Gerahead's 71 Dart

No takers on the question, but I changed my strategy anyway. Instead of drilling through the spot welds, I cut out most of the old extension, pretty close to the pinchwelds. Then I cut through the spot welds with a cutting wheel from the outer side, leaving the wheel house, trunk floor and taillight panel flanges unmolested. I had to cut through a couple of stitch welds at the rear trunk brace, but I could get at them pretty easily. There were two spot welds that I had to drill out because from the back side they were covered by the tail light panal brace. The flanges cleaned up really nice after I dollied them back straight and the replacement panel fit in really nicely with everything cleaned up. I cut the hole for the evaporator stack going through the trunk floor and just need to clean up the edges with a die grinder, punch a few holes for plug welds and get after it with my Lincoln and I will finally be able to start hanging the new quarter on that side. L8r
Photos: trimmed, cleanded and test fit.