I knew that I needed to get the spliced panel fixed before I pulled the body off the frame.  I wanted the shell as strong as posible before lifting it up, so having the panel fixed right and welded on correctly was a must.  Bob Biggs did the work on my car. He torched off the half piece, which wasnt even welded on the bottom edge, with some heat.  The brass melted away and the piece fell off the car.  Next he rebuilt the tail light housing which had been cut down the center. Then he added 2 inches of metal from the door of a Chevelle to bridge the gap between the two quarter panel pieces. When it was all over he had welded in the new trunk to window panel, butt welded the quarter panel on and leaded it smooth, filled the hole in the rear window channel with lead, filled in the windshield channel holes with lead, and pulled out the rocker panel and leaded it smooth. He also flattened out the shot gun dents and made that quarter panel smooth. Every area that had a spot weld from the factory he recreated. You cant tell that the quarter panel had been hacked in half before.  And none of the repair work required BONDO.

This photo is the finished rear window frame.  After Biggs filled the hole in the upper left corner,  I fixed the channel edges.  The edge where the glass laid had pits and areas that had rotted away.  I used POR putty to fill the pits and fiberglas with POR-15 where the edge was missing.  I then topped it off with Chassis Coat and then PPG epoxy like the rest of the car.

The above work was finished in January of 2005.  When it was done I sat back and thought about what I was going to do next.  I already knew what I was going to do, the question was how.  How was I going to lift up the body and take the frame out from under it.  It wasnt until July of 2005 that I could get out in the garage and get to work on my plan.