Dent on the hood

There is a decent size dent on my car hood. As this is on the hood should I try pushing the dent out from the inside or use something (like plunger or suction cup) to pull it out from outside? The dent is on the body line, so would you recommend getting it done professionally? I consider myself average DIY’er (oil changes, tire rotations, etc) and believe I can handle this. There are plenty of dent repair kits available on Amazon but I am not sure which is right for this. Any help will be appreciated.

 

Have you priced a used hood?
Suction cups won't do much with a dent like that, it would need to be pushed/hammered out from the back side.

 

Body work is an art and you'll never get that looking like it should with it being on a crease. I would replace the hood. Spend more time driving around the mall parking lot and someone will eventually back into you and dent your bumper and hood. Then you can get them to pay for it

 

That can be repaired but there is an inner panel in there and its going to take some specialized tools to pull that dent out.

I'll bet you it's in the ballpark of $1000 to repair through a body shop!

Used to own a shop 30 years ago and I can not believe what they charge today!

Surprisingly used parts are difficult to find and if you do they always seem to be in a different state, so shipping and 99% of the time it has to be repainted so not such a cheap option!

 

You are correct, there is an inside panel which will need to be removed to access the dent from inside. I got an estimate of $1200 to fix and i agree new hood will be less than that (online search is showing $500 including paint) but this is on a car with less than 5k value and i am trying not to spend too much money especially on something cosmetic. I wish to at least take a stab at fixing this myself, especially when the next best scenerio is to get a new hood. I know it wouldn't be the same as getting professionally done but i can live with a little imperfection

I plan on taking the hood off, remove inside panel and use a heat gun to make the metal/paint a bit flexible and then use a mallet to hammer from inside. Please let me know any specialized tool i can easily order and any other helpful tips you may have. Thank you in advance!

 

How do you plan on removing that inside panel? On every hood I've seen, it's welded on.

 

Id be careful with the amount of hammering and banging. There should be more massaging and pressing with some tools to coax the dent out. I'm not sure heat would be a good thing. I'd imagine by the time you get the metal hot enough, the paint would start to peel off.

$5k value? What year Accord is that? The grille and headlights look in great shape!

 

If the dent stretched the metal ( it appears it has) you can’t return the metal to original shape without making a relief cut to remove the extra metal. Then the relief cut needs to be welded. Since the dent appears to be in one direction, I would fill the dent with a filler (bondo), smooth to your preference and repaint the area. Last time I did something similar, an auto paint store mixed a minimum amount of paint based on color code in VIN and sold a pressurized spray bottle to apply the paint to the repaired area. Good luck.

 

You can shrink metal with a torch but today's sheetmetal is so thin it would be difficult to do without creating a hole. You could use a slide hammer to pull out some of the dent, sand off all the paint and bondo ..... and hope it stays put long term.

 

Some body work guidance.

Yes the metal is stretched but heat gun will do nothing to effect the metal.

This is basically a push and pull situation using welded studs to pull the metal and hammer and dolly on underside to push out.

This video has some basic information on the stud gun functionality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy_cVxfaq28

After getting metal close then small amounts of body filler can be used to achieve final shape.

From experience this type of repair is far from an entry level repair and has a high probability of looking worse that it does currently,

Might just consider leaving as is, does not effect the performance of the car in any way!

 

There are lots of cool tools this might give you an excuse to purchase...
https://www.efox.ie/shop_item.php?se...dywork%20Tools

But it is more about what type of access from behind you actually can get to the damaged panel. If you can expose the back, then bang away with a small hammer, a little at a time, and to finish massage out the remaining dent with a piece of hardwood.

If the access is a bit indirect, you might use a 1" hardwood dowel to hammer on the gain better access to the dent.

Of course a pro repair will get you to a perfect outcome, but some amateur effort will make it look ALOT better. The panel crease does make the repair more challenging for sure. But improving the cosmetics on an older car makes more sense then a full on repair or repacement panel.

The main issue is to avoid damaging paint, as you don't want rust to gain a foothold. Once you finish the banging, touch up any breaksin the paint, and spray a bit of Krown Rust preventer from the back of the panel.

If you can't get good access from behin, the suction cups and other glue based pullers you see
only really work on caved in large panel areas. The other approaches like welding on some sticks which you then pull on require welding and some filler, and respray. THat can all be done by a DIY, but would be a much more fussy project.


Should be a fun project to play with.

 

I thought this reply was indicative of the weird society we live in these days -- getting someone else to pay for your own shorcomings.

 

The largest part of the dent may "pop" back out partially by just pressing hard from behind. You should use a piece of wood or dowel and give a good shove, or one tap with a mallet, and see if that helps as a starting procedure.