well working on my tlaon today i bro noticed some "rust" on my pass side shock tower...i then said "tap it lightly with a hammer to see if it goes through"...lol well he didnt want too so i did so i tap it with a rubber hammer and damn it it just crubled

most of it is near the bolt that holds the ac lines so now on top of fixing my accident damamge i gotta fix this or its just goin to get worse.

so how the hell do i go about fixing this? i was thinking on maybe goin to the bone yard and cutting that tower out of a good car and welding it in

what do you guys think?


oh and i searched and found topics on it but no answers to how to fix it

here is a search i did on tuners... it has some useful info...good luck

It would probably be best to cut out all of the rust and just use flat stock and weld it on there.

But if you are confident and think you can weld in a whole tower in the exact same spot as the original, I would say go for the whole new tower.

Originally posted by daes_venge
It would probably be best to cut out all of the rust and just use flat stock and weld it on there. But if you are confident and think you can weld in a whole tower in the exact same spot as the original, I would say go for the whole new tower.

Yea I doubt your going to get it exact angle, and what not and thats going to throw it out of alignment.

If I were you I would just cut out all the rust, spray it some with undercoating or primer so it doesnt keep rusting, and weld in a nice chunk of sheetmetal over top of it. This way you would have the same angle and whatever else. I would then grind down the weld and paint it so it doesnt rust and you wouldnt even know it was welded in :)

Originally posted by eclipse982nrRST

Originally posted by daes_venge It would probably be best to cut out all of the rust and just use flat stock and weld it on there. But if you are confident and think you can weld in a whole tower in the exact same spot as the original, I would say go for the whole new tower.

Yea I doubt your going to get it exact angle, and what not and thats going to throw it out of alignment. If I were you I would just cut out all the rust, spray it some with undercoating or primer so it doesnt keep rusting, and weld in a nice chunk of sheetmetal over top of it. This way you would have the same angle and whatever else. I would then grind down the weld and paint it so it doesnt rust and you wouldnt even know it was welded in :)

thats what im goin to do, i gotta pull the engine so my built one can go in anyhow so might aswell do it then

You can get a fender apron from the dealer. Part # MR273785.

id say just weld it up . get some sheetmetal and cut out the shape .tack it in place then hammer is to the general curve so it sits flush all the way around then keep tacking it every inch or so .tack 1 side then the oppsite side to keep from warping .grind welds then body fill it or just spray some etching primer if good and paint

i talked to a body shop about mine, because i have a hole on the passenger side. If you take it to a shop, unless you replace the entire apron, they REFUSE to even touch it. The guy said this happens alot on older dodge caravans. and once it gets too bad the strut goes through the tower and well, you can imagine what happens after that. Most shops don't want to be held liable for mishaps that can happen when shit breaks like that.

Originally posted by hazardeclipse
i talked to a body shop about mine, because i have a hole on the passenger side. If you take it to a shop, unless you replace the entire apron, they REFUSE to even touch it. The guy said this happens alot on older dodge caravans. and once it gets too bad the strut goes through the tower and well, you can imagine what happens after that. Most shops don't want to be held liable for mishaps that can happen when shit breaks like that.

And for good reason. Just get the apron and do it right.

does anyone know how hard this will be to line up? i can weld and stuff thats not the problem i just dont want it to be all out of alighnment when im done.

Originally posted by hazardeclipse
i talked to a body shop about mine, because i have a hole on the passenger side. If you take it to a shop, unless you replace the entire apron, they REFUSE to even touch it. The guy said this happens alot on older dodge caravans. and once it gets too bad the strut goes through the tower and well, you can imagine what happens after that. Most shops don't want to be held liable for mishaps that can happen when shit breaks like that.

how much did they qoute you for the work?

welp i got the part form satan ended up costing me 306 and some change

got a qoute tho to do the work and it came to 2k...lol

so needless to say ill be fixing this myself, but to be hohnest it dont look that bad the part is really not that big and you can see were they coated the seams of the welds in soem rubber stuff from the factory, so ill just cut the old one out and weld the new one it i dont even think ther is goin to be much alighning of the new part either jsut drop in and weld sorta thing

yea $2000 was how much they told me...

I think you're going about it all wrong, the rust in the panel was God's way of saying build a chromoly tubular front-end.