Who of You does dent massaging?

[braaap]

I'm slowly preparing my car for a Montana White paint job.

But I have a dent in the quarter panel, below the roof, above the side window. I have hardly any chance to get there from the inside. But I'm prepared to drill a hole in the upper C pillar to access the area. The extra hole will later be covered by the headliner.

My question is, who around here can give me some advice on smart repair jobs for sheet metal like dent massaging?

Mate MichaElWoody is a tinsmith originally, he witnessed somebody doing dent repair from the insde, but he never did it himself, and what he saw was some 30 years ago probbaly. But he remembers the principe and is willing to help me, who doesn't know a lot of sheet metal other than a bit of welding here and there.

He spoke of some round metal rod with a grinded tip and eventually some angle in it. You have to find a large opening in Your car to be able to reach the dent area from behind. Sometimes You lean it to an edge or hang it somewhere with a short chain or something, so You can apply some leverage anbd carefully "massage" out the dent from the inside.

Does somebody have a picture of the tools he uses?

I can apply a photo of that dent later.

[vanpeebles]

It was show being done on that Drew Prichard car show, I think it was on a brown lancia. Guy removed a headlight and put a wooden board in. It showed the tools too.

[braaap]

That should be salvage hunters. Will look for the lancia on Youtube, thank You!

Edit: veni, vidi,... I came, I saw or better I found it and I watched it and it gave me an idea how the tools can look like.
I have some 12 or 15mm stainless rods, that blocked the drum of a brandnew washing machines once. I kept them for whatever reasons, but now I have an idea what to use them for I guess.
Thank You.

[ballbagbagins]

I paid a dent man £50 to sort two of my cars. So not loads of money if you can't get it how you like.

[duggers]

A good PDR operator can pull most dents they can't get behind. A guy did a great job on my Mk3 Scirocco and that was on a swage line.

[braaap]

And some pictures of that dent:








But I consider an extra hole in this area:

[BritBrick]

That looks slightly creased to me?

[homersimpson]

If your going to paint it anyway I would just fill a little tidy dent like that, the problem with paintless dent repair is that if you don't know what your doing you can make things a whole lot worse.

[BritBrick]

I'm with Homer. A paintless repair seems a bit pointless if its going to need paint.

[braaap]

I didn't mean it to be a paintless repair job.

I can always fill up the lower deep scratch with some bondo, but there is also a light dent in the upper roof swage (?) line, but it seems it's hardly visible in the pictures.

That's why I would like to use some pressure from the inside.

[welshpug]

Spot pullers are made for this, honestly I'd leave it well alone and find a bodyshop

[squonk]

Plenty of videos on YouTube showing how to do it. I had a crack at the side of the Voyager after SWMBO scraped it against a metal gate post. Used some of the glue on tabs and a slide hammer. It came out pretty well but still had to have a skim of filler.

[braaap]

Now I looked on ebay for a slide hammer and found three kits to remove dents.

Two use hot glue, which I'm not too sure if it will stick on my deep scratches to pull these out.

And there is one set with a welding gun. Text says a certain spot welder is needed, what type is it?

Any opinion on these kits?

[squonk]

I used the hot glue ones and they stuck fine. I used IPA spray to thoroughly de grease and clean the area first, allowed the glue gun to heat up thoroughly then stuck the tab on. I gave the glue a couple of minutes to dry before attempting to pull the dent. The tabs were then removed by spraying them with IPA again.

The ones I used came from Amazon:

www.amazon.co.uk/Locisne-Repair-Paintless-Puller-Removal/dp/B086MVF8RD/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2WKS4B7X87Q5J&keywords=Locisne+Auto+Car+Body+Dent+Repair+Paintless+Dent+Puller+Kit+Hand+Tool+Set&qid=1688295248&sprefix=locisne+auto+car+body+dent+repair+paintless+dent+puller+kit+hand+tool+set%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-1

www.amazon.co.uk/SFASTER-Removal-Puller-Pulling-Paintless/dp/B09NRMVHFZ/ref=sr_1_4?crid=3PU9XX7MK5DYH&keywords=SFASTER+Shonwin+Car+Dent+Removal+Dent+Puller+Kit&qid=1688295322&s=automotive&sprefix=sfaster+shonwin+car+dent+removal+dent+puller+kit%2Cautomotive%2C77&sr=1-4

www.amazon.co.uk/KAHEIGN-Sticks-Repair-Remover-Projects/dp/B088B3NZS8/ref=sr_1_3?crid=286PEQAW7M2P0&keywords=KAHEIGN+15Pcs+Hot+Glue+Sticks&qid=1688295362&s=diy&sprefix=kaheign+15pcs+hot+glue+sticks%2Cdiy%2C90&sr=1-3

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08G8T1B4S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I already had a number of glue guns so didn't bother with a kit that included one.

[squonk]

I should add that if it were a panel that wasn't going to need painting there is no way I would do it myself. I have a small dent in the rear quarter of my Avalanche and I'll be paying someone to do it for me.

[killerkerry89]

Tbh there isn't much need to get that dent out, it's small enough to just fill it and any slight filler imperfections are water under the bridge for a car that's going to be rattle can white when finished.

To repair: 80g disc on a DA/orbital sander and grind that back until the corrosion is gone. Sand the area around it and feather the edges back, then a single skim of regular body filler will do the trick. Sand your filler to shape with 80g abrasive then get the scratches out with 180g, prime it and paint. Easy job, don't sweat getting that dent out, there's little point going to the extra effort. Though if it's going to keep you awake at night then mig tack a nail into the dent and pull it with some mole grips then grind the tack off before taking the above steps to refinish.

[braaap]

Thanks killerkerry89, but as I wrote earlier, precising my first post and pics.

I can always fill up the lower deep scratch with some bondo, but there is also a light dent in the upper roof swage (?) line, but it seems it's hardly visible in the pictures.

And that one won't disappear with some bondo.

Btw. the car is not going to be rattle can white, Montana white is a glossy product range opposite to flat Montana black.

[killerkerry89]

What I meant was that white (regardless of quality) is a forgiving colour as it's more difficult to see any imperfections in the repair underneath.

If the dent has sucked in the metal above that swage line slightly then I would still just sand the paint off the area of damage and skim the lot. You won't really make your life any easier by drilling holes in the inner and it might have another skin behind that too..
Sanding filler down isn't some kind of dark art, give it a crack and see how you get on

[Rich]

Jul 9, 2023 20:19:41 GMT killerkerry89 said:

What I meant was that white (regardless of quality) is a forgiving colour as it's more difficult to see any imperfections in the repair underneath.

Again, ‘white’ is the product range. Comes in a massive range of colours, except funnily enough white last time I checked.

[killerkerry89]

Right. Finally read that enough times for it to make sense..
However, the detail of final colour/finish is kind of irrelevant as process to repair up to paint stage remains the same.