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Front fender dent removal:

Erik Morris

Well-Known Member
Local time
3:23 AM
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Dec 7, 2018
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Location
Las Vegas, NV
Anybody dealt with horizontal dents to the forward edge of the front fenders? Previous owner home towed the car with a "safety bar" of some sort mounted above the bumper, dents are equivalent on right and left fenders. What is the best way to return these to true? Heat and hammer or stud weld and slide hammer? Or am I looking at a combination of the two? I do not have a stud welder but see the local Harbor freight has them for $100. The dents have irked me since the purchase and it's time to address them.

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Sorry that happened. I wouldn’t use heat. Stud gun works good, but the fender is strong there. Not a job for a first timer of amateur, if you are one of those.

Un necessary damage caused by an idiot moving cars.
 
Guilty! I am an amateur, but have learned something new every single day spent with the car. I have a bodywork tool set that I have used to straighten a number of smaller smashes, but as you allude to, the strength of the fender material there has me second guessing the hammer. The woman I purchased from was selling off her husbands collection, and had 11 carcasses on her property, parked so closely together you could not walk between them, much less open a door, so the man definitely pushed his luck with his moving/towing/placement skills. 3 other cars had similar fender whoops's. Still, I got the car for a song, so if playing this dent game is the cost so be it.
 
I’m on the low end of body work skills also. But I’ve watched skilled guys work and they know what to do, how much, and where to make it come out easily. Get a friend that knows what to do on that to show you. You could cause more damage than good.
 
Is there access to that from behind?
 
Yes, get to it from behind and use a piece of 1 X 2" wood and shape the long end to a dull point.
Hit it into submission! You may have to remove the fenders and work on a padded horse.
 
No access from behind unless you remove the headlight bucket, which requires spotweld removal. But once you do, it is an easy matter to use a hammer and dolly.
My GTX had the same dent.
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I would suggest hauling it down to the local body man. Something like that dent might take hours of dicking around with the possibility of screwing something up irreversibly whereas, the body man should be able to fix that in five minutes with his eyes closed.
 
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