[Goldduster360]

After replacing my fender it's now time to try to salvage the door skin on my trusty 78 Camaro. It got slammed into by an errant motorist on a cell phone and dinged up the passenger side of the car including the quarter panel and a badly crumpled front fender.

I did not want to spend any money to buy a stud welder so I did the old tried and true method of drilling holes and pulling out the dents. A 4-1/2 foot long pipe, some hardware chain, tapcons and my spare tire as a pedastal for the bar and chain and out came the 4 foot long depression in my door.

This is what we did thirty years ago with a morgan knocker and then just filled the holes with filler. I am tempted to go back and weld these closed but there is enough depth left in the dents to allow a primer coat of duraglass before hitting it with some regular filler.

If it wasn't for the guard beam in the door I would have hammered this one out. I was not willing to put forth the effort to replace the skin or cut the door apart to fix. We would not have done it back then in the collision shop I worked at and I ain't doing it now.

[diggers]

You need to at least weld up the holes you butcher !

[painted jester]

You need a before picture on there I just pulled a 79 Camaro project(my wife's) door out like that! Never thought of using a rim and tire for the base neat idea!

I agree weld the holes LOL


Jester

[diggers]

You could just weld up the top holes and put the ugly body side moulding right over the holes! May as well stick to half a--ing it the whole way ! Why change in the middle of repair lol

[painted jester]

Duraglass isn't what it was years ago! You didn't have to drill holes to get it to adhere! The instructions on the back say to drill holes in the repair area years ago the product didn't say that! I weld holes!!!!! I don't want more of em! Ive seen bump shops do a lot of short cuts to save and make money but your not in a bump shop! Show the young guys on here how to do it the right way not the bump shop in and out the door way


Jester

[novafreek6872]

had a feeling this thread was headed this way...

[Goldduster360]

I was hoping all the flaming I would get from this would warm up our living room I guess my lazy *** is going to weld up the holes.

[deadbodyman]

Why not go to the local U pull it and get another door 10 min and your done you'll spend more than the price on materials alone not to mention the 20 hrs of time you'll e wasting ...theres lots of those cars in the yards. and in all likelyhood it'll need pins and bushings anyway so why not just replace it...
and still get a respectable job

Bondo...30.00
primer ...50.00 a qt
20 hrs labor
not to mention 50.00 worth of sandpaper (all the grits)



a good used door .....50.00

OH yeah and save THAT kind of work for something thats hard to find like a Mersadies ,LOL.
Seriously though Its good to see someone with enough confidence in themselves to think they can spread that much bondo & primer and have it look perfect or even good for that matter...

[timothale]

Knocking holes is just for getting it straight enough so the window will still roll up in the winter beater rust bucket , It's Cold outside around here. A few years ago I collected enough from people's insurance running into me, I didn't ask for a new paint just make things work. , My winter beater truck ended up free.

[deadbodyman]

I hope you made enough to buy a stud welder...back in (The Day) thats how it ALL was done, there were no stud welders and a lot of those jobs are still holding up..
I've had my stud welder for over 20 yrsand I love it but I still use my knocker for old crap that needs to be done quick and cheap.

[Goldduster360]

Originally Posted by deadbodyman

Why not go to the local U pull it and get another door 10 min and your done you'll spend more than the price on materials alone not to mention the 20 hrs of time you'll e wasting ...theres lots of those cars in the yards. and in all likelyhood it'll need pins and bushings anyway so why not just replace it...
and still get a respectable job

Bondo...30.00
primer ...50.00 a qt
20 hrs labor
not to mention 50.00 worth of sandpaper (all the grits)



a good used door .....50.00

OH yeah and save THAT kind of work for something thats hard to find like a Mersadies ,LOL.
Seriously though Its good to see someone with enough confidence in themselves to think they can spread that much bondo & primer and have it look perfect or even good for that matter...

My Green Camaro took best in class it's first outing, I blocked the whole car, even reworked the roof to quarter seems, yeah the confidence is there.

A good used door for fifty bucks, LOL!!! I searched for months around here and ended up buying one on evil bay for $180.00 only to find out is waffled worse than the one already on the car. $50.00 Camaro doors are in the same plausibiltiy as car craft making money on all their six cylinder to v/8 swaps by selling off the parts for $500.00 that nobody else could give away. We never had a car come back to our shop with bodywork falling out of it. An 1/8" of filler ain't gonna fall out. Just saying.......

[Goldduster360]

Originally Posted by painted jester

You need a before picture on there I just pulled a 79 Camaro project(my wife's) door out like that! Never thought of using a rim and tire for the base neat idea!

I agree weld the holes LOL


Jester

Hi Jester,

Here is a pic where most of the nasty dent was already pulled, if I can find a good before shot I will post that too. In this pic you can see the little bit left to pull out. Note how the crown line is pushed in too, you can see allot of little hammer marks in an arc above the crown line where dents are pulled out. By pulling below the crown line where the nasty crease was I was able to strike the crease line above the crown with a pick hammer. This released the stress in the metal and popped out the top of the dent too and brought the crown line out to about where it was before the impact. To add insult to injury this door had been smacked once before too, so it was good and work hardened. A PDR guy would have broke his tool trying to straighten this one if he could even get to it because of guard beam inside door. Oh yeah, thanx for not flaming me, my wife is complaing how hot our living room is getting.

[69 widetrack]

I was going to post earlier...didn't...to disgusted with the repair...I've been in the business for over 30 years...never drilled holes to pull a dent without welding them up...if your getting any flaming...it's well deserved...I feel sorry for any novice reading the OP's original post and thinking "that's a great idea".

If nothing else we are saving you money on your heating bill in your living room...Oh wait, you live in Florida...no money to be saved.

Sorry for the temperature of my post, but, I couldn't leave well enough alone.

Ray

[boatbob2]

YOU are a CHEAP charlie,a stud gun from HARBOR FREIGHT COST LESS THAN $100.00,IVE USED MINE FOR OVER 4 YEARS,NEVER QUIT ON ME...

[deadbodyman]

And as a plus that I really love is you can weld the studs in the windshield frames that hold the molding clips...just need the proper head and studs ,they came with my magna spoter...the only thing I dont like about it is you have to grind before you can pull so its hard to see how much your pulling compared to the knocker where you can see exactly how straight its getting.