The left side turned into a much larger issue, from a seemingly, small area.
I cut out the side panel and when I saw how rusty the whole bottom 8" was, I cut off the front panel too and eventually the rest of the side panel and drilled out all the spot welds. I wire wheeled and sanded all the rust that I could reach and then treated it with a rust encapsulator.
In the process of all this removal, I discovered a misplaced panel and the spot welds to the firewall weren't holding anything. The panel had been allowed to be too far forward and was spot welded in place to the body mount supports. I drilled out those welds, pulled the panel tight with drill screws, clamped the support brackets together and welded it all up.
Then it could move on with the "tulip" panel as some call it.
