Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Getting smart on Utube

Last year I ran into my new van with the lawnmower. Crunch! Was that ever a senior moment! I'm still not sure how I managed to bungle that one however the result was a bad dent and small tear in the sliding door. The door was still functional but looked awful. I thought about my insurance but with the deductible of $500 I knew that wasn't going anywhere... so I just left it the way it was and got on with my life... still it looks really crappy, a glaring blemish in an otherwise decent looking van.

Then on Tube I saw a video of this guy who had a similar gash on the rear quarter panel of his car. Apparently in his metropolitan area there are body men who operate out of a van... He hired this guy and asked if he could videotape the repair. The technician said "sure" and this is how he fixed the fender in customer's driveway.

First he took a wire brush on a drill and took off all the paint surrounding the damaged area. Then he used a spot welder to attach pins on the bare metal. With a slide hammer he pulled the dent out getting the surface into a shape as uniform as possible with the rest of the panel. Then he called a parts store with the paint code off the car and got a spray can of the right color. Before spraying he BONDOed the surface and sanded it to make it smooth. Then he sprayed it with the rattle can. Turned out pretty good and I'm sure the price was right. Anyway that is what I'm doing now. If I could have popped off the inside liner it would have made the whole project easier. Then I could have tapped out the dent with a hammer.

The point I'm making is that for virtually any type of repair there is somebody out there who has made a video for how to fix it. As a matter of fact, It's possible to get a remedial understanding for how to fix anything by simply searching some key words and ending with utube. Try. it.... you'll be amazed with what you can do by yourself.