Spot welding dent puller

[plymouth67]

Gonna go a different direction here. The stud gun will help you once you get it closer. I'm gonna tell you to do something that will sound crazy but, it works. Find...this is where it gets weird, a football or basketball that will fit up on there deflated, position it where you want it, its has to have some bracing from the inside to push against. Slowly air it up while you are using a body hammer to hammer down the area in the jam where its bulged out next the dent in the jam. Do all this Slowly to relax the metal and I feel like you will be able to get it pretty close then, just metal finish it off.

 

[Woody500]

Never tried that b'ball trick, but heard it works. Maybe a football would work, if the crease or dent is elongated.
A bodyman friend brought his pin welder over & helped me get many dents out. You just have to learn how much heat to use to get pin to attach enough. & then do the pulling & hammering slowly, moving from pin to pin, pulling dent a little, then move etc.
I've also made shaped dollies out of hard blue modeling(among other uses) foam and been able to push out dents that had little to no crease.
The punched hole may need a piece of new metal welded in, as it's already stretched and will stretch more as it's straightened. If near a factory crease, cutting a piece out of a parts door can help.

 

[MILO]

a little heat and work it out fast

 

[COOPS]

Interesting that I just did a dent repair using a friend's HF Stud Welder/sliding hammer today. This dent was right behind the headlight bezel where the V8 emblem resides on my '65 Signet. Ended up using about a dozen studs on a 4" x 6" patch. My first try with it and it worked very well. I ended up a little more than gentle with the sliding hammer because the dent was right behind the edge of the bezel and was kinda deep.

 

[stillrunners]

For the spot welder to work well.....take it down to the metal before spot welding.....if it wasn't mentioned....

 

[Woody500]

I would recommend starting by putting the nails in the lowest spot, or in the crease if there is one and trying to work most of it out by doing most of pulling there. Dent pulling rule #1, pull it out opposite the way it occurred. And helping with a hammer or leather mallet as previously mentioned. Or a dolly or even a piece of wood, or shaped foam.

 

[Mattax]

Any of you use a small round piece of copper soldered or brazed to the metal instead of the electric werlder?

 

[Woody500]

????? $89 @ HF gets you hand held welder, a slide hammer, and 200 pins.

Or waste time the old way by drilling holes & put sheet metal screws in & use slide hammer on that, & then weld holes up.

 

[Cuda416]

????? $89 @ HF gets you hand held welder, a slide hammer, and 200 pins.

Or waste time the old way by drilling holes & put sheet metal screws in & use slide hammer on that, & then weld holes up.

Yeah, I never intended on drilling holes and pulling. The idea is not do more damage, just repair existing damage. I'm all for using a stud puller but was wondering specifically about the new style units in my original post .

. that said I've gotten some really great ideas and guidance showing me yet again FABO never fails nor ceases to deliver.

 

[Cuda416]

Since this thread has veered a little off the original question and skirted general dent pulling, and will eventually touch on shrinking/stretching metal.

What do you all see as a minimum setup for a torch that's useful for body work. Something that will heat to cherry red quickly but I don't need 120 foot tanks either.

My mig tanks last at least a year for perspective.

If course if I got a decent deal on a large setup I'd probably trip over myself buying it but other than that I can make due with something small..

What do you folks recommend?

 

[Cuda416]

Gonna go a different direction here. The stud gun will help you once you get it closer. I'm gonna tell you to do something that will sound crazy but, it works. Find...this is where it gets weird, a football or basketball that will fit up on there deflated, position it where you want it, its has to have some bracing from the inside to push against. Slowly air it up while you are using a body hammer to hammer down the area in the jam where its bulged out next the dent in the jam. Do all this Slowly to relax the metal and I feel like you will be able to get it pretty close then, just metal finish it off.

I mean it's not weird if it works right? Lol

 

[plymouth67]

I mean it's not weird if it works right? Lol

Exactly!! Might sound strange...

 

[chryslerfat]

I think for the edge dent I would cut a block of wood to the desired shape. Put the door down flat on something then hit the block to push it out. You can work the skin after that