How can I make this cut on my car?

I am installing new suspension in my car (coilovers). In order for the camber plates to be accessible, I need to widen the hole opening for my strut towers inside my engine compartment. I need to make a cut similar to the one shown here - essentially I’ll be taking the “cap” off each strut tower. What would be the best tool for this? I’m thinking about a grinder of some kind?

IMO the best tool would be Google/YouTube, for your particular car model, and watch several other people do what you’re trying to do, and see how they did it.

1 - Ive already done that and very few people have installed these camber plates
2 - At core, its just a cut to the interior sheetmetal of my car. I’m going to go ahead and guess that I’m not the first DMS member to take on a similar task

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Won’t longer allen keys be a better idea?

Good question, its not about reaching down, its about the side-to-side accessibility. With the “cap” on there you cannot slide to all of the available settings to the extreme sides. So removing the cap makes it wider, not necessarily more shallow

Angle grinder seems to be the first obvious choice.
I would use a hacksaw or similar after scribing where to make the cut.
Good luck, that area’s one of the toughest on a car.

If by “widening” you mean you’ll be removing that upturned flanged ring you’ll likely be compromising the designed strength integrity that the flange provides. If not needed they would have been eliminated to save weight and manufacturing cost (much simpler stamping die).

If others have done it without problems, then probably okay, but when you see even a small flange in stamped/sheet metal think “strength and rigidity”. That’s why yo see so many of them.

can we see a “before” pic, so we know what we’re actually talking about?

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Additionally how thick it is. That might be a good case for a nibbler.

Great question and this was surprisingly hard to find. This picture should give you an idea if you line it up with the pic in my OP. You can see that you can choose to cut from either the top or the side and it would achieve the desired results.

image

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That area is pretty thick.

Is it the same car? The stamped details, and number of bolts holding the shock mount to the shock tower seem to suggest it’s a different car.

How about just grinding away this much to allow for the shock to clear?

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That’s not a bad suggestion. You think an angle grinder will do it?

Yup, or a die grinder. Either one whichever gives you more working room. It’s going to be slow going with either since that area is thick/er than most of the rest of the sheet metal. You may want to do it with the shock removed from the car to avoid accidental damage.

P.S. A drill might work as well. Drill out a line of holes tracing the cut you want to make. Not sure what’s going to be faster, but a drill might allow you to make the end result prettier.

Track car?

For whatever my opinion is worth:

I think “the right way” to do this is with a body saw, e.g.


I don’t think DMS has one, or anything like, but I could be wrong.

“Sawzall” recip saws


could work, but they’re probably too big.
Need to use a metal-cutting blade

Likewise using a “regular” jigsaw

with a metal cutting blade

Or using a “mulitool”

with a metal cutting blade

Or, as mentioned, an angle grinder (which we DO have)

probably with an ablative “cuttoff wheel”

Or maybe one of them newfangled “diamond metal cutting blades”
https://www.homedepot.com/p/RIDGID-4-5-in-Metal-Cutting-Diamond-Blade-HD-MTL45/204202513

In fact, there might be other tools which can use such a “cutoff wheel” type device, e.g. dremel tools, floating around.

My experience with similar projects says the oscillating tool will likely give good results, but be really, really slow. The ablatives will give ugly but quicker results that are very messy. Drilling could work, but I expect to end up using one of the other methods anyway (but that might get most of the “meat” out of the way so you can “cleanup” with an ablative…). I still think the the “best” would be the small, usually air powered, reciprocating saws (“body saw”, as from Eastwood, above), but of the things DMS has on hand, probably the angle grinder and ablative cutoff wheels are what’ll get it done. And lots of patience. And cleanup.
Pics or it didn’t happen.
:+1:

I think we have this in Milwaukee clothing. Might actually be the fastest(but still slow :laughing: ) among all the methods.

Video would be more satisfying to watch I think . :smiley:

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how about a die grinder with a cutting wheel, then follow up with a carbide rotary file to fine tune it, then finish off with a scotch bright disk to debur and smooth out. Just my 2c on how I would do it.

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