ive been clearing out the engine bay in my shadow so i can get the car prepped for paint since its warm enough to work outside now.
unfortunately after closer inspection, the lower front crossmember where the transmission mount attaches to was rusted out. it was difficult to see at first because its 3 layers of sheetmetal spot welded together but the oval shaped opening in the top piece of sheetmetal was showing bulging from the pice underneath it.
so i drilled out the spot welds and removed the top plate- its toast
the layer of metal underneath that was also toast- rusting from the inside out, straight up cabbage
here you can see both pieces, the top plate and the section of the 2nd plate that i cut out
as you can see it was pretty bad
fortunately the U-channel was clean and rust free underneath
after seeing a few guys on here reinforce that area since the trans mount bolts up there i decided to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. i got a pice of 3/16" steel 6" x 12" and welded it up in place
dont mind the jagged edge, the guy at the steel shop did that. i didnt see the point of smoothing it out perfectly straight since i was going to lay a big fat bead right there anyway
plate all welded in
plug welded the original spot weld locations. welding upside down really sucks...
i also seam welded the edges
after a quick shot of rattle can primer its all solid and ready to roll
only thing i need to do is cut that corner off at a 45 degree angle, if i dont im sure that will rip up my hands at least once or twice.
i was going to prep everything with weld-through primer but that stuff was unbelievably expensive- $32.80 for a spray can of the stuff. screw that, i hosed it down with regular primer instead.
i checked the mount and it fits perfect , everything lines up spot on. i may grind the spot welds down some on the back side where the mount rests so it sits flat like its supposed to. instead of messing with studs im just going to use grade 8 bolts of the same size.
only took me an afternoon to do and the lower core support is much stronger than it was before, and i only burned myself once
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