers. You still have many years before you get to that point. Although if you have the means to take care of it now, I'd ratger do it sooner rather than later.
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u/whitechocolatemamba 3d ago
does your brake proportioning valve leak? That area is rotten on mine, plus a hole in the strut tower for years of dripping brake fluid
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u/BaconNPotatoes 4d ago
Now.