Right front fender is off!

My attempts at drilling out that final bottom bolt weren't going so well - it's just a matter of experience and technique, I suppose. I had drilled through a good ways, but with too small a bit. I had tried the next larger bit, but with my 14v battery-powered drill, and the fact that you hand-tighten the bit down (no key needed), the bit would grab the bolt and spin in the drill.

Neighbor Eddie to the rescue - let's try a bit two sizes bigger. And then the biggest one to just plow through the bolt head as a whole - and after a short time, pow! Bolt conquered. And as that was the last remaining connector, the fender just lifted off.

With the fender off, removing the ornimental trim mounts will be far easier. I've hit each of them with a squirt of Deep Creep, will probably do two more rounds of that, and then get those bits off.

On a related note, I may have a line on a full set of homemade replacement trim mounting pieces, courtesy of another Pontoneer. That would be another semi-major item to check off the "What the hell am I going to do about (item)/how much is this going to cost me" list!

Now both rusted out spots behind the front wheels are visible. Here's the driver's side, after it's been pretty much cleared out of all debris and dirt that had gotten packed up in the gap over the years.

And here's the passenger side, still with the remants of the vertical rubber seal, as it's been for the duration. I'll be jamming a big screwdriver up in there to loosen all of that foreign material later today.