Posted by Kevin in Ohio on Monday, October 14, 2002 at 12:41PM :
In Reply to: How do I remove bed pockets? posted by Galen on Monday, October 14, 2002 at 8:22AM :
Galen,
I take it from your post tou want as little damage as possible because you want to reuse both pieces, correct? The spot weld removers take out too much steel in my opinion. When I do them, I do as follows.
Start by locating all the spot welds. Not as easy as it sounds as the pattern is kind of hap hazard. I found a DA sander works best as it will show you the "low" spots. I use an Starret automatic center punch (Good Christmas present as it is affordable and real handy in fab work) to mark the center of the welds. It will do the job with repition and not damage the back of the panel, saves fingers too!
Once that is done start drilling with a small drill. Here is where it gets tricky. Just go deep enough to go through 1 layer of metal. You'll get the hang of if after a while. Keep inincreasing the size of the drill as this will take more metal out(bigger diameter) but not the depth. It also helps to sharpen some old bits with a flatter drill angle.
Yes it is slow, But it is a lot easy to weld the smaller hole shut. Use a thick copper plate and or a wet rag behind to keep distortion to a minimum.
Good luck and if you have any more ?'s I'll answer if I can. Kevin