My first car was a 1970 VW bug 20 years ago. It got totaled the first day i got my license by a lady running a red light. I was driving through VA and saw a 1971 super for sale. The car looked to be in fair shape. I offered the seller $2,500 and he took it. So i am now the proud owner of a 1971 super. The car has 61k original miles with all service records since new. It looks like around 1999 it had a paint job and some rust repair to the heater channels(more of a patch job). Other than that it is all original down to the original charcoal canister. I took a chance on it for 2500 and drove it 1.5 Hours home.
I do not have time to do a body off restoration at the moment. Since the paint looks good i would like to fix any structural issues without pulling the body and doing any external paint work to make her a solid driver for the next few years until i have time to fully restore her.
So after i got it home and really checked her out there is a pretty good amount of rust in the front end. The curb side Strut tower is rusted through to the trunk in a couple places and the front frame head has a good amount of rust also. It looks like i can cut out the strut tower and weld in a replacement by just pulling the fender without to much trouble. But the frame head looks like the body has to come off.
The car drives fine with no shimmy or shakes at highway speed. My first thought is can i get away with putting a strut brace on her to stiffen her up and drive leave it as is for a couple years until i restore her? How common is it to have a major structural failure of the front end from rust?
How dangerous is the rust in the front end, Should i not drive the car until it is fixed?
Just picked up a 71 super, Strut tower rust saftey
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BugMan53
- Posts: 124
- Joined: Fri Aug 02, 2002 12:01 am
Just picked up a 71 super, Strut tower rust saftey
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BugMan53
- Posts: 124
- Joined: Fri Aug 02, 2002 12:01 am
Re: Just picked up a 71 super, Strut tower rust saftey
After getting a better look it seems the front frame head is pretty good just surface rust and a couple holes at the ends of the napoleon hat. The passenger strut tower has a few holes through her. Looks like i might replace the strut tower and patch up a few spots and it will be safe to drive.
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Ol'fogasaurus
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Re: Just picked up a 71 super, Strut tower rust saftey
On some of the shock towers, at the bottom is a drain hole. Look to see if it is plugged with rust, if so things could be bad or not at all. I was building a beam and had most of it done before I ran into mass rust out inside of the tower that really could not be cleaned up.BugMan53 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2020 7:24 pm After getting a better look it seems the front frame head is pretty good just surface rust and a couple holes at the ends of the napoleon hat. The passenger strut tower has a few holes through her. Looks like i might replace the strut tower and patch up a few spots and it will be safe to drive.
Lee
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Bruce2
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Re: Just picked up a 71 super, Strut tower rust saftey
Lee, he has a Super Beetle, not a std Beetle.
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Ol'fogasaurus
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