- So how do I repair a dent on my car?
Hey, YouTubers, this is Donnie Smith and I am back
with another Q and A video.
Some of the questions that I have on my YouTube channel,
you know I answer with these video responses.
And this question is about dent repair.
Darren Kern asks:
Hello, and thank you so much for your videos.
They have helped a ton with my projects.
I was hoping to ask you a high-level question
on how you would approach this repair.
I realize that most shops would want
to replace this panel or a portion of the panel,
but this is an inexpensive vehicle I am fixing up,
and I want to repair it the best I can.
Any quick feedback you can provide would be appreciated.
And he has some pictures linked here,
and we'll take a look at those.
Okay, right here is the picture that he sent to me,
let's just take a quick look at it and see
if I can maybe help you out a little bit.
It's really hard to tell,
I see where tape was at right here,
so I really can't see all the indirect damage in this area.
I see where that was holding the tail light in
after the accident.
I can see that it's pushed in right here,
you have a crease, a really high area right here,
then all this area right in here
looks like you have an eyebrow,
which is kind of a high area that you have there.
I also notice that this gap gets really wide down here,
and just look at this, like I said,
it's hard to tell just from this photo,
I can't really tell how bad it is.
Might give you a few suggestions for you to try.
First thing, this has to come back, this whole area.
You can tell it's just really pushed in there.
So you're gonna have to find some way
to put some pressure and pull back this other way.
And I don't know what type of equipment you have,
or if you have any equipment.
You need some type of hook that you can hook in here,
clamp or something that wouldn't damage this area,
that you can put in there so you can
apply some pressure coming back,
and you're gonna need quite a bit of pressure.
I know you probably don't have frame-straightening
equipment or anything like that
that you could hook in there with.
You know, probably, if you're doing this at your house,
I'm assuming, maybe even a come-along that you could
tie to something sturdy like a pole or a tree or something.
If you can find some type of hook or clamp
that you could maybe put in here,
back behind this whole area, cause it looks like
all this needs to come out.
And put some pressure on this.
Now you don't want to put too much pressure
or you damage this, but you do wanna apply some pressure.
You wanna make sure that it's good and stable,
it's not gonna slip out,
you don't want nothing flying out at ya.
But as you have pressure on this area right here,
you're gonna wanna concentrate on these high areas.
Just pull on that, probably not gonna do much,
and just hammering in on this aint' gonna do much,
but whenever you do it together,
that's when you'll probably see
a big movement in the panels.
A lot of this you have to kinda do it the same time
to roll that metal back where it wants to go.
But if you have some pressure pulling this back,
and you start tapping down on these highs,
that should relax the metal and push down those high areas,
and allow that to move back.
Now if you're tapping down on that,
and it's not moving back,
you may need to put a little bit more pressure
on your come-along or whatever you have to pull that back.
But if you notice that you're damaging this,
you may have too much pressure,
you might need to release some.
So it's something you're just gonna
have to play with a little bit.
But if you can figure out how to hook into that,
I'm trying to think of something you can use at your house,
not real sure, may even could weld a tab
right in here if you've got a welder,
that would give you something to pull with.
Or a hook that could go in there.
But as you're applying this pressure
and you're tapping that down,
what that's gonna do, that's gonna tap that high down,
it's gonna roll this back out, allow this to come back,
and as that happens, it's gonna realign this,
this should start moving closer and line that gap up
all at the same time.
And again, it's hard to tell from a picture,
pictures are kinda hard, I can't tell what all's going on.
Like right here, I'm not sure if that's a crease
or just the bottom of that tape.
Looks like it's probably just the tape.
And I don't know if this damage,
how far out it comes here.
This obviously is your direct damage,
but there may be some indirect damage out here.
And if it's high, you're gonna wanna tap with a hammer.
Now you don't want to hit it hard,
you don't want to be denting it in,
you just wanna relax the metal and help push it in
and help pull that out.
Now I'm also assuming that this deckle is always closed,
it looks like it also may have bit a little bit low,
so you may have to push up in this area also,
and it's hard to tell you what tools to use
cause I don't know what you have available.
You can get creative, think of ways.
Maybe you could stick a two by four, stick it down
in this area and as you tap on that a little bit,
just pry up on that with the two by four.
You just gotta get creative and think of things
like that to do.
But I would not be afraid to tackle this,
of course, I have a lot of tools.
And I think you probably can do it,
it may take you some time, but yeah.
Probably replacing this quarter panel,
that would take a lot of time too.
You're gonna have to drill all the spot welds out
and the cost of the quarter panel's probably high,
and I don't even know if it's available,
it might be something that you have to look into.
But I wouldn't be afraid to tackle this.
You certainly aren't gonna do more damage to it,
so I suggest just to follow that, go from there,
and if it's not working, doesn't work out for ya,
maybe send me another photo,
let me know what went wrong, how it's going,
and from there maybe we can take the next steps
or see what we can do from there.
I hope this helps to answer your question.
That's about the best advice I can give you from this photo
and there are a lot of people on this YouTube
that watch these videos.
If you have any suggestions, by all means,
leave a comment below.
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