Removing a dent

[Drache]

As some know my Dart was "vandalized" by someone who put a good dent into the side of my car. Problem was it was right over a major crease line in the body panel. To give an example in the picture below you can see the crease line and I've circled where the major dents are. There was also a small dent right on the crease line.



In this picture you can clearly see the large top dent:



I had heard of a method of removing a dent using two items most people have around the house:





Yup a hair dryer and a canned of compressed air, like those you buy to spray the dust out of computers.

All you do is take the hair dryer and WARM up the dent until the body panel is warm to the touch. Then take the compressed air and turn the can upside down. This allows you to spray the liquid CO2 that normally is at the bottom of the can. Spray this liquid CO2 onto the warm body panel until a layer of ice develops and then just let it sit and defrost. Might take a couple applications. It doesn't always work. Personally for me the dent is not easily 1/4 if not more of the size and there is NO dent at all in that crease line.

I'm pretty sure that if I took off the inside panel and did the same trick with someone very lightly pushing out on the inside of the dent, it would be totally gone.

[Benji]

The dent looks rather deep.  I would remove the back seat and the inner quarter panel cover below the quarter window and remove the window riser mechanism so you can get your foot in there and GENTLY push the dent outward.  It will pop out but I'm guessing the metal will be stretched. Once you get it this far THEN try the heat/cooling trick to shrink the stretched metal.  A heat gun would heat it up better and quicker but you also risk damaging the paint.

Ben

[Dino]

You can take huge dents out (for the most part) with the compressed air and hair dryer trick, but when the dent is close enough to a crease to leave the dented metal tight then it's not going to work.  Worth a shot though, what do you have to lose?

[Drache]

You can take huge dents out (for the most part) with the compressed air and hair dryer trick, but when the dent is close enough to a crease to leave the dented metal tight then it's not going to work.  Worth a shot though, what do you have to lose?

Read my post again, it took the dent right out of the crease and removed most of the two large dents to the point they are hard to spot unless the sun is just right. 

[oldcarnut]

I hadn't heard of the compressed air trick but I used dry ice before.  Glad to hear most of it came out

[Dino]

You can take huge dents out (for the most part) with the compressed air and hair dryer trick, but when the dent is close enough to a crease to leave the dented metal tight then it's not going to work.  Worth a shot though, what do you have to lose?

Read my post again, it took the dent right out of the crease and removed most of the two large dents to the point they are hard to spot unless the sun is just right. 

Ah my bad, missed that part.  I did a few dent removals like that years ago but the ones that were close to the crease wouldn't budge.  Then again, those were totally different cars with different sheet metal as well.

[Drache]

I hadn't heard of the compressed air trick but I used dry ice before.  Glad to hear most of it came out

Dry ice supposedly works better as it has a longer cooling effect. The liquid CO2 in compressed air dissipates pretty quickly. But around here you can't get dry ice so I used what I had 

[Dino]

Dry ice works great but you have to be real careful so you end up with the same amount of fingers you had before you started.   

[TUFCAT]

   Now try it again from the inside. You could also unbolt or remove the quarter window regulator for better access.

[resq302]

So how does the Dry Ice process work?  I'd like to try that on my factory gas tank that has a dent on it.

[Drache]

So how does the Dry Ice process work?  I'd like to try that on my factory gas tank that has a dent on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9OGa9vB42Q