Mad gives you momentum but rarely a plan

I cleaned up the garage enough to spin the car around to check the rear end.  I started removing the seam sealer around the cargo floor area and, fortunately, found nothing but seam sealer.

And then...

I went underneath and hit the bumper bracket area (because the paint is flaking off on its own) and that's where I found bondo, again.  I'm really happy that I bought those parts to replace the rear corners.  The more seam sealer I get off the car, the faster they can soda blast it...meaning it'll be cheaper for me.

 The area under the rear seat pivot is just as bad on both sides...and in the same place.  I don't really have the right tool to get under the pivot area and clean it out but I do spy the remnants of some amateur welding.  The lighting is terrible in the photos because I was using a halogen shop light.

 It seems like everywhere I strip out the paint, there are little random strips of metal welded to the car.  There's one in the lower right of the picture above.  This is a close up shot of the under pivot area and some rust through and bondo can be seen.  I'm fairly certain the body of this car lost 5# tonight from all of the bondo I removed.

 The right side of the rear seat area...notice the random little piece of metal welded to the car?  Makes me wonder if someone learned how to weld on this car. The welds are terrible and they're everywhere.  More small spots of rust under seam sealer and bondo on this side.

A close up of the right side.

The right side had a nice 'skim' coat of bondo on the whole panel.  I bet this car would have been quiet and slow.

The right side engine area.  Another small piece of metal welded in by a newbie.  The area around the drain flaps is the worst (photo below).

Looks like a plaster cast around the drain flaps..but it's bondo and seam sealer.

This is the left side at the engine bay.  Another random little piece of metal welded to the car, more bondo and seam sealer.  Not much in the way of rust, however, so that's good news.

The ugly drain flap area.  The left side is in much better shape overall.

I'm looking into replacing the top edge around the engine lid (this one looks like crumpled up paper), the area around the drain flaps (both sides are slathered in bondo/seam sealer) and the area under the rear seat arm rests (there are a lot of hack patch jobs).  I'm pretty sure that if I can source those pieces, the only part left is the inner heater channels-most of which can be fabricated, leaving the pesky vent area to be addressed.

Tom and I have communicated via email and he's thinking that the body work, pan replacement, pan powdercoat and paint is going to be between $6k and $8k.  Of course, that number will change quite a bit once he's seen the car...so far, the plan is to make that happen on the 27th of December.  If the body work/fabrication winds up being nutty expensive, I'll at least have the pan finished and build that up for now...but that's a 'worst case scenario' type of decision.

Balancing the house renovations with my desire to finish this car is turning into quite the challenge.

Background Tune: "Where is my mind?" by The Pixies