I was getting a creak from the drivers front suspension when I accelerated or braked. First thing I did was check the tightness of the three bolts that hold the strut rod mount in, they were all good n' tight. Then I noticed the crack in the firewall. It was kind of peeling away from the firewall, or so I thought untill I pulled up the carpet on the inside. The bolt that holds the transmission crosmember and the strut rod plate is pushing the whole firewall in and up towards the brake pedal. I'd say it's moved in about half an inch. The seam that runs up the side of the tranny tunnel is pulling apart, and if you put a light under the car, you can see it through 3 cracks.

 

I'll be carefull driving it to school and back tomorrow, and then I'll have to see if I can weld in enough patches to keep the floorpan down. I'm not sure quite how yet.

wow... does this thing suffer from cancer? Unibody failure is a scary thing to think about... I'm gonna go find my mommy now.

Dude I'd bust out the welder asap. Scrub and sand the living crap out of any rust you see and then do it some more and weld large 1/8th inch steel panels over anything that looks damaged.

I agree that ...thats pretty scarey.Grab some pics of it if you can... You have one of my biggest fears about my XT6 right now..( my front rails are toast) and I would really like to see where this damage is to keep an eye out for similar on my cars......Dam this North East rust!

The rust is killing it in the back, but it's clean up where the body is failing up front. I bent the strut rod into a banana shape 2? or 3 years ago, and it damaged where the lift blocks hook in. We made a setup of linked liftblocks to triangulate them, but I think that hit may have concaved that area a bit. After a couple years of abusive driving, the concave area just spread and pushed in further. It creaks every time you hit the gas or brakes, esp. the brakes. I'll work on it tomorrow after I get out of school at 2pm.