1972 Duster , starting to tear into the build

KCBones said
Exactly what I was thinking. I think I'll cut the outer sheet metal far enough up to allow access to the inner brace and then mark and cut the inner brace as necessary, bold the new brace in place, trim to fit, and tack in place before I remove the fender from the car to do the outer patch. I'm hoping that way I can make sure everything lines up like it should before I remove all the front sheet metal for some other work I need to do.

should work , was lucky on mine as there was only about 2 spot welds to deal with on the side that is a pinch weld and 2 spot welds on bottom , I was able to bend out the folded lip and cut free and then 2 on bottom were easy , mine was a very easy fix ,