[njsteve]

I have the Gramma car back at the local shop. He had an opening for some quick work and told me I could bring her down after i pulled the fuel tank out. The original inner and outer rear valance panels were rusted at the bottom flange from winter use by Gramma back in the 1970's. It was a terrible design that just trapped the salt and mud from the tires and held it in place with no real access for a hose to flush it out.

When I had the car painted 25 years ago the repro panels were not available. So I had to wait a couple decades for parts availability to catch up.

Happily, Santa brought me these two panels a couple Christmases ago. The shame is that we only needed the lower six inches or so of the tail panel so 75% of that $300 panel is going to waste. He was able to remove the inner panel at the factory welds and was installing that as of today.

I am getting all the underside stuff done in advance of a future paint job. This way when it comes time for paint, it will just involve sanding, massaging, and painting and no rust repairs. (resulting in a briefer sentence in bodyshop prison I hope).