Holy Moley!

We started by drilling out all of the spot welds we could see on top. Here you can see how many there are!

Side Splitting

Then we split the seams/spot welds with an old wood chisel that had seen better days (that's me with the chisel)...

Rotational Opportunity

We flipped the car onto its side and drilled out the spots for the small vertical metal pieces welded to the valance. Someone had done some extra welding, and we had to chisel and cut those bits.

Messy

Here's a shot of the nastiness we had to deal with. There are three sheets of metal in the rear seam: top body, boot floor, and valance.

Done

Here's the view sans valance.

Uncovering Problems

With the valance removed, it gives us better access to the rotted areas, like this one, in the boot.