Body rust... eww

Yeah, I knew my car had a little body rust on the passenger side strut tower so today I decided to sand it all down and primer it. Well after sanding for a bit I noticed the rust is like the whole entire front side of the tower. I tapped the area with a wrench and it put a hole right through the upper metal. The lower metal does not seem like it is rusting... yet. I think I'm going to take it to a body shop sometime here soon and see how much it will cost to fix this rust. The rust is far beyond my capabilities to repair. Anyone have a similiar problem like this? I think I've seen a few other eclipses with rust in the same exact spot before. It there a reason for this?

I think that's the spot the water runs down inbetween the fender and the hood, if I understand where are you talking about.

Mine has it bad too on both sides. I am going to attempt to fix it tomorrow. Wish me luck. :wink:


I'll take some pictures of the before and after if it turns out good. I'm hoping it won't need anything cut out and welded in... :uhoh:

Didn't EZ's GSX have this same problem. I pretty sure it is in the same place that you guys are talking about. His was rusted so bad that the shock busted through the tower and out the hood. There should be a thread on here about how he fixed it.

Didn't EZ's GSX have this same problem. I pretty sure it is in the same place that you guys are talking about. His was rusted so bad that the shock busted through the tower and out the hood. There should be a thread on here about how he fixed it.
He bought an entire inner fender and rewelded it to the frame... My friend and I actually looked at that same car and we woulda got it first if he didn't live so much closer to it than us. lol :wink:

Its really not that hard of a fix if you have the time and will. Usually its best to do it with the motor out if you have to do any major cutting and/or welding of the strut tower...

Yeah, I would attempt this myself but, I neither have the time or skills for a job like this. The body shop will deffinatly have to cut out a good portion of the tower and weld a piece back in. This is deffinatly out of my hands although I wish it wasn't... this one is gonna cost me a pretty penny.

My buddies Eclipse is like that but it's not bad enough where it's rusting through yet. But I'm painting his car this week so I think we're going to try and repair it. What you're probably going to have to do though is have the whole strut tower replaced with either a new one or a used one that's in good condition.

Nah, you don't gotta replace the whole thing... I just came in from working on mine and I cut out some pretty good sized sections but I'm gonna weld in new pieces. I think its a lot cheaper and easier than replacing the whole tower.

I'll post up some pictures a little bit later here. :wink:

Just make sure you get out every little bit of rust that there is, even the shit under the paint, otherwise you'll be doing the same thing again probably 2 years down the road.

Oh I know, I'm doing this all right... I am even thinking about making my own splash guard in the wheel wells and sealing them all up... :)