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I went to my local scrap steel scrapyard, and was hoping to pick up some aluminum sheet (pref .062) But they would only sell whole sheets. too much $$ for a small panel such as this.
My only other choice was stainless, and it was very difficult to cut / bend. Since I didn't have a press brake at my disposal, I had to do it the old fashioned (hard) way. 2 peices of angle iron clamped together, a hammer, and a lot of banging. It has some hammer marks on it, but I guess I will have to live with that. I used the factory metal strip supporting the lower edge of the fascia, cut it up into small pieces so I could use the nuts as nutplates. I pop-rivited those onto the panel so I could bolt the fascia to the panel.
On the backside, where the panel meets the chassis, I drilled and tapped to holes in the chassis to accept 1/4-20 bolts. I used stainless hardware here.
I might remake the panel some day if I can find some aluminum sheet pretty cheap. That will allow me to make the panel fit more snug to the contours of the underside of the car.
FWIW.
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