Front crossmember rotted out and laying on stabilizer bar...

[jimdigs]

....I guess I found where the clunking noise was coming from. The front transmission mount is attached to this crossmember so that is not good. Any way to fix this? I have no welding experience at all. The front weight of the thing is resting on the stabilizer bar. Dang, still don't have 100,000 miles on this car.

[skeeters_keeper]

This is a fairly common problem. You can go all out and build a new radiator support as Charlie has done (and Gomez has a lot of pictures in his build thread). But if you just want to keep your stocker on the road that's a bit overkill... here's a thread with a few ideas:

http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/showthread.php?43895-Crossmember-rotted-out&highlight=crossmember+fix

The condition of the rest of the radiator support will dictate how much you have to do. If it's mostly just in the area where the bolts go through you can probably get a long piece of flat stock and slide it in there and either weld it in place or bolt it in place, with nuts welded on the backside or cut access holes to hold the nuts with a socket.

[jimdigs]

Thanks for the reply and info.