Rear Lower Sill Panel, Offside - Part 1

Now that the majority of the rear lamp panel work is done (it just needs attention to filled areas), I reckon I can actually see a tiny speck of daylight at the end of the tunnel. In theory, the remaining bodywork jobs to be done, involving welding, are:

1. Rear lower sills, inners and outers;
2. Inner and outer rear arches
3. Upper area of windscreen surround/roof panel.

After that it will be a case of going over the whole car, grinding down welds, filling here and there, waxoyling, priming and painting. But that's all a long way off, so for today I decided to remove the offside rear lower sill panel(s). The inner on this side appeared more sound than the one on the near, so my intention was to first remove the outer and see what I was left with.

Having drilled away the spot welds on the panel edges and in the boot, the outer came away quite nicely and was devoid of the mass of fibreglass matting seen on the nearside. However, all was not well with the inner and it was clear that any hope of repairing it was gone. Drilling out the spot welds in the boot floor was pretty easy, but gosh I had forgotten how awkward to get to the ones to the inner arch are. Having "Houdini'd" myself with the drill, I remembered that on the nearside I actually cut the panel off along the wheelarch flange, then removed the remnants with a grinder.

As this realisation dawned, I put down the drill and decided to put some paint on the recently repaired & primed wing-rear lamp panel, arches, door shut and nosecone. I told myself that I was doing it to keep the moisture out until the areas are painted properly - which is probably sensible - but to be honest I just wanted to paint something for the fun of seeing new paint on the car. Obviously this paint is very temporary and the car will be completely prepared and nicely painted when the bodywork is done. By the way, the car should be painted in Flamenco but Halford's only had Vermilion.

The therapy worked wonders. And may I just say how good Halfords "rattle cans" are?