Dent Repair

So I noticed that paintless debt removal videos have been getting a lot of traction on social media recently and It's pretty obvious why they are right? I mean these are very satisfying videos and these guys are clearly magicians because they take these giant dents that Look like it's going to cost like hundreds of not thousands of dollars to repair and they make them disappear Like they weren't even there But what I also noticed was that they don't really seem to be using super expensive or in an accessible looking tools I mean these tools almost look pretty basic and dare I say maybe even pretty easy to use So, Let's go So This is the test vehicle that we'll be working on everyone say hello to Marty the Miata And I'll give you a recommendation on whether I think you need all this stuff or not We'll get working on the dent on the passenger side fender first because I think it'll be the easiest I'll set up the camera angle with the striped light that we bought so you guys can see much more clearly What the curvature looks I really don't care about how nice this car looks and I couldn't care less about these thence I actually It's let'say uniquely mine To make this car look, It's gonna take a lot more than glue tabs But I Kind of went at it pretty soft Rotating the angles and adjusting the feet as I felt necessary and eventually the glue tab just kind of fell off and left the glue on the panel Using the included spray mist bottle that I filled up with isopropyl alcohol You can just kind of douse the area and most of the glue will just peel off and hey It looks a lot better ready the lines are much straighter now, but I think I can do a little bit better So now I'm going to use a smaller circular, I Don'think I used enough glue on this one and it kind of fell off after only a few pulls But I'm actually pretty satisfied with the results at this point I know that the lines aren't perfectly straight, but you really can't even tell that the dent is there without these lights and I kind of wanted to quit while I'm ahead on this one because the chance of me making it worse from this point is probably not that small I'm not gonna set up the lights on this one until later because it keeps annoying me by falling off and to you Don't need those lights to see what we're working with here and I wanted to see how well the suction cups work So after heating up the area again with a heat gun I decided to go ham with a smaller suction cup The big one didn't quite fit in these dense and couldn't get a solid hold and After the first few pulls I got some results, but after that I couldn't get the rest of the dent to budge at all I think that the dent was just too stubborn for this method to really work But I can't see this working on thinner sheet metal or maybe larger dense Not to make the damage disappear completely But just to pull out most of the dent so you can focus on the smaller dense increases that are left So I'm gonna go back to the glue tabs I'm attaching multiple ones at the same time because there are multiple low points that we need to pull out and You know waiting five minutes for each one to cool down is really time-cons So I never quite figured that out The slide hammer did work though at least to take out most of the dent and now I'm left with much smaller Dents which I'll continue to work at with the smaller glue tabs And I'll go back to the squeeze type device since I feel like I can control that much more And I keep having trouble with getting the glue to stick really strongly to the tab and I'm learning the limits of what this method alone can do this particular dent right at the edge of the fender was really stubborn and I think it's because the sheet metal is folded over at the lip on the edge and It makes the area so much stronger than just the flat parts After the second round of pulling I decided to take a step back and see how we've done so far I mean, it's not bad But I think we've done pretty much all we can do with the glue tabs at this point And now I think we need to go behind the fender to try to push some of this stuff out But before I do that, let's go work on The next dent because I think it'll be easier to practice on if we're going to be now working with the rods that we also got This dent again is right at the edge where the sheet metal is rolled over So I didn't really think that the glue tab was gonna do much but So let's pull out the rods and see what they can do And this did not go very well at all First of all, I thought I would have easy access to the back of this part of the quarter panel But I forgot that this whole area is actually spot welded to another piece of sheet metal So what I'm doing right now is actually pushing through a panel to get to the panel That's actually dented and obviously that did not go well and second this rod was a lot more flexible than I thought it would be So even though I found a easy leverage point against the tire It really didn't do much so the obvious limitations of this rod is that if you can't get easy access Directly to the back of the panel that's dented or if you can't find a easy leverage point So this method really isn't going to be very helpful But I'm not giving up yet because So I'm gonna give that a go I'll first remove the tire and just basically start hammering away And again, I'm not even hammering directly on the sheet metal that's dented I have to hammer through another sheet metal. So this is definitely not even the right way to do this and This dent would be perfect for a tool that uses spot welding and a slide hammer to pull out But So, So I just quit and moved on to another dent And Literally w I'm calling it good enough By the way w They're pretty clearly visible So it turns out that these rods are really not beginner friendly at least not to the degree that the glue tabs are First it's hard to even see what you're doing and where exactly you're pressing because without doing some disassembly You probably won't have direct line of sight to the area and Second if you press a little too hard, you're gonna get these dimples that you have to tap down and That's also much easier said than done At least to the untrained eyes and hands and third you have to find a good leverage point Which is why the kit comes with a chain and some hooks But that's also pretty difficult depending on the area that you're working in So as my first attempt at this at paintless dent removal, I would say this is The reasonably the best I could achieve with the tools that I had without spending Significantly more time which I don'think you're gonna regret the purchase I wouldn't recommend the rods because they're too hard to use and easy to make things even worse and The light well it does come in handy to find the dents and to check your work But I wouldn't say it's 100% necessary If you enjoy this content do me a favor and give this video a See you again soon