Strut reinforcement bar

[AlarmedBread]

Well, my car has a bent strut tube housing and popped some welds, cracked and ripped it from the firewall a bit. The frame is fine, its just the strut housing thats pushed in about 1". So the car would be scrapped. However the unibody is rust free, and I think it would be a shame for such a nice starting point to be junked because of this little problem. I'm considering just buying a strut bar, pulling it back untill it fits and then clamping and welding everything back into place.

While this may not be the right way to fix it, I can not justify spending $500 or more on a car that cost less than that initially. This car will mainly be used as a daily driver, and will see some autox use.

What strut bar would be best for this? I was thinking a sparco, or other no pivot type would provide the most support for the damaged side. Maybe I could be super cheap and just fab up a brace on one of my other cars and use that to fix this one? ;)

Maybe the bav auto, or even one of these

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Front-Tower-Strut-bar-BMW-E30-320-325-328-M3-84-91_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ42609QQihZ015QQitemZ250120176994QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

Keeping in mind this is not a 'performance' upgrade, mostly a safety precaution and to use as a guide in pulling the tube back to where it should be, I have the same model of car I can take measurements from so I think it shouldn't be too difficult to fix myself.

Thoughts?

[backtrail69]

Take it to a body shop and have them put it on a frame rack and straighten the chassis out. Would probably cost less than a shell. If it is too bad they will tell you.

[JasonC]

Sounds like my car, but someone fixed the strut tower on mine. But when i put on the IE strut bar i had to beat part of the tower in about 3/16" to get the bar to fit but yet the distence from top of strut to top of strut was 39 1/2" like IE called for. If you get it fixed i'm sure the strut bar will help alot.

[AlarmedBread]

Well, I got an estimate from a couple collision repair centers and they estimated around $300-500+ for pulling and welding depending on how extensive the damage is. Insurance would total my car and give me a check since this work + parts will be more that the car is worth.

The strut tube failed as it was designed to do, it popped the spot welds and didn't tear any sheet metal. It should be just as simple as pulling it back and a couple welds. I don't see any reason for the 6hr + pulling times I was quoted at shops, I've seen worse damage than this (Crumpled strut tubes/frame) fixed on cars for less at some of the same shops. This leads me to believe that they see BMW and think $$$.

I have a friend who has a frame machine, but doesn't have all the specs for an e30 (he mainly works on old muscle cars). He will pull it for $100 or so, and I don't see why that wouldn't work just as well. Since I have another car I can bring to measure it should be pretty easy for him to get it within the ballpark.

I was just curious as to which strut bar design would be best, the type with or without pivot points. The goal is to provide a little additional support to keep the tube from bending back towards the middle of the car again. I've seen that using very stiff stut bars causes alot of 3 wheeling which isn't what I want.