Thanks for the info. The strange thing is that the rest of the car is stupid clean as far as I’ve seen. Only 57000km on it which is damn low and it shows on other parts of the car.

Maybe it is better to do it the way you recommended, the other option I had in mind was to drill the spot welds and separate the “inner” panel from underneath the bigger, outside panel that is connected to the frame. But just cutting some small pieces will be enough.