Touring legs drilled at bottom, useless?

[nomadx]

Bit of a odd one, in my local breaker there is a touring with the front legs present. They have drilled a small hole (about4mm) on the bottom of each leg, obviously to drain the oil from the shock when depolluting the car.

Would you say the legs are now useless? Obviously the shocks are, but with the shocks replaced would these be usable? On one hand there cant be any actual load there, on the other a hole in the leg cant be good! What about just welding it up?

Thoughts?

[kevo]

they'll be fine i wouldn't worry about it, the shocks on the front are sealed anyway; if you have access to a welder i'd fill it up tho but it's not the end of the world if you don't.
cheers
Kev

[stonesie]

I would be getting the hole plugged if i had to because it is good practice to put some neat antifreeze in the strut to aid damper cooling and it also has corrosion inhibitors in it.

But my first choice would be to buy a pair of 51mm struts from someone on here as they wont be sloppy enough to drill holes in them in the first place.



Just try buying a power steering hose from a scrap yard, they've all been sliced to 'De-pollute' the car

[nomadx]

thing is, the fella at the scrappy will give these to me for nothing or very little, so if i can use them i will. I just bought a pair of AVOs sight unseen, turned up yesterday, so need to measure them to see if they are 51mm. I presume its the strut insert that is 51mm and not the leg itself?

I heard the antifreeze trick too, would copper grease not do the same job re: cooling, and a better job of preventing corrosion, antifreeze will strip any paint over time.

[stonesie]

51mm is the outside diameter of the strut tube, the smaller version is 45mm.

[daimlerman]

Always thought that a small quantity of light oil was used to cool dampers!
My gas Borge one's came with instuctions saying that a cooling fluid was not required,so the hole will not be critical,as long as it does not admit crud.