S13 strut top rust repair

[d6yme-crx]

The front of my drivers strut top has had a bad patch welded onto it in the past and it is rusting again. I am wondering if anyone had done a strut top repair before that can give me advise.

I will be cutting the full strut out of my mate’s breaker and using a section of that to do the repair because it is already shaped the right way.


Pics on the easiest way to remove the bracket from the chassis leg to strut top would be good i have got spot weld drills And all the tools needed just not sure if this piece of bracket will need replaced or can i just stitch weld the strut top to the chassis leg

[Jonny Wilkinson]

I'm in the process of doing this at the moment. Just need to spot weld the new brackets on.

Just unbolt the wing, drill out the spot welds and lift the plate off.

Underneath will be worse than you can imagine. I got as much surface rust off as possible then used BH Deox-C to remove the rest then sprayed with BH EtchWeld weld-through primer.

A new plate is simple to make but you can just stitch-weld the inner wing to the strut top.

I'll post some pics when I get home but work don't allow access to photobucket

[LED sandwich]

Is also be interested to see your pics johnny

[Jonny Wilkinson]

Is also be interested to see your pics johnny

I bet you say that to all the boys

I'll post them tonight.

[Jonny Wilkinson]

Before...but after I'd unbolted the wing.


I used a spot weld drillbit of 8mm to drillthrough just far enough to allow the plate to lift, drilling the holes left to right and lifting the plate as I went. You can see where I've drilled the spot welds. Most are obvious as dimples in the upper plate.



I then hoovered up the swarf and used an abrasive disk to remove the surface rust. I then cleaned and treated it with Deox-Gel, covered it in cling film and left it for 2 days.



Cleaning off the gel and drying it (important if you don't want the rust back) I then went over it with the abrasive disk and a wire wheel to get it shiny.



I sprayed it with Etchweld which is a weldthrough primer.



I left it at that and started making a replacement for the bracket. Now bear in mind I've never made anything out of metal and I did woodwork not metalwork at school...40 years ago. I don't have any fancy tools just a set of tinsnips, a hammer and lug set, some files and a metalwork vice.

Take a lump of metal...



Draw round the old one and cut roughly to shape using tin snips.



Hit it with a hammer and file it until it is this shape, drill some holes in it et voila as the French like to say



Sprayed it up with Etchweld and I'm soon going to drill some 2-3mm holes in it and spot weld it back on. Need to learn to weld first though

[LED sandwich]

Looks like a great start mate, i have a tiny it of rust one one of mine. Maybe thats worth worting at some point, i still need to pick the right colour for the bay.

How is your welding coming allong?

[Jonny Wilkinson]

The rust on mine didn't look bad but the trouble is they rot from underneath. There are drain holes at each end of the seam that are hidden by the bracket. As a result a nice mulch of leaves and salt water find its way up into the seam and sits there rotting the crap out of everything.

I'm tempted to weld the seam and flat is before I put the plate on.

My welding is still not good enough for me to weld these on without worrying but its getting there. I'll have to bite the bullet at some point soon.

I've got some pics of the painted parts but they are on a different computer. I'll try to remember to post them up when I get chance.

[LED sandwich]

Great stuff mate, just practice some plugs with your sheet metal, they should be nice and simple.