The leaking water also pooled up in the area where the upper body structure attaches to the area near the door hinge mounts, making a hole. Zach patched up this area, too. The botched windshield replacement created a whole bunch of problems for this car!
Being an old car, we noticed that a lot of spot welds in the front of the chassis were separating, and the seams were starting to spread. Because our lower core support had the welds fail and was hardly being held on we decided to seam weld the entire front of the car. Newer cars have a lot more welds, and the weld penetration is much better. These early 80’s cars are nowhere near as strong, and metal fatigue is killing them.
Zach tig welded every structural seam in the front of the car.
You can see the extensive seam welding here.
T3 has come out with a chassis gusset set. These gussets emulate the gussets that Kenich Tsuchya did on his famous street/track AE86 and are also pretty close to the TRD Group A rally car reinforcement kit. These wedge-shaped gussets reinforce the frame rail to firewall to the shock tower area. It is not even welded from the factory!
