Frame Repair Opinions Needed

[Dan81DMC]

As usual, one project with this car leads to another and the whole thing turns into a 6 month process. My most recent project has been a brake system refresh. Previously, I had replaced the master cylinder and rebuilt the front calipers. Over the winter, the time ad come to rebuild the rear calipers. Once they were off, it seemed like a good time to clean up and paint the frame in the rear wheel well area. My car has clearly had its frame rot issues in the past. A previous owner had welded in patch panels where the frame had rotted. Unfortunately, this PO did nothing to remove loose epoxy or clean up the rust. All they did was weld in the new metal then cover the whole frame with undercoating. I have slowly been removing the undercoating, sanding, and repainting. Since the frame issues were just covered up instead of properly repaired, I never know what I am going to find under that undercoating.

The left side went well enough. I found no frame rot and am now in the process of painting.
Here is the left side after removing the undercoating:
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Part way through painting:
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I thought the right side would go much quicker because it had less undercoating than the left. I now realize this is because the left side had a patch panel welded in, the right side had no such repair. Here is what the right side is looking like:
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Luckily, the inward facing side of the frame rail looks ok. It has its fair share of surface rust, but nothing rotted through.
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So, how bad does this look? I do not have the means to do any weld repairs myself. What sort of shop is recommended to tackle this sort of problem? I would appreciate any advise on what my course of action should be.

[Bitsyncmaster]

Looks pretty bad. How is the rest of frame. Maybe need to do a frame off to get at those areas.

[Dan81DMC]

The rest of the frame is not too bad. I have already stripped and painted the crumple tubes and front wheel well areas. I have had the fuel tank closing plate off once to check for rust, but have not cleaned and painted it yet. This is the first time I have seen any spots rotted through. I definitely would like to do a frame off at some point, but that is not possible at the moment. The plan has been to clean and protect the areas of the frame I can get to as a temporary measure until I can do a more thorough restoration. That plan sounded good when I thought I was only dealing with some surface rust, but now I am not so sure.

[David T]

It looks bad enough that it should be repaired. Typically what you see is less than 1/2 of what you will eventually replace. Sometimes it can be done with small patch panels but if the damage is extensive enough it is easier to replace a whole piece. Whoever does the repair will have to evaluate the extent of the damage once the rot is removed. The materiel cost is insignificant, it is all labor. None of this is difficult, just time consuming. Especially if you need to disassemble things to get access.
David Teitelbaum