2G Popping Dent?

[clayday360]

Best way to pop this out? Thinking i should just take the wheel well off and go under but if there’s anything better i would appreciate it.

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[Dericsh]

Best way to pop this out? Thinking i should just take the wheel well off and go under but if there’s anything better i would appreciate it.

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That’s creased pretty bad, but you can probably make it look a little better. You’re on the right track, if that’s not enough space then get to removing the front bumper and headlight.

 

[DogWhistle]

Best way to pop this out? Thinking i should just take the wheel well off and go under but if there’s anything better i would appreciate it.

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A body guy told us, “work around from the outside in(ward to the center of the dent).

The point of impact will have stretched metal, but the surrounding area can be made to look a lot better.

 

[SixBolt_16G]

Did paintless dent repair for like 12 years.

Professionally with all my tools, because the dent looks deep enough, id probably remove the inner bumper/fender liner, possibly the headlight and the bumper since the energy from the hit is stuck in at least 3 edges of the fender and is better having access from all 3 sides. Id stick a few large over-sized, oval glue tabs(if the car has never been repainted) through the middle of the dent on the outside and do a few light pulls with a slide hammer to get most of the dent up evenly and then slide a dent tool behind the panel to push up the low spots until everything is level.

The problem that you would probably run into doing this at home is that the dent looks just deep enough that a lot of the energy from the impact is being held in the lower edge of the fender and the edge of the headlight corner(you can see the white highlight around the middle edge of the fender where it meets the headlight. It looks like a sharp transition from bright white to shaded white). id probably start by taking a rubber malletor plastic hammer and give the edges a few LIGHT but direct taps to release the energy that was pushed into it from the impact, being careful not to hit hard enough to deform the metal or split paint(Its not the direct hit that would split the paint but hitting the edge produces shockwave effects that radiate out from the edge. hit to hard and the shockwave splits paint). When too much energy is held in the edges, the metal wont want to move and thats how people end up with nasty high spots and cracked paint even though they may get the dent up. So at some point during the repair, preferrably at the start, but also several times during the repair, it needs to be released to allow the deepest parts of the dent to come all the way up.

The best thing you could probably do for a DIY is anchor your thumb on the outside edge of fender on the wheel well side and curl the rest of you fingers behind the panel like youre grabbing the edge or the bottom if the bumper is off. Use your fingers to feel around for the middle of the dent on the backside. Itll feel like the highest raised point of the area(from the looks of the picture the deepest part is slightly closer to the wheel well). You want to use your thumb as leverage and attempt to force the dent outward with your fingers(you might even be able to use 2 hands to do this, pushing outward by gripping both the bottom and the wheel well sides ). Youll want to do more lifting with your fingers than relying on your thumbs so you dont start creating additional depressions with your thumbs, but you want to try to move as big of an area as possible. You might be able to get some portions of it to "pop" because the metal wants tor return to its natural state. Its also important to push outward in the middle so that the dent comes up evenly instead of being pushed to one side or the other. If anything you really dont want the remaining depression to be on the headlight side or the bottom edge because itll cause a deeper valley because the energy hasnt been released. Keep in mind that the more metal that you are able to move outward and back into its natural state, the harder it becomes to push up the smaller depressions as the metal becomes tighter, especially closer to the edges, but dont start from one side or the other.. start from the middle of the dent. This works way better if you have large hands.

If parts of it move but the whole things doesnt come up, repeat the process of finding the lowest part again and again, attempting to force it up evenly. The best part of using your hands is that you most likely wont have the strength to push the metal up so far that it turns into a protrusion like you would if attempting to hit it with a hard, solid object. if it doesnt respond to your hand then youll need a larger, blunt object like putting a beer koozie on the end of a wooden baseball bat and duct tape to secure it or a rubber mallet to attempt to lift the dent up by pushing. Same idea, youll want to get as much surface area of the object on the center of the dent and "push". not pound. If while pushing the whole thing pops up all of a sudden, but you can press on the middle of dent from the outside of the panel and the whole dent falls back in and you can continously and almost effortlessly flex it back and forth, it means that the metal has been stretched beyond being able to return to its natural state. We call it "oil canning" because it mimics the old time oil cans with the thin metal that flexes to release oil. There are more complicated ways to fix stretched metal thats not as easy to understand for a DiY because youd have to make more damage to fix the initial damage.

What you absolutely DONT want to do is start hitting it with a bare metal hammer from the inside. .. 2g metal is quite thin, you have a high chance of cracking the paint with metal-on-metal contact.. Its not that complicated. It would be the same concept of putting a dent in a pop can and reaching your fingers in the can if the top were wide enough to push the metal outward evenly in a way that no one woukd notice the dent was ever there. Even if you just stick your hand behind the fender and try pushing it without hitting the edges of the panel to release the energy, you might be able to get a considerable amount of it to move and be acceptable, but you wont be able to get the whole thing out with just your hands because there is a defined crease at the deepest part of the dent. Youd need a dent tool or at least the knowledge on how to remove a crease(because we can make a tool out of damn near anything).

Pay attention to how the metal comes up..you dont want the dent to come up in an odd way where it might start to leave protruded creases like you would if we went back to our pop can analogy. if you tried to forced the can metal outward from the middle but not pay attentuion to what the metal around the center of the dent is doing then you could end up with some similar "crinkles" to a lesser degree from misdirected energy that you are applying. If any part of the metal starts to move, then you move slower and constantly reassess what you think the lowest part of the dent is.

Success is really going to be dependant on how much of the energy is stuck in the edges of the panel. So if you need to put a light depression in a beer can and try to take it out with various objects like a pen or a finger so that you can understand how metal moves and responds to pressing in different areas before starting on your car, then do it because its the exact same concept. The further you push from the center of the depression from the inside of the can, the more deformed the results are going to be. If you make the depression too deep, youd notice that pushing on the center becomes harder to get that popping effect. the edges become hard. Thats what is meant by the energy being trapped. You would need to push in the middle while squeezing the edges to release the energy so the middle depression can pop outward. Same concept of hitting the fender edges to release. The car metal being thicker than a pop can makes it a little more forgiving.

Good luck.

TLDR: Remove bumper, headlight and bumper/fender liner for access.. use your hands to physically move the metal outward, concentrating on finding the center of the dent where its deepest but at the same time moving the largest amount of surface area possible. Bring it up, slowly and evenly because the more metal you move back into place the harder it will be to bring up the remaining depressions due to energy being trapped in the edges of the panel. Switch to a large, blunt object like a rubber mallet or wooden baseball bat head if the dent doesnt respond to using your hand. There is a chance the metal could be stretched which would hinder an adequate repair.

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

Worst case scenario, I have a new/old OEM Mitsu fender with skirt mounting hole. It's going to be costly though.