[Jacques Reed]

Hi Tony,

Great photos, and how to do it. As the old saying goes "Necessity is the Mother of Invention".

For close cutting work I have found my Dremel tool invaluable even for automotive work. I have used it numerous times on the truck. The small cutoff wheels go through thin steel like a knife through butter but give you great control. One of them might be good for step 4!

Think I mentioned it before in another thread but my first use of a Dremel for automotive work was to cut off a muffler on my car back in the seventies. With their small cutoff wheel I split the inlet and outlet without touching the head or tail pipes and the muffler practically fell off.

The small wire brush is also handy for getting rust off a threads in a tight spot if you wish to save the fastener. The Fuel tank retainer strap bolt is a case in point. They snap easily as I found out the hard way if not cleaned up and drowned in penetrating oil.

Note: If you use a wire brush in the Dremel tool slow it down and do not use at full speed otherwise the wires may break prematurely and fly out at great speed. New ones have inbuilt speed controllers but my old tool doesn't so I run it through an external speed controller.
Full speed is fine for cutting however.

Look forward to step 5.

Regards,