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Fortunately it looks like it should be easily fixed by a paintless dent repair expert, or if you can gain access to the rear side you may be able to push the dent back out. I don't know if you will have to remove the fender to do that, or if you may be able to gain access by just removing the wheel arch liner and perhaps the headlamps. Maybe Larry will know with all of his disassembly experience.
That looks horrible. Personally I would look at a dent repair specialist rather than trying yourself.
Totally agree on what you'd do if you caught them.
Jim, from the height of the bump it looks like a parking lot dooring from a bigwheel truck - I've got a rear panel ding at approx the same height (thankfully not so severe) ...
I know the mobile paintless dent repair guy could get it out as fortunately the finish isn't cracked, but as you're a do-it-yourself kind of guy you can try a couple of things before you call him - first pull the fender liner and see whether you can get at the back side -- try and push it back out, I'd be cautious of swinging any mallets up there as you're bound to go off-target, maybe making things worse ..
If that seems like a fools errand with the fender in place, try to pull the dent out from the front side. Too bad there's a crease or you could use the toilet plunger as a big rubber sucker and pull it out with that ...usually need a totally flat area for the vacuum of the plunger to stick ...
Something I haven't tried but could work is the hot glue method.
I'd be really sure that you have a good solvent to remove the hot glue off the paintwork before considering this, but basically you melt a bunch of hot glue on the dent in several places, fusing a bolt or an old briggs cylinder head valve into the glue at each point then slowly pull on each bolt with vise grips till it all pops out.
Carefully cut the excess glue away after you've finished then get out your solvent and remove the rest. Like I said though, find the solvent before you begin and maybe do a practice run on ol' Redd first!!!
All the best
Larry
Last edited by Lawrence; Feb 21, 2017 at 11:39 AM.
I wasn't going to , but here goes. That dent looks to have 2 separate impact points And it's right on the body line. I wouldn't try that myself, especially with the pinstriping there to help reduce chance of a good sucker hold. Our van got hit in the back quarter by a deer last fall. ....uh, Yes. Yes it did. But we got one of those cheap dent suckers and it Mostly worked. I had a hard time getting it to seal because it was also on the body line like that. It was also a much smoother dent than yours. Good luck.
Hello again my friends. Thanks for the sympathy and the ideas for undoing the damage.
I have no idea how or when/where this happened, only that it was in the 1st 2 weeks of Feb. when we had that last dumping of snow here in Nanaimo. The car handled so well in the snow I never even came close to slipping or hitting anything at all. Jimmy made sure I would be safe when he bought me 4 brand new Uniroyal Tiger Paws for Christmas. It looks worse in the photos than in person to me but Jimmy's livid...and my poor baby has an ugly blemish...
Will update as repairs are decided on, till then, take care.
|Cheers, Cindy
Not sure if you've got any Harbor Freight tool stores up your way but something that may help out is this suction puller. They seem to work well if you can get a good suction on the dent and the dent is in an area that's somewhat pliable. Always a good tool to have around and pretty cheap. 4-1/2" Diameter Suction Cup
Winter Damage!
