just cut out the swollen and additional rusted areas, then form up a couple of patches and butt weld/plug the patch in. you may not have needed to remove the apron if you were to just patch. however if it's so bad that you just can't form that much metal then it may be easier to start with replacement parts and cut a section that you need.

as discussed those inner brackets can get rusty. i had to cut a small section out of my drivers side rail, remove the original bracket and form a new inner bracket.

 

Nice work!

 

Thought I lost these... anyways I found them this morning and figured I'd post them. Might help others and it shows the inside brackets which the front bumper supports are bolted to. As I said above the design is really bad. When I cut the bad metal out I found a lot of dirt and debris packed around that area which held moisture and rotted it out. There was a handful of wet debris packed between those brackets and the side. I used an air chisel to remove the brackets.

NPD sells the replacement outer sections that you see I welded in for 17.50 part # 124-4RH and 124-4LH. I caught it in time before the bottom of the rail rotted out. These replacements have bolts welded on the inside instead of those brackets. A much better idea.



Here you see where I had used the pointy end of a body hammer. A firm swing and it pokes through easily with a sickening sound. I went back along the rail as well and found no other bad areas. I've started drilling out the spot welds as well here.


Here you see the inner bumper support brackets. Overall a bad design.


Bracket removed and cleaned up a bit. Everything here is still solid.


Replacement panel welded in, ground down and ready for some POR-15 to seal and protect. As a note I didn't use the full length of the replacement parts and iirc cut about 6" off the rearward end.



Hope this helps. I had to do both left and right rails. Its really not a big job.

 

OOO Sweet ok im replacing the piece i though it was better to in the beginning. My only question is what is the piece called ?

 

The replacement part is called a Frame Extension Front, outer repair panel.. from NPD (click the link, open the online catalog and its on page 182). It could be called something else by other companies. There are actually 3 different types of this part. The smallest is the forward outer repair panel section about 28" long, which is what I was able to use. There is also a full length outer repair section and a full sized 4-sided part that replaces everything, if you need, and runs about 150.00 iirc.

Remember to test the metal first before buying the replacement parts. I hated swinging that body hammer at our car but it simply bounces off good metal... and punctures right through bad metal.