AFhokie

So I'm playing with my 3.2 today and I noticed when I had the carpet up in the luggage compartment that the strut towers looked unusual. Upon further inspection, it appears both strut towers were covered in black body filler and it is now cracking and crumbling. Has anyone ever seen anything like this? I can't imagine this is some factory treatment.

The car has no rust, has never been sprayed, and to the best of my knowledge has never been in an accident.

Check out the attached pictures. I'm scared why anyone would do this. What am I missing here?

WPOZZZ

My 85 was like that.

wildcat077

That is standard on most cars,it's some sort of tar from the factory ... i suggest you remove it as some alignment shops don't take too kindly to that stuff and will charge you extra for the removal and cleaning of the camber/strut plate area !

Cheers
Phil

500

Absolutely normal. The factory applied a think tar-like substance to completely water seal that area. However, by now that sealer is very hard and brittle.

AFhokie

What a relief. Thanks guys.

redridge

My mechanic use a heat gun to soften the material (rather than scraping) if they need to make adjustments...

theiceman

If you take it off you should tape off and respray with rubberized body sealer. As mentioned it keeps water out of your luggage compartment.

rusnak

Yup. It's not that bad of an idea to scrape it off and to make sure that the metal is sound, free of rust, and has no cracks. Then seal it back up.

Amber Gramps

It also dampens vibration and noise.