Okay, my 16 year old knucklehead did this the day after I gave him this truck!
(It's the red truck of course) :
www.flickr.com/photos/Xclimation/
I'm not looking to do any major body work to make it perfect. I just want to basically push out the dent from the inside. There is an outside layer of metal, and an inside layer. I can't get to the outside layer from the inside because of the inside layer. Attached to this inside layer are the seatbelts. I'm thinking of cutting a hole in the inside layer enough to push out the dent in the outside layer. The inside layer is not dented at all. There are some holes in the inside layer, but they do not allow me to adequately push the dent out. Even with sticking various tools through the holes. In looking at trucks at the junkyard, I noticed this is a panel that is welded from the roofline to the bottom. Then from the door to the back wall of the cab. It is welded on though. I don't have welding skills. I'm trying to avoid the drilling a hole from the outside, then pulling out the dent technique. This is going to be a weekend project for us. The only problem is my son plays high school football, and anyone who knows about Texas High School Football knows about how much time and energy this takes. But I Love It! Go Euless Trinity Trojans! By the way, my son hit another parked truck when trying to park when going to Football practice. He sideswiped the bumper of the other truck. The other truck suffered no damage. And, from the story I got; a lot of the damage was done after my son realized he hit the other truck, and was attempting to pull away!

 

leave it alone for awhile so he can save the money to have it fixed.

it will bother him every day and make him a better driver in the long run.

then after he saves enough to fix it, take it to a body shop.

knucklehead is probably not the best thing to call your son, self fulfilling prophesy and all that involves.

were you real experienced at 16?

 

Sorry, knucklehead is not that strong of a word in my household. To be honest, between Football, paying for his own insurance and gas and his workload at school; there is no time for him to earn the money to take it to a body shop. Plus, I do want him to enjoy himself. He's a good hard working kid, and I'm proud of him. Also, I like to teach the satisfaction of doing a job yourself, thriftiness with money and just some bonding time between him and I while working on this project. Eventually, we'll get to making it more pretty, but I just don't want to do more damage while pushing out the dent myself.

 

Hey X, do you have a franchise called ''Dent Wizard'' near you? These guys are unreal! Cheap, too...I had them repair a dent from my wife's Integra and you would never know it was there! They sometimes go by "Paintless Dent Wizard" try the local Yellow Pages. Best of luck~~
Roger

 

This is just me, but I'd probably do what I could to remove the dent from the inside. It will save you the time and hassle of potentially doing more damage attempting to do it from the outside. Plus, the interior trim panel will hide any holes you may cut to push the dent out. But that's just what I'd do.

And we were all knuckleheads at 16- doesn't matter how smart or sports involved you were- we're all knuckleheads at that age- that's what the teenage years are for.

 

i disagree.

i was inexperienced at 16, not a knucklehead.

 

We used a suction cup puller on a dent in a teacher's truck bed. It didn't come out completely, but it got the biggest part of it out. Something to consider if it can't be reached from the inside.

 

You expect me to believe that you spent the entirety of your teenage years without doing something completely stupid and/or reckless? If so, then you're what we'd call a NERD!

Just kidding- you don't have to accept the term knucklehead if you don't want to- but whatever you want to call it, it all means the same thing. We've all done stupid things as teenagers, and that's what I meant by knucklehead.