I knew I had a couple holes under the stainless piece that the weather strip is bonded to.

Well removed the weatherstrip and the stainless piece from door opening and the rust was a little more than I expected .  The window rail plug welds in to the door opening near front and rear so I thought I could just cut out the bad top layer then cut out the bottom layer that is bad and just weld in a couple new pieces.  Well the rust holes aren;t that big but the surface rust underneat the part that overlaps in the door area really requires removing the hole piece.

Anybody know how the center portion of the rail is attached? It doesn't overlap in door opening it looks like it fits up between the roof braces. I cant see how they would have welded it in.

Looks like I have 3 options.
1) remove the drip rail in sections and repair area underneath and then either try and splice the old piece back in or get a new one and section it and weld it to the remaining piece.

2) try and remove and replace entire drip rail.  Both sides are total $130 but looks to be a big pain,

3) shave the drip rails.  I have seen a few cars done this way and it looks pretty good and it eliminates this issue in the future.  Sounds like procedure for that is to cut the rail off a few inches at a time cutting near where the roof and rail meet.  Then grind the area flush a tack weld them together.

Any of you guys tackled any of these options?