After the whole thing with the hood (which has been dipped and is waiting for the future in a nice coat of primer) I set upon replacing the taillight panel since it's rusty in a lot of places. For this I had to deconstruct the whole rear. Knowing that welding was required I first removed the fuel tank and lines as I did not want my car to go up in flames.
When I was ready to drill out the spotwelds I thought were holding the panel in place, I found out I was not the first person to do this as the panel was alreay brazed... Great, I had to put a torch to my car to get it out of there.
After a few very exciting hours of setting the rear on fire and exploding fume clouds (I did this outside, obviously!) the panel came out.
The next few months I spent on removing the bumper brackets inside the trunk only to find out rot underneath. Also around the fillerneck opening it was pretty rusty so I put 3 patches in the trunk floor. This was all good welding and metal shaping practice!
Eventually it was time to start putting the new panel in. First I welded the trunk latch support back onto it:
Then I prepped all the edges that were to come in contact with the new panel. I drilled new holes and prepared old ones:
Then One more round of sanding all the spots to be plug-welded. Panel ready:
Car ready:
And voila, it's in!
Very pleased with the results and also a little bit proud of doing this all myself :-)
