It looks like the body panel may have debonded from the bonding strip but, boy, that would be an odd occurrence. It would take a lot of stress to cause that to happen. Regardless, if that's the issue you're options seem to be a bit limited if you want to save your paint job (which I assume you do). ...

Hi Max, welcome to the forum!

Welcome! What part of dismantling the spindles has you hung up?

I used a sander to get the worst stuff off, too. For the nooks and crannies I scraped as much as I could out with a putty knife and a flat head screwdriver. I probably didn't get all of it out - did the best I could.

Sweet pic, I bet that was fun!

I wish I could drive mine. Unfortunately it's still in far too many pieces. It's getting close though!

So if nobody finishes their project, does somebody win? And how do you declare a winner in a race that nobody finishes?

I used simple steel razor blades. Worked like a charm taking off the top coat. It didn't do as well with the primer though. Either way, I'd definitely do it again. Just be very careful not to gouge the underlying fiberglass.

What a pain, ceased bolts are a total pain. I've never had much luck drilling them out either. It's too bad you had to sacrifice the manifold but at least you saved the head. I ended up breaking one of my manifolds tearing the engine down too. All that heat just really accelerates the corrosion proc...

Congrats on the new job! So much for retirement - did the wife got tired of having you around the house?

Are you moving, or traveling back and forth? Tokyo is a long way from Okinawa.

I think we're having a race to see who can take the longest to finish their project.