Where to start (front valance)

Seeing that access within my garage is limited to the front or back of the van. I've decided to start at the front valance working towards the rear. The valance was originally patched up when I first got the van to keep it on the road. To get rid of all the rot the whole lots coming off.

Grinding away the filler revealed the rust hadn't spread up the front panel too high.

Instead of drilling off each spot weld, with help from a chisel I cut and peeled away the rusty panels, without any drill holes this keeping the good material , all it needs is cleaning and beating straight before the new panels goes on.

Cutting the old metal is the easy bit, fitting the panels is going to take a bit more skill. But before the inner valance goes on, the right hand chassis front closure plate needed replacing, and the lower door pillars are too bad to weld, so need to be replaced.


The joining plates that fix between these also need to be fabricated, a piece of angled plate would do the job but I'm not sure what strength is in this join. So, I will fabricate this as close to the original as I can get using the bits I've pulled off as a guide.