Wife comes home from a drive the other day and says the car doesn't seem right in the front end. Hhmmm. Yes, I know the lower A-arm bushings are shot and are on order. She replies it's different, something else is going on. So, a trip down to the garage to have her turn the wheel while I look. Not good. In fact, maybe really bad. Looks like the tabs on left and right sides on the back of the top of the spring seats are tearing off the chassis. Looks like time to get out the mig welder, but before I dig into this, I'm hoping some might have some input.
Is this common? It looks like the only attachment is fore and aft. The front side is fine but obviously the back side is torn on both sides. Yes, this car has the signs of a fender bender in the front left, but it doesn't look like it was that severe a hit.
My plan is to pull the engine, pull all suspension, clean it up, weld the cracks, and then add reinforcement tabs over where it has cracked. Thinking should drill some holes in the reinforcement tabs to plug weld as well as welding on edges. Thinking it would also be good to weld the inner fender edge to the cross member, at least on the wheel side, but perhaps not the engine compartment side. In the course of looking at all this, the inner skirt where the steering box attaches is flexing under load. Thinking I should fabricate a reinforing plate to either bolt on between the box and skirt or perhaps even weld a reinforcement on.
Thoughts? I'll happily take any pointers from someone who's been here before. I've pulled off redoing rockers before, cutting out/redoing rear shock towers in a long gone BMW etc., so think I've got the skill to do this, but it's definitely a new adventure here
Thanks in advance!