Replacing front suspehsion pan-advice needed!

I found lots of rust in the front suspension pan, so I decided to remove the old and weld in the new replacement piece. I have a friend who'll help with the welding. I've remove the gas tank, removed the gas tank support piece, and drilled out all the spot welds on the front suspension pan. I'm looking for advise on how to proceed from. Should I make measurements from some points before I remove the rusted pan or...? Anybody done this and could give me some help...please!

It's a fun job. I hope you had a recent tetanus shot.

The only advice I have is I used the torsion bar mounts as a guide to put the new pan on. Once I had it in roughly the right position, I clamped it and checked the positoning, made a few adjustments, then clamped again. The more Vice-Grips you have, the better. It took two of us a couple of days to get the new one in and welded. That time did not include removing the old one. Also, coat everything with a good rust paint, like POR-15. E-mail me if you have any detailed questions.
Tim

[This message has been edited by Tim Polzin (edited 11-27-1999).]

if you have an email address, I'll send you the detailed letter that I wrote describing the whole process. Tim Polzin was a huge help, by the way.