Panel beating - car door

wuzzypoo

Hi,

Has anyone ever had to have any panel beating done on their car, and if so was it expensive?

I have an old (R Reg) clio, reasonable little run about. I have been thinking of getting a newer car (may y to 51 reg, small car, poss another clio or similar), but as i'm not up on cars it's sometimes better the devil you know isn't it.

So, back to my original subject! In November some "little darling" has booted my car door, no it wasn't another car as I heard the bang and saw the little dears running off :mad:, (after causing substancial damage to other cars on the street), and so I would like this big dent straightening out as it does look terrible, and if I do decide to sell the car and get a newer one, it will bring down the price quite a bit. It is quite a big dent to the top half of the drivers side door 9don't know if that makes any difference).

The paint work on another door os quite cloudy, i've tried to polish this out with no joy, does anyone have any easy tips of how to improve this?

thanks

wuzz

Notmyrealname

It will cost more than the car is worth. Far better to trawl Ebay and scrap yards to find a complete replacement door in the same colour as yours.

As regards the cloudy paint, you need to use a cutting compound such as T-Cut or Farecla, not polish.

forgotmyname

If no paint damage then £75 - £150 will be average.

On an R reg thats probably only worth a few hundred pounds anyway i wouldnt bother.

Cloudy paintwork? Metallic colour? Possible the laquer deteriorating, Maybe its been painted at some time and cheap stuff used.

Or is it red that fades over time?

wuzzypoo

Thank you very much for your replies.

To be quite honest, i have been thinking about taking the indoor panel off and booting it for the inside to see if it will pop back out, well it's worth a try I think. i can't make it much worse than what it is. i just didn't know how much panel beating was, and like you both said, it's an old car so probably not worth it.

i'll have a look for the T Cut stuff. it's dark blue and I think you're right forgotmyname, someone may have put something on it and it's made it go like that.

thanks again.

vax2002

If you can get to inside, buy a kids space hopper, wrap it in a sack and connect it to a battery compressor and wedge it in the panel.
stand well out of the way and once at 30-40 psi the dent will soon pop out.

rodenal

Never heard of the above but it sounds hilariously enough like it would work. You can always give it a kick but it wont come out even nearly even. Rubber mallet is also your friend. On an R ref clio I would just smack it back out as best I could and leave it at that, no point paying for it to be sorted on a car worth only scrap anyway

Horizon81

Agree with rodenal. Your best bet is to get the door card off and try and hammer it out as best you can. Or if you could find a door from a scrapyard in the same colour then although it still wouldn't be a perfect colour match it would at least be straight, but unless you're handy you'd to need to pay someone to fit it. I wouldn't worry about the part ex price. A 15 year old Clio isn't going to get you much other than scrap value.

jimmo

I used to have a friend who was a panel beater and he reckoned that if a panel had been kicked in there was a good chance that if you kicked it back out the same day it would pop out perfectly. However if the dent has been left to settle for any length of time any stretches in the metal will have settled and become permanent.
Then the panel beater’s skill would be to minimise the amount of filler needed to make good.
If you try to kick it out now the big worry will be that you may end up with metal proud of the original lines of the car.
On that basis do not attempt to kick out the dent. Either fill it or leave it alone.

forgotmyname

Dont do it at this time of year unless you have a heated garage, The paint may crack with the cold.


get the panel nice and warm and it should be OK. Instead of taking the panel of you can get suckers like sink plungers to pull it out.

Here are some cheap ones at toolstation, Screwfix, B&Q, and cars shops.

http://www.toolstation.com/shop/Automotive/Suction+Pads/d60/sd3264


If these are too big you can get smaller ones that use suction or you glue on and pull it out.

A lot easier. But if the panels cold the paint may crack.

Strider590

If it's a large dent, the above mentioned suction dent pullers will do a pretty good job..... Then all you need is a soft hammer and a light touch, to finish the job after the dent has been inverted.

cyclonebri1

vax2002 wrote: »

If you can get to inside, buy a kids space hopper, wrap it in a sack and connect it to a battery compressor and wedge it in the panel.
stand well out of the way and once at 30-40 psi the dent will soon pop out.

Then leave it in there and watch the little beggars bounce across the street next time :rotfl:

I agrre totally with the replacement door move but only if found in the same colour. But the problem here is every breaker I've used recently strips every component out of the door to boost parts sales, building it back up makes it hardly worthwhile with such an old car.;)