Hope this helps. I'm not an expert...

1. Get the protective gear set up. Angle grinders can do a lot of
damage when they jump out of your hands. Use thick gloves and a full
face mask. You also need to be working in a sheltered environment - not
the street. Watch out for fire. It happens and if you have a full face
welding mask on, you won't see the flames 'till you flip the visor up -
quite alarming!!! Only weld with someone else present.

2. Get the replacement panel(s) before you start. They you will see
what needs cutting off, and more importantly, what needs leaving on.

3. When I did it, I cut off the valence by carefully grinding it away,
leaving the flange, which is spot welded to the other seams. After
cutting away the valence, then is the time to grind off the remaining
flange, and if you do this carefully, the remaining 'strip' will peel
off as you grind through each spot weld. I understand you can drill out
each spot weld, but in practice I found it easier to do as I said
above.

3a. Protect all the paintwork and glass work, and anything else that is
pretty, from the sparks. They are molten metal and they melt glass,
paint, and even the enamel on my favourite mug!!!

4. Take care that all the remaining edges are quite sharp.

5. Clean back any flaky rust, as a weld needs to be done on shiny metal
- not rust.

6. Clean and then treat all internal exposed surfaces with some form of
primer. Once you have fitted the valence, they will be hidden.

7. Offer up the new valence, and clamp using many clamps to ensure a
reasonable fit. In my experience, fit is a relative term and you are
looking for a compromise.

8. If you have access to a spot welder then go for it. If not, you can
punch (or drill) holes in the valance (or the remaining flange) and
with the two edges firmly together, create a plug weld with a MIG or
gas.

9. Dress off any surplus weld, etc.

10. Flat the metal and prime, paint etc.

11. Introduce some form of rust proofing, i.e. Waxoyl, into the area
behind the new valance or you will be doing it all again in a couple of
years.

12. I think it will be obvious when you get the valance off if the
closing panels need replacing. For me I would do it, as this gives the
box shape to the rear valance and stregthens the rear end. You don't
want any bits flapping around. It may also be easier to weld the new
valance to new metal on the closing panels.

Others will no doubt offer advice, and I hope this helps a bit.

Peter

The spot welds on Minis are not like most other spot welds you will
encounter. There are a few normal welds but most are done by
resistance seam welding (RSW). RSW is a series of small overlapping
spot welds. On a Mini they don't usually overlap and each weld is
relatively weak. It works because there are so many individual welds
that they end up being quite strong.

When I remove panels I cut away the everything I don't want leaving
the welded seam intact. Using a thin chisel lightly tap it into the
seam several places until weak spot is found. At a weak spot the
several welds will usually separate. Once separated a bit slice the
waste piece with an abrasive wheel being careful not to cut the good
metal. With a pair of heavy needle nose pliers grab the end of the
waste seam piece perpendicular to it's length and roll the metal
around the tip of the pliers. It's usually pretty easy for a couple of
inches then the pliers have to be removed from the coil of metal and
the metal is cut off leaving enough to grab with the needle nose
pliers again. Sometimes a weld with pull out of the center of the
waste meta, other times the waste metal will break off and you have to
find another weak spot with the chisel. Using this method there is a
lot less metal to be ground off. It might not be any faster or easier
but it's a lot more pleasent than doing all that grinding.

Hope this helps,

Kelley

The rear of my car was pretty bad, so there was no need for fiddling with
spot welds - entire panels were ground or nibbled off. However, I wanted
to be careful removing the front wings, and for this I used a drill with a
spot weld removing bit

Most of the welds were pretty obvious as they showed as indentations
under the paint - others were not so obvious bit easy to find once
removing the paint. The spot weld drill made short work of it, and the
wings lifted right off.

G

2 REALLY good pieces off advice to add on top of everyone elses
brilliant advice,

1 Disconnect the battery, If you're using anything other than gas (ie
MIG, TIG, spot welder et al) the high amps will actually charge and fry
the battery while you weld)

2 For Gods sake remove the petrol tank and store it right out of the way
! ! Sounds obvious BUT if you think you may get away with doing a couple
of spots of welding with it in situ, thats probably the time it will
decide to ignite !

I know those 2 bits sound obvious but it's never a bad thing to be
reminded :)

As for everyone elses methods of removing the spot welds ie pulling
apart with pliers, angle grinding and drilling the spots out, you'll
find (like me) you'll use all those methods and they do all actually
work VERY well.

The last piece of advice will save you a LOT of time and a lot of stress,
Buyu the best panels you can, Heritage if you can get hold of them,
cheap panels DON'T fit properly and a waste of cash ... when you weld a
dirt cheap rear quarter panel in and then go to fit the rear quarter
light (non opening) and find it doesn't fit anymore, you'll be a tad
pi$$ed off, that was me last month anyway :) the replacement Heritage
panel fit lilke a dream though !

Hope this helps and good luck with it all, it'll be well worth it

Jim