This is my second crack discovery. Same place. This one is very early and is only 1" long and easily welded. Lucky to catch it now before it gets really bad.

Another one, cleaned up for welding. You can clearly see the crack here.

Thanks for catching this and patching her up!

How does the outside under the black rocker panel look?

I have seen nearly identical cracks in the middle of the longs like that (both drivers side and passenger side.

I think there must be a stress concentration near that location.

I remember reading a long time ago in an old UpFixin that this was an area that should have the cage attached to (in a caged car). (They had a car on a sort of a vibration machine to determine node points/chassis weak points for a cage installation)

This is also another good reason to do the Engman (or similar) inner long reinforcement. The floor in the area just below this area can also begin to tear.



just my $0.02

do i smell a sawzall party coming on : )

jim

No.

He sure nipped that in the bud!

A 1" crack and Jim is haulin' out the sawzall!

Mark,
Mine cracked in the same place. Now I have a Safety Device Cage and don't worry about the flex.
Van914

McMark: Just curious--is this a daily user, an autocross car, a track car, or what--what kind of stresses does it see? How big (hp, tx) and heavy (4, 6, or 8) is the motor? So the rest of us will know whether to get out the magnifying glass.

I purchased the car from another club member almost two years ago. He used it regularly and I suspect it also saw its share of track time at PCA events. Since purchasing it, I've only driven it maybe 5,000 miles and one autox. It has 2.0/4 in it.

The other one I've seen in person was a much larger crack, and was in a track car with a cage.

It's still worth keeping a close eye on this area in a track car. Street cars probably won't ever see a problem there.