Prep Work

My first step was to re-drill out the holes to remove any POR-15 that would prevent a good weld, as well as grind an area of clean metal to prevent POR-15 from getting into the weld. Here you can see the holes and grind marks.

Closer

And here is a closer look at it. I can't stress enough how important it is to have clean, bare metal for welding. If there is any impurity, like POR, it will fountain up through the molten metal, and hurt the integrity of the weld.

More Prep

Here you can see where I've removed the primer from the valance so that I have clean metal to work with. I've also drilled holes through it to "spot" weld to the vertical portion just behind the rear wheel well. As it turned out, I couldn't use them because the valance didn't quite meet up, so I filled them and ground them back down.

Clamp It

When making these fake spot welds, I used a 7/32" drill to make holes through the top two seams of metal. The bottom piece is the valance, and this is not drilled. Placing the tip of the welder so that it sits about 1/16" to 1/8" above the top piece of metal, I directed the weld wire down to the valance surface, and let the wire fill the hole. When everything was clean, it left a VERY nice "spot" weld that required very little cleanup. Out of the 50 welds, I had about 3 that went smoothly... Here you see the vice grips clamping the three layers as closely together as possible to ensure good adhesion.

Imperfection

Here you see the vertical piece mentioned earlier. You can see how it is mis-matched with the end of the valance. However, this may be due to the piece having been over trimmed when the old valance was removed.

In Place

Here is the valance in place. Notice the silver dots on the black. This is the opposite side of the fake spot weld. If you don't see these spots, then you haven't gotten a good weld.