[jman340]

Whoever painted my car in the past obviously used a slide hammer to pull a dent in the quarter. I found the panel slathered in what I assume was fiberglass resin as it was extremely hard to sand out. Now I've got the holes as seen below that I want to weld up. The problem I have is that a a few are dimpled in pretty deep. In that location I can't really get behind it to hammer it out, so I thought I'd post a picture and see what you guys might recommend. I thought about trying to use a nut/bolt with a heavy washer stack on each side to flatten the area as it tightened. Any ideas?

[MARTINSR]

Can you get behind it with a dolly? If you apply pressure from the back with a dolly and strike the outside with a flat hammer gently the metal will move into the hole and flatten it out.

You may need a dolly with a handle on it.

Brian

[jman340]

It's quite a stretch for me to work both sides of the area. I might need a second pair of hands to help if I try to hammer/dolly it.

[swvalcon]

From pictures looks like a 67-68 mustang. Not a good way to get in there to dolly on those. About all you can do is wire feed the hole shut and grind good or sand blast and fill with bondo. You shouldn't have any issues doing it this way.

[Old Fool]

It looks to me like they over pulled the area where the holes are and stretched the metal, so instead of shrinking it back they just peened the holes in and filled with mud.

If you are able to get behind the panel and use the dolly to flatten them out plan on doing a bit of shrinking in those areas.

[deadbodyman]

Like OF said but be sure to use a copper backing plate when welding or you'll open another can of worms if you get it too hot...weld one hole as quick as you can and let it cool before moving to the next one...Thats not so bad I've seen MUCH worse jobs...

[tech69]

use one of those puller tools (that goes into hole) or anything to flatten it out before you weld. If you do that it's good cause the weld that small won't give you no warpage issues but if you leave it like that it's still a very uneven surface. Might want to try a pdr tool with a handle that twists with a long rod.
The easiest would be the hook pull rod that the old schoolers use to use with those slide hammers. If it's out pull from the inside, if it's low pull from the outside

Might be able to do it with one guy.

[tech69]

Originally Posted by deadbodyman

Like OF said but be sure to use a copper backing plate when welding or you'll open another can of worms if you get it too hot...weld one hole as quick as you can and let it cool before moving to the next one...Thats not so bad I've seen MUCH worse jobs...

yep. when people are yanking on those holes the edges tend to be stretched so sometimes those little holes look small and easy to weld but they can sometimes be deceiving. You can usually tell by how the surrounding metal is which indicates how hard the guy pulled. Some guys create teepees.

[oldBodyman]

"Any ideas?"

YES, clean out the holes and use a stud gun to put a stud into each hole, pull to your liking , cut the studs off high and grind flush.

Fire-watch at all times.

[Mach1460]

I knocked a few holes the first time I used a stud puller, and I had the same situation I couldn't get to tge back of the panel. I bought a lead kit from eastwood for about 100 bucks and its actually very easy to use and comes with enough lead/tin to do quite a bit of work, prefect for filling holes. I try not to use my mig to fill holes because its easy to warp and since you can't get to the back you don't want to warp it. And if you do it correctly you won't need any filler, which is always a plus. Yea spending the $ sucks but you will get peace of mind and its fun to work with. lead has actually come a long way. Its mostly tin now and you can use a grinder on it. Just wear a dust mask. Watch some utube videos on it pretty neat stuff.

[deadbodyman]

Originally Posted by tech69

yep. when people are yanking on those holes the edges tend to be stretched so sometimes those little holes look small and easy to weld but they can sometimes be deceiving. You can usually tell by how the surrounding metal is which indicates how hard the guy pulled. Some guys create teepees.

Thats the main problem fixing this ,those teepees get ground down and the metal surrounding them is super thin so when you start welding the holes get bigger and bigger you never know when one will blow out.The copper backing plate helps a lot but still its a PITA

Eastwoods has a lead free body lead kit that quite a few old lead heads say works even better than the old style lead..The hardest part was getting them to try it.I may try it someday (when someone else sells it)

[Mach1460]

Not a fan of eastwood I take it?

[mitmaks]

Originally Posted by Mach1460

Not a fan of eastwood I take it?

He probably doesn;t like their price gouging

[Mach1460]

what's price gouging? I don't like that they don't offer free shipping like other big suppliers like summit racing

[jman340]

Just ordered a motorguard stud welder which will be here next week. I'm going to try pulling the dents as flush as possible, welding them using a copper backing plate, and using a shrinking disc to level it all out if necessary. I'll post some pictures when I start the process.