Aaaaghh! DIY dent removal...
OK, so I am renovating my TF and it has already had the rusty steel coolant tubes removed, when I notice the bolts on the slam panel inside the bonnet are all rusty.
So I remove them and the slam panel, which turns out to have plenty of rust on the rear, as do the bonnet lock fittings which bolt into it etc. I noticed the bonnet support arm was looking rusty too so I removed that - and propped the bonnet up with the old coolant tubes. It seemed quite solid - the spring locking thingy on the bonnet fitted nicely inside of one of the tubes, the other end went on the ground.
I finished painting the bits I'd removed after dark and forgot about the bonnet being up. I work away during the week (have a second car) so left it that way without noticing. This weekend, I come to refit the slam panel etc and find the bonnet is down and it has eaten the old coolant tubes...
What must've happened is a gust of wind lifted the bonnet, the coolant tubes fell back into the bonnet area and the bonnet then came down on top of the tubes in a way very prejudicial to the flatness of the bonnet ;0(
Plus the front panel was all scraped up. Anyway, being plastic the front panel wasn't too hard to fix, bit of t-cut, dabs of lacquer on the scoring etc.
The bonnet is another story. I collected all the spherical steel or brass objects I could find (two - one about 1" dia, the other about 1cm dia), took the bonnet off its hinges, put it on my bed in the house, got comfortable and started trying to beat the dents out. This is not for the faint-hearted, mechanically indifferent, heavy-handed or the impatient...
They show the PDR professionals using black and white striped panels to reflect off the paintwork to gauge the damage. Actually I found my bedroom overhead light and lampshade told be all I wanted to know. You get a round reflection of the bulb which distorts when it reaches a ding. It distorts differently for a ding from the inside as opposed to a ding from the outide.
My job was to work from both sides alternately with metal balls (and a piece of hard wooden dowelling with a slightly round end, plus a very light hammer) until the distortion went away.
You soon get a technique and can tell where the ball on the back of the dent is by moving it in little circles until the reflected image of the light bulb distorts in a way that follows the ball around evenly.
It's more complicated than I'm making out as the outward dings were pretty sharp and hard to get out - and when you do bash them down from the outside (a bit at a time), a sort of depressed area around them appears, which you then have to restore to flatness with a circling movement of the ball on the back surface. Repeat about a zillion times until it's as good as it's going to get.
Then flat it down with 1000 grade wet and dry (careful!) to take out some of the finer scale damage and it looks a lot better than when I started. Not perfect, but hey...
I still feel like a t**t for leaving the bonnet propped up like that though!
So I remove them and the slam panel, which turns out to have plenty of rust on the rear, as do the bonnet lock fittings which bolt into it etc. I noticed the bonnet support arm was looking rusty too so I removed that - and propped the bonnet up with the old coolant tubes. It seemed quite solid - the spring locking thingy on the bonnet fitted nicely inside of one of the tubes, the other end went on the ground.
I finished painting the bits I'd removed after dark and forgot about the bonnet being up. I work away during the week (have a second car) so left it that way without noticing. This weekend, I come to refit the slam panel etc and find the bonnet is down and it has eaten the old coolant tubes...
What must've happened is a gust of wind lifted the bonnet, the coolant tubes fell back into the bonnet area and the bonnet then came down on top of the tubes in a way very prejudicial to the flatness of the bonnet ;0(
Plus the front panel was all scraped up. Anyway, being plastic the front panel wasn't too hard to fix, bit of t-cut, dabs of lacquer on the scoring etc.
The bonnet is another story. I collected all the spherical steel or brass objects I could find (two - one about 1" dia, the other about 1cm dia), took the bonnet off its hinges, put it on my bed in the house, got comfortable and started trying to beat the dents out. This is not for the faint-hearted, mechanically indifferent, heavy-handed or the impatient...
They show the PDR professionals using black and white striped panels to reflect off the paintwork to gauge the damage. Actually I found my bedroom overhead light and lampshade told be all I wanted to know. You get a round reflection of the bulb which distorts when it reaches a ding. It distorts differently for a ding from the inside as opposed to a ding from the outide.
My job was to work from both sides alternately with metal balls (and a piece of hard wooden dowelling with a slightly round end, plus a very light hammer) until the distortion went away.
You soon get a technique and can tell where the ball on the back of the dent is by moving it in little circles until the reflected image of the light bulb distorts in a way that follows the ball around evenly.
It's more complicated than I'm making out as the outward dings were pretty sharp and hard to get out - and when you do bash them down from the outside (a bit at a time), a sort of depressed area around them appears, which you then have to restore to flatness with a circling movement of the ball on the back surface. Repeat about a zillion times until it's as good as it's going to get.
Then flat it down with 1000 grade wet and dry (careful!) to take out some of the finer scale damage and it looks a lot better than when I started. Not perfect, but hey...
I still feel like a t**t for leaving the bonnet propped up like that though!
from the last news http://ift.tt/1d9TrT6
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publié par vb @ 00:44
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