Finally some progress!!

So Saturday and last night, I was finally able to get some work done on my front panel. But before that, here's some pix of my new roomies Chevy Pickup. 6" lopped off the top

Ok, so here it is, after mulling it over, having a few beers, Andy convinced me to cut out the old panel. The metal was so weak around the old front panels, that everytime I went to tack the panel, it started blowing holes in the old metal. So...here's the front panel cut out...

New front panel tacked in...with the old crusty on top..

We 1st created the main middle section, bent to a slight curve to follow the body line, then cut the top lip with a curve to also match the body line. This is then tacked about every 1 inch or so.

and then....it starts to sprinkle. Thinking it wasn't the greatest of ideas to weld in the rain, we made a ghetto plastic tent so we can finish tack welding the front in.

After we were happy with the middle and top fit, we decided to lop off the extra metal on the bottom of the middle panel in order to make the lower lip. This should give us the extra strength in the front panel. I was kinda afraid of Andy's cutter, so he went to town on it..

Here's a pic of the bottom lip tacked in. I'll have to drill a couple of holes in this panel on the bottom lip to tack it to the body. That should keep the valance from moving.

And so, here it is. top, middle and bottom tacked in, ready for a final weld. Now I'm debating if I want to cut out the original holes in the middle to make it look right, or have it slighty modified w/o the holes.