I actually started the bay strip while it was outside. I removed most items out there simply because there was more room to move around the whole car. Once it was actually in the garage all that remained was the front suspension and crossmember. Once they were removed, I started welding up the holes left when I removed the factory battery tray and the area on the passenger side strut tower. I wasn't looking to plug/patch all the holes in the engine bay, although in hindsight, I should've. I also used holesaws to clearance and make the holes I made for IC pipes truly round.
Here's the repair needed on the passenger side strut tower... I also removed all seam sealer forward of the rear of the strut towers. I was going to be torn up during the bead blasting and made sanding much easier.
I brought home our bead blaster from work to clean any and all surface rust off before I started to body fill areas in the bay where I had welded/ground.
3M undercoated the fender wells after I degreased and sanded them down. I went all the way up to the upper frame rails simply because I wanted to.
After a shit ton of hours, sanding, body filling and sanding more, I finally got it where I wanted it. It was an huge amount of work. My hands ached for days and at times went numb from the process. I kept telling myself it was going to be worth it in the end....
Once the sanding had ceased, I had to wrap the car in drop cloth for laying down the primer. I wiped the bay down a total of 3 times, making sure I didn't miss any areas that could potentially cause problems. First two times took a total of 3hrs, I called it a night after that. I did a thorough final wipe down right before I sprayed the primer. I hit all the problematic/tight areas first, to make sure they were coated, then I came back and bombed the rest. I am by no means a professional painter, but I have a fair amount of time behind a spray gun.
All primed... It turned out pretty damn good for a make shift paint booth in my home garage. It was a great relief seeing the car all one color, it started too actually look like something.
As usual, thanks for looking...