Inner Fender Panel--drivers side--69 Charger

[Chatt69chgr]

My inner fender panel is badly rusted in the area of the battery.  I bought a new panel.  Am trying to decide whether to replace the whole panel or just rusted part.  My existing panel is perfect from the firewall to just past the front of the upper control arm support.  It's also good on the flat part on top that extends from the firewall to the radiator core support.  I was asking since I know that this panel is part of the unibody and it's structural strength is important for body rigidity and was worried that a patched in pretty good size piece of metal wouldn't be as strong as the original unpatched inner fender panel.  Or am I worrying about something that I probably shouldn't.  I'm sort of thinking that from a work standpoint, it would take about the same amout of time to replace the whole thing that it would to put in a patch.  Note that the whole car will be apart with the left fender off prior to media blasting when this is fixed.

[Domino]

I would prefer the whole thing to avoid time chasing pin holes and grinding both sides of the butt weld etc, but the spot weld divots are usually pretty deep around the shock tower and hard to recreate that look if you want the OEM appearance.