A while back I tagged a street sign with my drivers side quarter panel and it put dent in it behind the gas cap. I know I can get to it from the back side but I need some advice on how to pop it out.

 

Well, I just started a Body Repair class. Pretty much you have 2 options.
1. A dent puller which requires drilling holes in the dent. Depending upon the size determines the number of holes. Then, you screw the puller into the holes and you are able to pull the dents out.

2. Use a Dolly and a hammer. You put the Dolly(large chunck of metal) on one side of the dent and tap it with a hammer until the dent is pushed back out.

I am personally going to give the second option a try first on my dent. If that doesn't work, I will just leave it. Since you would have to fill the holes and repaint that section of the car.

So, the decision is up to you then.

 

i would DEFINATELY try the ding king, twist a dent, etc. first. I'm trying mine, it was supposed to be today, but it rained, so hopefully tomarrow

 

I would try the hammer dolly method lightly but wrap masking tape around the dollie for use on painted surface. Depending on the size, If it stretched the metal you will have to do filler work anyways and the idea of a slide hammer is not always to use screws (old technology and you have to either use duraglass or tigger hair to seal off moisture because regular light weight filler absorbs water and will start rusting and the paint will buble and body filler will have a tougher time adhearing) DA it to bare metal then use a stud gun (uni spotter) to weld studs to the effected area then use a slide hammer, then cut them and grind smooth then hammer/dolly (metal work the area)body filler, sand with 36 then 80 then 120or 180, prime, sand 220 wet, primer fill sand 600 wet, paint. Or try one or the suction cups with a handle (don't really work but sometimes they do). Good luck James

 

i still say try the ding king first

 

what is the Ding King ?

I have some dings myself and want to fix them myself . I've though about reading up on and doing the hammer and dolly and drilling holes , but that just REALLY SCARES ME ! Hammering and drilling holes in my baby

 

I've had good luck with Dry Ice and a towel

 

DON"T BUY THE DING KING!!!!!!!!!! i tried it in a few different dents, it either pulls the dent up like 1/8th of an inch, or takes the dent out, leaving two new ones on each side of it! i am pisssssssssssssssssssed at that oxi clean guy in the commercial! oh well, just don't waste 30 bucks on the thing. it ripped off a piece of paint too!!!!!!!!!

 

I was thinking about getting that, the commerical looked real promising, sorry to hear that it did not work, it says on the commerical if you not happy with it, u can get your money back!!

I dont like the idea of getting one dent out and making two new ones!!

 

whatever you do dont do the drill technique. Thats the super old style of doing it. Damages the body and makes it alot weaker. If your going to do it pull style weld an attachment to the end of it to the dent. Then pull it out and break the weld. That way you dont put nice holes into the fender. Also alot of times the holes will open up and hte puller will come out. so the dent didnt come out but you just put a nice hole inside. Also it saves you the trouble of having to weld up every single hole that was made.

When I had that HUGE smash in the back of my car same area as yours. Some guys WITHOUT my permission started to work on my car in a parking lot. They tried using the drill in method and it didnt work. ****ing up my fender. I had to weld up every single hole they made. That was a bitch. also very scary cause I"m looking at the gas cap/pipe as I'm welding right there O_o

 

Well ended up just pushing on it from the inside and it popped almost completly out. It's almost perfect except you can see a slight ripple in the edge of where it used to be.

 

a dent will never push back perfect seeing in order to be a dent metal had to be stretched

 

I was looking into paintless dent removal, they said they can get the dents out almost back to before the dent was there, by rubbing the dent out, and doing other techniques.

 

I've heard about that!!! It's supposed to be one hell of a scam, since they start the work, you think they know what they're doing. They might as well spit on your windshield and wash it with their shoe and charge you $$. Next time, tell them you're getting a soda, and call the cops!!!

I'd recommend the hammer/dolly first, too. A slide hammer can get you into more trouble than you need to be in. Any bodywork book (such as the Haynes body repair manual at Pep Boys, or this one from summit: http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?part=1784',650,505,'HPBHP1082' ) will tell you all you need to know about hammer & dolly work. I just bought that book from Summit, and it's great... I bought it for the paintwork section, but it does cover the hammer/dolly work, too.

 

Did the curse of bondo-gypsies fall upon you?

 

I used a spot welder and a slide hammer for major dents then use a light coat of bondo to fill in any unevens and the damn thing will look as good as new. Used it on a Prelude that has the rear quarter panel knocked in pretty bad, now its barely noticeable except i forgot to primer the gas tank area and its rusting lol. I will soon be doing that on a few Camaros, not the rusting but the spot welder with the brass pins.

 

I used a stud welder to pull my dent out that i got from hitting a pole on my quarter panel. I posted pics of the progress on it back in january or so. Some people called it butchery but if you looked at it today after the paint you wouldn't even know there was a dent there.

 

The best way and the cheapest way is paintless dent removal. The dent can be removed back to normal in most cases depending on the severity of the damage.

Using the Ding King tool is a joke. If PDR was that simple and that cheap, I'd be out of business. I actually put my card in the Ding King box so whoever buys it can call me to fix the original dent and now the other 2 it put in. If the paint wasn't damaged, using a toe dolly and the wrong type of hammer will make the damage worse.

I recommend that you get a PDR person to loo at it. We all like to save money by doing things ourselves, but some things are best left to the professionals.

 

I agree with you, Scott, but only if your goal is to put your car on the road as soon as possible with the minimum amount of hassle.

The first time you do something you will never be as fast or as good as a professional, but at the same time, unless there is a first time, there will never be a second time. I know some guys (me being one of them) are doing cars just for the fun of doing them and learning things/tools/techniques. So it is understandable if you would want to try tackling a dent yourself, hey by the time you do it the third time, you'll look at your first job and think, "boy, I sure didn't know how to do this back then" (and then possibly you'll mark the calendar for when you'll being doing your 4th job repairing the first one)

While we are on the subject of learning, you know any good resources/books/classes that teach you this stuff? I've always wanted to know how to properly use dolly/hammer pieces

 

I took a big book out of the local library back in november.... actually i still have it lol. It was an old book from the 70s but stuff like that couldn't have changed too much. It had pictures on different types of dents, how to properly shrink metal and other things like that. It was a good read.

 

You might be able to improve your skills and see major improvements with regular body repair, but not with PDR. This is very specialized and takes a long time to learn how to get the metal back into shape with no signs of damage. As a do it yourselfer, you will improve the panel only. Third or fourth time, it's still only an improvement. If you want it to be gone for good, a professional is the only way. Good luck.

As for learning body work, I have no resources. WIth PDR, you can't be self taught. It will never work. It needs to be hands on with a trainer. I talk with a guy that went thru a few weeks training, bought the tools and practices every night in his garage on a old hood and he is still having trouble making the metal move the way it should. It takes up to a year to get good at PDR, that's why it costs what it does to use it, but it's still cheaper than bodywork.

 

I'm going to play devil's advocate here and ask this question: If PDR can't be self-taught, who taught the inventor of PDR?

It's a rhetorical question, and my point is that ANYTHING which can be learned through a trainer/teacher/mentor can also be learned through self-teaching. Anything. This is, of course, just my .

- 89_IROC

 

Whatever!