Right Front strut mount section

[JBC]

Does this picture show a problem. Not sure about the cracks and roughness. Comments please. JBC

[schumicat]

there is some tar-like rustproofing covering the strut tower. if that is what is cracked/rough, it isn't an issue. you can scrape the rest of it off if you want it to look better (make sure to prime/paint if you end up with bare metal).

[Bob Kontak]

It looks like the weld seams what hold the mounting structural piece in are rusted and have cracked like you say. Someone may have painted some tar over it to hide the structural defect. Here is my 81 passenger fender.

[Bob Kontak]

However - this does not mean it IS rusted - it just looks like it. It may have been auto crossed (or not) and those are just stress cracks in the undercoating from flex a street car may not experience.

[JBC]

The Carfax documents that this 911 had an incident with a ditch - front impact into a ditch. The pics of the wheel well (with the tire removed) look great - everything looks original (wear and tear), etc. I post some pics.

[JBC]

Pics of the passenger wheel well.

[Bob Kontak]

Good on the pics. I would lift the front trunk lid and stand at the side of the car and rock it side to side. Be careful as a 911 does not move much and you could put too much pressure in the wrong place. Then look for any movement at that seam for starters.

For your safety it is a must to strip the bad looking areas down to where they are joined to look at it. Those are the pics you want to post.

If it is not your car I would not buy it without a professional assessment. If it is you car, I would make sure there is integrity for safety reasons. I would hire a professional for that as well.

If it checks out then you can clean it up and make it look better than it does now. If it does not check out, suck it up and get it fixed - not necessarily a perfect fix - just one where it is as strong or stronger than the original. No need to die when a good welder can lay some more metal in there.

Don't forget alignment checks and so forth. There may be way more or way less going on than what meets the eye. Just make sure.

[Bob Kontak]

Wheel well does look ok. I would get a heavy wire brush and scrapers and get down to business and check out that seam. That piece is not the wheel well. You won't make it look any worse than it does now.

The beads that look like big welds are mostly goop to seal where the panels meet.

Keep us posted.

[JBC]

Bob,

Okay, thanks. This needs more investigation for sure. I'm looking to buy this one. Because of the documented accident, I might move on.

JBC

[KTL]

Like schumicat said, that material shown in your initial pictures is the weather sealant the factory used on every 911 to "waterproof" the strut mount area. The reason they did this is because the strut mount doesn't meet completely flush with the chassis strut tower. So in wet weather you can get leakage into the trunk via the bolt holes and the large center opening of the tower where the strut mount rubber bushing comes thru.

You can remove the bulk of this stuff with a heat gun and then do final cleanup with a solvent like adhesive remover. I removed it because I needed to get the car aligned. You can see in your pictures that there are big chunks of the crud around the strut mount and bolt holes, which makes it rather difficult for the guy doing the alignment to adjust the position of the mount & bolts during the alignment process.

I re-sealed it with some rope caulk like you'd use for sealing window leaks in your home windows. The rope caulk is somewhat non-hardening, so you can remove it fairly easy and it smushes aside when doing the alignment work. One problem- it's WHITE.

[RWebb]

I used 3M BLACK! strip caulk, aka dum-dum on the mounts.


I'd investigate the seams on the unit body for that car tho. -- they look a bit odd to me.