Need some experienced advice, One last obstacle before paint Options

[Phoenix914]

Hello, group. This is my second post here, the first being in the "How did you get into 914's?" thread. I've been mostly lurking for the past few weeks since signing up on 914 Club just before the time of troubles. Today I'm appealing to the collective for advice and possibly real-person help with what to me is a big problem. I'm so close to sending this car to the paint shop, but one obstacle is in my way. The original owner at some point had the front turn signals filled in. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/barf.gif) I wish to un-fill them. I thought it was maybe just body filler, but you can see below there is some steel welded in place below all that bondo.

I'm not good at any kind of body work. I don't have the expertise or tools to cut this metal out of my way. Can any of you guys give me some advice or assistance to get this problem fixed? I know one of my problems is that I live in southern Delaware. Don't know if anybody is close to me or not, but I'm willing to drive to someone's place. It would also be nice to just have one of you more experienced guys take a gander at this car, since I've been working on it for almost four years now with almost no help at all, and nobody who knows anything about 914's.

Well, take a look and tell me what you think...

From the side


From the front


From under the fender


The other side


Thanks for any help you can offer. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beer.gif)

Bryan Greenly

[Phoenix914]

Well, the more you guys respond, the better I'm starting to feel. The reason I decided to try this myself in the first place was that the body/paint guy gave me an estimate of 20 hrs. to do this job. That translated to $800. WTF? That's a lot of money. Honestly, I did cut through a small portion of one of the welds with my dremmel. It took a long time and I saw where I could potentially F up some good metal with that method. Some of the welds are pretty ugly and hard to judge where the seam is beneath.

Any more takers for the torch/melt the weld method? This sounds like the least invasive way to tackle it. Then just grind down what's left?

I'll get back in there and remove the rest of the filler from both sides before doing any cutting or grinding. Who knows how the other side looks.

[jasons]

Any more takers for the torch/melt the weld method? This sounds like the least invasive way to tackle it. Then just grind down what's left?

I was going to suggest MAPP gas, but I don't know if you can get all the brazing off and you will probably end up grinding it anyway. Also, be careful heating the panel too much, it will warp. This applies to a grinder too.