Rear Valance, Removal

Monday night, a school night as they say, but determined, and inspired, to keep up the momentum,

Decided to start removing the rear valance assembly,

As you can see, it is very holed.

i ran the wire brush in the angle grinder along the seam of spot weld, then centre punched all the marks, this allows me to drill out a small pilot with a 6mm drill bit, but not all the way through.
Then i used an 8mm to go a bit futher, using a circling motion with the drill bit to ease out the spot weld.
I finished off with a 10mm bit, bit excessive, but it really thinned the metal out, and because this is the rubber bumper, it is quite heavily plated at certain points.

this will take more than an hour or two, hopefully i will catch more time on this this week.

CONTINUED,

Did some more work tonight, its hard work planning the cuts to remove this, and have removed more, im trying to keep the chassis rail intact as much as i can.

you can see from the above photos that this side of the rear spring hanger are poor too, and holed.

No surprises there then, so that will require replacement too. I have taken this friday off work to allow a calm and measured approach to the final welding of the other side, i sholudnt be playing with this side at all, as the structure is weak enough. I have to install some bracing at the same time, and that is neccesary as I gear up towards the sill work required. If you dont brace at this stage the your car can go all funny shapes, and doors and shut lines are ruined. I off to have a coffee and calm down before i remove andy more metal (or should i say rust!)