whats with the tears in the engine bay on the sides by the strut towers?

about 6 inches i guess in front of the strut towers i have on the driver side tears in the metal of the bay. what is this from and how do i fix it? just weld it up or can i brace it or what?

both sides have this dent :



is that normal? passenger side ^ is fine. but driver side:



has those 2 tears in it. just weld them up?

Mmmm...Gonna go look at mine right now, never even look at the most obvious places. I would think brace it from underneath?

my friend here has a couple foxes and one of his was doing it too. he said its just stress from turning hard and driving it. anyone else have ideas?

Well i hope that's not it!

No accidents?? I dont think my car has that. Definitely not the one on the driver side. The one on the passenger side is a factory beer holder for when your working on your car.

I'd get a carfax and see what that car's been through. Tearing is a result of torsion or flexing. I believe those inner aprons are 20 gauge sheet metal, they won't just tear or split for no reason. If you have never had your front clip off I'd pull it and check the rad and core support for signs of collisions.

If you don't have full length subframe connectors I'd also recommend investing in some.

i have the carfax saved it is clean as can be. i rear ended someone a little while ago i guess thats it, but im pretty sure the other one i saw that had this wasnt wrecked either. the impact just utilized the impact bumpers, and the front is fine. more stuff behind the bumper is probably messed up but it cant be that bad.



thats after i rearended a guy. it just messed up the paint right there on the driver side casue the bumper flexed in. no major collisions other than that.

edit: ive had full length griggs subframes for the past couple years now.

pretty sure thats a sign of your car being wrecked

my 95 has those, can't remember if my old 89 coupe did or not.

yeah just seems crazy that my little rear ending can tear those. im 120 percent positive it was never wrecked before i owned it. so just weld it up?

if there was no insurance claim it may not show up on a car fax, not all shops report repair work (cash under the table)

yeah, i was gonna say. Carfax wont show an accident if it wasnt repaired under a claim obviously. This a 04 stang at my buddies shop gettin 3k dollars worth of damage gettin fixed out of pocket because the driver was drunk and went out of control off the road. He limped the car home and wasnt about to call the insurance company lol.

i mean im pretty sure its what i did, the rearending. not from the previous owner. no one needs to try this hard to tell me my car was wrecked when i bought it, im pretty positive it wasnt. now again... just weld these? or brace them somehow?

I think those tears are pretty normal. I took a look at my car and has them. I also looked at some pics in the project threads and they're there! Here are some pics I googled, where the tears are also present.

I agree with Pedro - those are normal. Mine has them. I remember them from when I smoothed my engine bay. I just posted this pic in another thread, but I guess I'll post it here too...

Crush zones for wrecks. Both of my 90's had them.

soo..... should i just weld them or weld them and put plates over them.....

honestly, if it were my car (which im particular about) I would just weld them and not put any plates over them.

yeah i was thinking that a good weld would hold it i just think its also a weak point so im just worried it will do it again

Take an 1/8th inch drill bit and drill out the end of the crack and then weld it up. I've seen a TON of foxes with tears. These cars flex alot and you cant expect much from a 17+ year old car.