1G Help with dent repair 1GA

[bh4000]

Hi, I have a dent behind my passenger door that I need to pop out. The car is getting ready to be painted. What is the best way to accomplish this?

My first thought was to take the interior panel out, take the side skirt off, and then make a wooden buck in the shape of the panel and then beat out the dent from the inside.

It looks like another way it would be to get autobody suction cups and try to pull it out, what do you think?

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[TerminalTalon]

That seems like a fairly easy dent to fix. It’s going to need a little bit of bodywork anyways so why not have the shop that is painting it do it?

 

[bh4000]

It's complicated. I called two local shops and they wanted $10k to paint the car, insane - they want to bill it like a collision insurance job with 400 line items, one for each ding. I found a local guy to paint it cheap. He had a good reference that I checked out and he provided some good pictures of his work so I went for it. Long story short, I think he can paint fine, but I honestly don't know if he knows how to fix the dent. He said he was going to paint the car, and then pop the dent out with suction after painting, which sounds insane to me. I mean, there is a really high probability of messing up the new paint if you did it that way - or being left with a crease.

I thought the best solution is to go over there and try to help him fix it. Take the skirt off, take the interior panel off, and try to pop it out from the inside. I'm thinking I show up with a pile of scrap wood and my jigsaw and try to make a few bucks that fit in the affected area nice.

Plan B would be to fire the guy. Plan C would be to let him handle it. What do you think?

I watched some videos of the suction cup method and wasn't impressed. It seems like if you can get behind the dent, do it that way. Use blunt objects to avoid making an outie. Just trying to make the best of a bad situation.

I think If I can get a 2x4 into the area shown, that'd be my first choice, start there, gentle, and work up and down. That metal is REALLY thin.

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[Dericsh]

Maybe get a quote from a paintless dent repair professional? Definitely do it before painting, which makes me consider your plan B since he suggested doing that afterwards.

 

[danl]

If you can get access with a 2x4, wrap it with a towel to avoid creasing the metal. It should return back to its old shape.

Also a PDR professional could make quick work of that and reduce your risk of damaging the car to near zero.

 

[92AWDHX40]

You gotta improvise i had to used a block of wood and a hammer.

 

[bastarddsm]

100% get a paintless dent repair guy to work on that or something. You can very easily make that much much worse trying to fix it and not knowing what you are doing.

 

[bh4000]

We took the skirt off, took the interior panel off and popped it out, it wasnt a big deal. I used a 2"x4" piece of steel, 1/4" thick, a bar acting as an extension to get past the interior side of the body sheet metal, and a 16oz hammer. We heated the sheet metal up with a heat gun, and worked from the edges inward and then back out. It should disappear with a skim coat of filler, and now that the skirt is off, the filler can be blended below the skirt line.

I think he was hesitant to take the car apart. I think it's going to be okay now, i'm glad I went out there.