body paint and sheet metal repair

[crimsondragon]

just another problem to add on to the list of problems with the car...
so today, my right passenger fender got messed up in a scuffle with a truck. long story short, a good length of it is dented in with lots of wonderful scrape marks. clearly lady luck does not like me having this car.

i plan on somehow pushing the dent back out, sand the area, and paint it by myself.

my detail plan is to use aircraft remover on the affected area, sand it down with 400-500 grit, prime it up again, black paint, and clear gloss it.

do i have to remove all of the paint off the fender? or can i just do the area affected, and repaint over the area to save time? also what's a good home depot/lowe's primer, paint, and clear coat for cars? also im running on a budget. i don't want to invest in a whole spray paint system if i don't have to. will spray paint work? will it be all done by sunday if i start tomorrow morning bright and early?

 

[crimsondragon]

spent the majority of the day trying to put the stupid fender back in only to have it be rubbing against the door. hammered out the dent, looks ok, but i think i'm just gonna go to the junkyard and look for a matching fender.

 

[DGajre777]

Before you go out looking for a fender, try adjusting the door.

 

[crimsondragon]

could it be the door? it was fine before i removed the fender. at least i think it was. also i found like a brilo kinda pad that came out of it. i don't know where to put it. i think i'm gonna disassemble the driver side fender and see where i messed up.

 

[jemsoccer]

Make sure the fender is all the way forward. It should not need adjustment to the door, ### like you said, it came off fine. Unless it was a major dent and you really messed it up pushing it out.

As far as painting, you do NOT need to take the paint all the way off. Sand around the area of the dent with an electric sander. make sure to get about an inch all around the dent. Fill the dent with body filler. Block sand it smooth so everything is even. All you need to do with the rest of the fender is scuff it up w/ a red scothbrite pad or they have scuff pads next to the body work stuff at walmart and autozone. The scuffing is to rough-up the clear coat to allow the new paint/clear to stick. Now spray the patched area with matching paint (or the whole fender if you cannot find a good match) and then clear the whole fender and you're done!

 

[Sinner]

There is no need to remove the paint, just sand down any scuff marks and paint.