Needless to say, a little over a month and a half ago a tree branch was laying on the highway, all lonely without a home. Some guy decided to run over it. Well, this is what happened next. The branch decided it's new home would be my pillar and completely shear off my mirror plus give me a nice dent here.

What is the best way to remove this dent, plus, remove the small rust line that is forming on the right side of the dent?

I'm thinking sanding down that actual spot, sanding down the surface rust, primer, bondo, and repaint that small area?

All you detailing and body experts, let me know. Also, please break it down into n00b terms. I'm in no way, shape, or form into body work. Please, give me a step-by-step.

Thanks a bunch.

 

I probably know about as much as you do, but from what I <u>DO</u> know, that is gonna be one hard *** dent to fix (the right way at least [ie. no/VERY little bondo])

As far as the rust goes, as long as its only minor surrface rust, you should be fine. Just sand it down gradually uping the grit of the sand paper and then primer, etc.....

Good luck. And bump for some REAL help

 

I don't know about the bondo though, since it will be sticking out a bit toward the edges. Don't want any of it to chip off or something.

Anyone know how to pop this dent out?

 

is that your windshield on the left? if it is, here's what you do...

remove that plastic trim first, remove the plastic cover over the pillar on the inside. and see if you could see that dent, if you can, try to push it out...seeing how bad it is, you might wanna hammer it out, but dont hammer to where you push the dent too far out...what this allows you to do, is lessen the amount of body filler needed (bondo).

then. get a wire brush bit, the kind that you can attach to a drill, and start taking the paint off around the area, it will also take off that rust. what this does is, it allows bondo to have a nice clean surface to stick there. now the hardest part is to get the shape back. sand with 180 the best you can, and if you have no experience, i wouldn't try shaping that yourself, take it to a pro and have them sand and shape it then repaint. at least you did most of the work and that should lower the price of a professional body shop to fix it. if you decide to shape it yourself (the best way is to do long strokes with a block sander). the areas where you can't use the block sander, its ok to just hand sand it. just do that and then primer it with a rattle can for the meanwhile until you can afford to paint it, hope this helps.


edit: to the right, it looks like the line isn't straight anymore, the metal crushed and pushed the line out of wack, you might want to grind that if you have a grider, but dont grind through the metal


Modified by donut. at 11:03 PM 6/9/2005

 

Good luck fixing it man....LMK if you wanna do anything tommorow, I dont have school...