I looked over you thread. Wish I would have seen it 2 days ago. Everything I had read said remove the whole crossmember arch so I already cut it out. I will definitely use it for further reference.
You need to put something back in there though, because of the torsion bars holding up the front end. You have to have something in there. Otherwise some 18 gage floor pan is all that's holding the stubs of crossmember where the torsion bars are.
