I'm trying to keep from having to buy another fender and here's the problem. The passenger fender has a small dent in it which can be fixed easily with a little bit of bondo, but around the dent on one side there is a high spot due to the dent. It's rather noticeable and it's on my neverending to-do list before I paint. My question is should I:
A) Grind the high spot down with some low grit sandpaper
or
B) GENTLY tap the high spot in with maybe a rubber mallet and then use a little bondo to smooth it out.

I'm worried that the high spot is too high to be able to effectively grind down to unnoticeable. Anyway, let me know what ya'll think.

 

Take a dolly hammer(its a hammer with a flat face on one side and a point on the other) and knock the high spot down, then use filler to smooth out the surface.

 

I'd say since its going in for paint anyways, cut out the dent and highspot and weld in a patch panel.

 

Thanx for the help. I think I'll try the dolly hammer approach, it sounds like it'd be the best way out. The high spot really isn't high enough to warrant a patch.

 

jus take a body hammer and use the pointed end, tap it gently a few times, grind it down and wham, bondo time...

 

Shouldn't he put a dolly behind it so it dosn't get too low?

 

if you can't use the hammer & dolly.. find someone with a pin welder.. put a pin in the middle of the dent.. But remove the paint down to bare metal in the middle .. and with a T-Handle pull gently on the pin, and with a body hammer tap the high spot around the dent.. works all the time..

 

do not grind the high spot.. all you are doing is making your panel thin.. a real dumb way of doing it.. fixing a small dent is so easy.. and in the end you may only need a little finishing putty..

 

grinding is a bad idea pop it up then putty it

 

hold the dolly (one that best replicates the surface of the panel) to the high spot and take a finishing hammer to the low spot from the inside. the low will come up, and the high will come down. get it straight and grind off all the paint before mudding it.

 

don't hit the dolly straight on w/ the hammer (dolly on one side of panel and hitting hammer on the other side) very much b/c if you do this too much it will stretch the metal and shrinking it is a major pain if you don't know what you are doing. Or weld a pin to it and pull it out and tap the high spot down till they are both where they should be, then grind paint offf and putty

 

no dolly needed, if ya know what ya doin, small taps, show me da dent so i cna tell you what to do man.

 

There is no more dent, just the high spot. I already bondoed the dent but didn't notice the high spot. See, I was planning on getting a new fender but decided to play around with it the other day so I wasn't really expecting to keep it. Since I was just kind of experimenting I didn't bother laying down a guide coat. The dent was very small and smoothed out real good but its the high spot that needs to be fixed. I realize that the bondo will probably crack off with a tap off a dolly hammer, but I'm just gonna tap the high spot down and rebondo. Thanx for all the advice everybody.