How do you remove hail dents?

[67Fleetsidedream]

My truck has them on the roof of the cab, hood, and on top of each fender. Anyone have any suggestions on removal?
I tried this on the body and paint forum with hardly any results.
Ben

[68 Suburban]

I have heard if you heat them up with a hair dryer then rub and Ice cube on the spot they will pop out.

[toms68cst]

I tried the dry ice technique on a hot day/heat gun with no success. I'm wondering if the metal on our trucks is not too heavy for that. I've talked to some paintless dent removal guys around and they all say the paint is too brittle on an older vehicle for that. I'm temped to find a flat piece of heavy flat iron, place it on top of my hood over a hail dent and whacking the dents from below with a plasitic hammer I have.

[SWINGSAX68]

My brother has some dents on his 87 honda civic....I'm gonna try the ice cube trick when I have time!!!

[Low69CST]

Look in the yellow pages for a place called dent busters, or a simular name. We have them around here and call them all the time. They have these things that look like spoons with really long handles. They reach inside pannels and massage out small dents. They have saved many cars from the paint shop. I've seen super nice cars with hail dents all over. They can take dents out not even my dad, who's been painting cars for 40 years, can tell they had been in there, even with dark color cars.

[O'l Buck]

the ice cube trick should work on the civic.......but these trucks are made of better steel...it's alot stouter than anything made today. It looks like you are stuck hammering and dollying the dents out....musta been one hail of a hail storm to ding one of these.....mines lived outside all it's life and i've never seen a dent anywhere that was caused by hail.

[Slick71]

We had a hail storm go through last year and my wife's 95 Honda Civic was sitting next to my 71. Not a dent on my 71 and she had over $1400 damage to her car. Just goes to show what are trucks are made of.

[67Fleetsidedream]

The hail that hit my truck was the size of a golf ball. It also cracked the windshield in 4 places.
I have talked to a guy that has worked in the paintless dent repair business. He said that it would cost more to fix the dents in my truck than it would a newer vehicle with the equal amount of dents.
Any more ideas or suggestions?

Ben

[toms68cst]

The hail that got my truck was golf-ball sized. My Explorer and Winstar were both pounded up much more.

Ol Buck, What's "dollying"??? Would the heavy steel on top of a dent and the rubber mallet from behind trick pop them out? I'm thinking of just the flat areas of the hood. Obviously doing this on the curved areas wouldn't work.

[Low69CST]

About the only possibilities left is start ordering alot of goodmark body parts. The only cheap thing you could do would be to just keep driving it like it is. If your truck is hurt as bad as I think it is, your gonna be able to buy another truck for what it'll cost to fix yours. No way around it. If you find a cheaper way to fix it, go into business cuz you'll be a millionaire!

I don't know if you have insurance, but good luck with them if you do. These trucks have a book value of about 300 bucks. I don't know if your truck was fixed up or not. You'll probably have to argue with them forever to get more than a few hundred bucks out of them.

[HOTFUN]

If your going to repaint anyway which it sounds like it works real well to heat the dent up with a torch around the inside edge of the dent and then cool it off with a wet rag. IT works well especially on roof dents. Generally pops it back to original shape.

HF

[Low69CST]

In my opinion...

I'd be scared of the torch idea. You can easily warp a pannel. Warp in a hood or roof would would nearly impossible to fix. What I would do is take a hammer and just knock down all the high spots in the pannel around the dent. Then drill holes and use a dent puller on the really deep dents, then coat the whole pannel in filler.

Not the most desirable way to do it, but will work fine, Plus theres not many options when it comes to fixing the roof of the cab. Unless you've found another cab you can put on your truck.

[HOTFUN]

With 30 years in body work experienece I will tell you you can do this with a torch tip and a wet rag especially with the guage of metal these trucks have. For a novice I would experiment with an old hail damaged hood or something and you'll be amazed what a little heat and a wet rag will do. At the most when you are finished, a good coat of catylized primer surfacer will be all you need to block out for paint.
And if I were going to pull dents the best investment is a stud gun that welds nails to the metal and uses a puller to pull the dent. No holes to weld up.

Why not try before replacing with new panels. Otherwise leave it to a professional.

[paintpyro]

I would even start drillin. Id buy one of those stud welding guns. The ones that weld a nail to metal, then you can use a dent puller on it, no holes to fill, and probably less finishing before paint.

[69sixpackbee]

Easy...move to California!

[paintpyro]

Haha, good call Six Pack!

[Longhorn Man]

That's the beuty of a beater, my GMC has hail damage all over it from a stom with golf ball hail. The bummer was it happened 3 tays before moving out of Texas. I coulda already been gone.
The REAL bummer is, it dented my good cab which was under a tree.

Planning on doing the torch thing...done it before.

[ty1295]

Please DO NOT DRILL HOLES

I cringe everytime I see it done. Why turn a good panel, except maybe a dent, into swiss cheese?

Like mentioned, a torch and wet rag can do wonders. I learned how to shrink metal from one of the best, and watched him one day, take a toyota tailgate, and shrink out every letter, in less than an hr...

[Don Smith]

There is a small dent and ding puller called (PDQ paintless dent puller) available from ABC products, Anaheim, Ca. but it is pricey,
uses hot glue and a pulling jig. www.abcpropromo.com

[CoryM]

If you do end up re painting definatly go with the stud gun. Buy,beg or borrow a stud gun from someone. Then all you do is: remove paint from dent, use stud gun to tackweld a stud on, then attach small slidehammer to stud, give a tap or 2, then use a pair of pliers to remove the stud, light sand, bondo, prime,paint.
No need to drill holes or risk a warped panel. Sorry to hear your truck is so banged up , I hope it works out good for you.
CoryM

[PushinPebbles]

67fleetside dream:my dad is a insurance adjuster and just looked at 82 hail cars...............big bad storm................I can get u intouch w/ him or...............i can read u his charts(exp:hood-1-5dents-dime sized=100 bucks)............just email me ill be glad to tell ya.........................................

Don Smith: PDR uses the glue gun on places they cant get to w/ their tools...............ive seen them do itt..............they lay the glue,stick it w/ something and pull...............needles to say it pops right out.......................................hehe that would be funny to see him mistaking it for epoxy......................I'd bet hed pull the fender off!!!.....................ohh the glue wipes of on a cloth--cool huh?

I want to work as a PDR specialist when I grow older.............Im working part time for one right now dropping headliners.........................good trade I watch him all the time...........................and this dude clears over $1000.00 every day w/ expenses already paid............................WOW

on headline news they said in South Dakota in 1952, there was hail the size of basketballs..................Oh Sh^t........................w/
a doubt I'd bet that would kill ya if ya got hit in the head........................and I beleive something like that would go through a house roof...........................................for more details email me at BIGGYTYME@aol.com

................................................................Jack

[O'l Buck]

I've never used the torch and cool wet rag method....but sounds like it would work well, especially in the top of the cab where you can't hammer the dents out.

A dolly is the steel block you put on the opposite side of the dent that you want to hammer out.

[toms68cst]

Holy Cow Pebbles, You're gonna wear out your ...... Key!

I looks at the abcproromo site and couldn't find that dent removal tool mentioned.

[StingRay]

I've never done the torch thing but I've watched it done and it definitely works. You would want to practice before starting on your own truck though. Any good older bodyman will know the mastery of the method. DON'T drill holes!

[Don Smith]

You can contact ABC products promotion via e-mail :abcpropromo@earthlink.net or phone 714-533-0802 or mail 539 East Central Park Ave. , Anaheim Calif. or use the "contact us " at the website (PDQ paintless Dent Puller)