Dent be Gone

After an unfortunate mishap on the PacWest tour to SLO my 71’ 914-6 wound up with a rather sizeable dent on the Rt. Front fender. A real bummer… So now the question of how to deal with it. First a little background, I’m the original owner, the SIX still has the original paint and is in very good shape. Not to mention it only has 57,000 miles on the clock . Don’t get me wrong here, this is a driver and not a hanger queen. Conventional repair was out of the question, There’s no way to match the 36 year old paint. After a little research on dent removal I went to the local paint-less dent removal shop (Dent Wizard in Bellevue). A very nice and honest fellow, unfortunately he told me exactly what I didn’t want to hear. The older cars have thicker gauge sheet metal, along with some undercoat or mastic. Also the paint is totally cured by now (technical term for very brittle). In short he could not guarantee the paint would not crack when attempting to remove the dent. I remember reading about a guy in Tacoma by the name of Birch Abraham aka Dentcrafter, and heard a lot of good things about him. Well, to make a long story short I took the car in to him today and he did an excellent job! His tool selection kind of looks like a collection of mid-evil torture devices, but he defiantly knows his craft. Birch spent about five hours on the car, took the time to explain some of his methods and reassured me that he could do the job without cracking the paint. He also took care of a few other little issues I have collected over the years. Bottom line, the car looks great. If anyone has a similar situation, I highly recommend Birch.

Thats great news. I've had very good luck with the paintless dent removal guy on my "regular" cars, this saturday he is coming to the house to work on the 911 ( lots of small stuff ) :)

I took the local Dent Wizard to a Porsche meet about 6 years ago. They all looked at him like he was from another planet, that is, until he did one for free on a newish Cabriolet.
The crowd then lined up and he had a nice day charging a little less than "in the shop" time.
There are good dent guys and bad ones. A local dealer tried to undercut this fellow by hiring a guy and teaching him "on the job". After he blew about 3 Jags he was quickly replaced. No other than the guy I know.
Bad dent removers can leave a "high spot" where dent once was. Sort of like the guys fixing the roads with an asphalt patch except nobody runs over this to flatten it. :rolleyes:

Tom

Good to know, Bernie!

Sometimes holes need to be drilled to get the tools in. Not a good thing, but still better than patch & paint! I had 2 very small dings in my M3 repaired and they were able to do it through existing openings - turned out perfect. The 3rd ding was near a sharp crease in the fender flare. It was tough location and they probably shouldn't have tried it but they did and they cracked the paint slightly :mad: It's barely visible, except to me of course!

Hey, that's great news, Bernie. I'm probably the only guy out there that is about as relieved as Bernie, folks. Why? I'm the dumb schmuck that put the dent there in the first place. I can't tell you how bad I felt...

A kind of weird set of circumstances led up to this little "oh sh!t" moment. It all started when the roll pin on my clutch pedal failed on the way to SLO. Bernie managed to find a screw for some part of a Webber carb linkage that would make a decent temporary substitute, and the midnight hotel parking lot repairs began...

Funny, my wide open door cleared Bernie's car while we were doing the under dash work. Not by much, but it did. I closed the door loosely up against the side jack before jacking the car up to adjust the cable, then opened the door to check pedal free play. It still cleared Bernie's car... Then I left the door open while I lowered the car, and closed it when we were cleaning everything up. We had another beer, and went to bed.

I was the first one up the next morning. The morning light revealed this ugly, big ass crease running vertically on Bernie's fender. I opened my door, and sure as hell, it lined up... but didn't touch. It was pretty darn obvious to me that it had hit when I was lowering my car with the door open. Must have been how it pivoted on the jack and far side tires. I was just sick... How on earth was I going to break this to Bernie?

I have to tell all of you how cool Bernie was about this. Thanks, Bernie, for not killing me and leaving me for the seagulls. I'm so glad you found a guy who could fix it right. While I still feel like an idiot, at least the car is o.k.

I only wish I could find someone talented and willing to try some stuff in the NYC metro area. Anyone disciver anyone decent? I'm in northeastern Bergen county, NJ, but would drive to find someone talented. Many dings on a few of the cars.

-Lewis

Lewis ~ I have a fellow that did my car today, I'm in orange county NY. but he works all over lower NY, give him a call at 845-489-4605 his name is jeff, Dent Tech, he is the real deal .Ron

Great news! I am so glad to hear this, Bernie!

I was there when the jack was released - not a moment I would like to relive seeing again. All those drinks at dinner didn't help any...

Bernie is one stand up guy I have to say - his attitude about stuff like this (and stuff in general) is one I would love to see adopted by more folks!

is there a painless dent website that tells the "tricks of the trade",

I do not want to do it , but it would be nice to know whats really possible and why some dents can be fixed this way and some not,

When you are looking at a car to buy it would be nice to consider the painless dent option instead of repainting a panel etc

Dave

There are no tricks. It's not smoke and mirrors. It takes years to become proficient and do no harm. Yes, Virginia, you can make a dent worse. I've seen it and a good dent guy can tell if somebody has been there before if they don't do it exactly right.

Best,

Tom

I have used the same local fellow several times here in Asheville. Like Tom said, no magic, just experience from years of practice and a good eye. He has even removed all 50 something dents from a hail storm with golf ball size hail on my 1990 Miata with aluminum hood and trunk. State Farm wanted to replace all parts and paint most of the car. Dave spent half a day and explained his technique as he went. The main obsticle will be bracing under or so near a ding he can't get a tool under it. A good tech knows many tricks from drilling small access holes to knowing when he'll crack paint and canm avoid over doing a dent.
If you find a local tech, they may let you come and watch if you explain why you are intetested. (So he doesn't think you are going to become his competition)
I get a kick out of people asking how they do it...with suction cups or something?

Daron

My 70 S had multiple dings from ham-fisted engine lid slammers. (Leave your damn palms off the metal!!!)
Being aluminum (brittle) the guy wasn't too keen on working it. He finally agreed after mumbling something about the paint cracking. Everything came out just fine. The car also had a very slight crease in the roof just near the gutter. This came from 2 guys playing Kung Fu with, I believe bamboo poles, way way back when I have no clue but I do know one of the "Masters". I won't tell his name for fear of reprisals).
I rolled the original gasket out of place and gently removed the headliner so the tools could be inserted. I left the shop for them to work without an observer.
The car survived just fine and was dent free when "we" parted company.

Tom

There are some dentless demos on YouTube. They show some techniques to ensure the dent is no longer visible.

Sherwood