Getting repaired now. Had to move a few things around to line everything up nice and close the crack up....it had opened to about 1/16". Once the crack is welded inside the wheel well I'll probably use a jack against the engine block to push the reinforcing plate wings back out against the shock tower(it's only in the front it's pulled out a bit)...and then weld the wings onto the tower inside the engine compartment.

The nice thing is that the flux core I have turned up, penetrating like a beast. Single pass, no more crack, nice wide and clean weld.

Heh, though some of the dirt resting below the control arm was partly grease i found it....it caught fire the first weld I made. Blasted with the hose and it went out in about 1/2 a second.

 

how on earth did you crack the shock tower?

 

I dunno. The car IS 45 years old you know. Metal cracks sometimes, maybe it had a dimple in it from manufacturing the created a stress point and it finally cracked. It could be from all the hard cornering I do as well, the force combined with some minor weakness. The problem is that once even a tiny crack starts, it continues to grow if it's not stopped.

 

I have seen lots of cracked shock towers in my time. My '70 Mach had them, my '69 Torino did as well. I have also seen cracks on others also.
They are mostly stress cracks caused by age, or abuse normal or otherwise, or both.
Lynn

 

On mine ever since I had it, the reinforcing plate inside the engine compartment that the upper a arm bolts to....on the passenger side it's always been pulled away slightly from the tower itself. Just moved around with age and it seems to have finally cracked.

It's repaired now, for the most part. Some of the crack I couldn't get to, where it runs behind the zerk fitting at the end of the a arm. It didn't crack through the bolt hold, and it's welded at both ends now so the crack should stop spreading. 90% of it though was above the a arm working it's way up the tower, which is all welded up now. It shouldn't be a problem for now, but at some point I'll probably have to pull the a arm and weld the last bit up. As long as it doesn't try to keep cracking though it's not an issue, especially once I weld the reinforcing plate to the tower.

 

In my experience, every 67-70 Mustang I have seen with cracked towers had aftermarket wheels with a positive offset, or used to.