Paint and Body Strut tower rust… how bad is it

I would remove the dist valve and wire wheel all of the external area you can get to rather than scraping.....

So by no means would this be easy but I think you can gain access to the inner part of the frame rails by removing the front bumper and bumper support to gain access to the the front bumper support brackets. Again I believe these brackets can be removed and you would have a 1-1/2” or so opening through the core support and into the inner part of the frame rails.

Hoping someone who has torn one down to this level can chime in and confirm.

Not sure how much access you would get but other than cutting a section out and then welding it back in this is about it other than the 1/2” or so size holes here and there.

AeroCoupe said:

So by no means would this be easy but I think you can gain access to the inner part of the frame rails by removing the front bumper and bumper support to gain access to the the front bumper support brackets. Again I believe these brackets can be removed and you would have a 1-1/2” or so opening through the core support and into the inner part of the frame rails.

Hoping someone who has torn one down to this level can chime in and confirm.

Not sure how much access you would get but other than cutting a section out and then welding it back in this is about it other than the 1/2” or so size holes here and there.

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The strut tower is boxed inside the the rail, so going threw the inside of the rail itself won't work unless that section of the tower is all ready rotted away... It happens. What I've done on cars that show seam rust but not rot when respraying the engine bay is drop the k member and flood it with either prep all, vinegar, or evaporust until its clean metal. might spot blast the seams to help the acid work faster, it generally doesn't harm the factory coatings just the rust..
Need to blow out / pressure wash the tower section with the k member out threw the bolt holes and middle drain hole before and after. Then blow dry and use a decent encapsulater or 2k epoxy primer and coat it with a 360 nozzle threw the holes on an under coating type of gun or aerosol can like spraymax, let it cure and paint the bay. When its done I'll go back and coat the inside of the rail with weathershed or what ever cavity wax my brother has on hand, I wouldn't worry about it trapping moisture, it's meant to displace it, you just have to kill the oxidation first.

The majority of the trash inside the rails comes from the top middle hole between the two k member bolts, then junk building up blocking the drain part of it or an aftermarket k member sealing the bottom, I either plug it or tape it off, you can see it in the pic on the post above how much more junk gets between the inner support, tower and the rail itself in that area. Its 3 sections of pretty much sheetmetal the way they built the aprons the outside rail, the strut tower, then the crush support..

The picture Mike posted opened my eyes up to how that internal structure is put together. So far I have not had any issues with my car but primarily an Oklahoma and Texas car and hasn't been driven in the rain or snow in 18 years.

This is why I all ways say these cars are rolling tin cans lol.

The crush sleeve on the fox body is designed more like an S shape turned sideways. So if your seeing rot blistering out of the rail in that area the inside is pretty much trashed at that point

Mustang5L5 said:

Here’s an SN95 rail for comparison to the fox above. I used an SN donor rail when I replaced my drivers side.

When you remove the top plate(left), there’s a welded subassembly (center) for the crush tubes. There is only two. That all drops down into the SN rail area (right). The center hole remains wide open to the interior cavisty, so moisture doesn’t affect the SN as much. They still rot out, but doesn’t seem as widespread as on the fox.

The fox has that same center hole but puts an additional crush tube over it and additional metal as shown above. The SN rail is just so much more simplified.



If I have any more pics I’ll post. I took a bunch when I repaired my rails a couple years ago.

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Is there a coating on the SN crush tube plate? Looks like there might be.

These photos explain why the outside of my ‘95’s towers still look very nice with no hint of rust.