Deck Lid Skin removal

I needed to remove the skin from the engine deck lid frame, so that I can add new sheet metal to replace all of the damage that was caused by a previous impact. If you are not familiar with the damage of the deck lid, please look further down or review my previous post. There are inner spot welds that holds the frame to the outer sheet metal.

After all the stud welds are remove from around the inside lip, I started to bend back the metal folds that secures the skin around the outer side of the lid. The fold is not welded, simply folder over. This

was a quick process, as I only wanted save the license plate section of the lid to weld it into new metal purchased precut.  I wish I had skills to press in or hammer in this second from new sheet metal, but I do not.

Here is a closer look at the lip that I unwrapped from the edges.  It took about 5 minutes per side to remove.

The skin was removed completely from the frame.  Because the deck lid had been impacted, I'll have to take a hammer to the frame to straighten it back to look clean for painted. The details are very important.  I'll first remove all the rust to get a clear view of the frame.  I had to cut around one of hinged slots, because I believe it was welded to try to fix the original damage (poorly). The metal on the frame is very thin and I didn't want to pull off the thin metal that makes up the inner support.  The frame seem like it was made from 22 gauge sheet metal, which is very thin.  I will have to be very gentle to finish the removal of that small piece.

Here is a closer view of the frame metal and how thin the hinge lip really is. This was the side that wasn't welded, but you can see in the picture above, that part of the skin was cut off and still attached to the frame. I'll deal with more delicately now that it is much lighter and is going to be easier to deal with.