The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Outer cowl dent repair

I had really great luck today repairing the typical cowl dent on AD trucks due to the door swinging open too far. This dent has been bothering me for some time and I've continously put off doing anything with it because I just was not sure of how to approach it. Well, today I came to the point where I was ready to cut the panel out for rust repair. The lines were drawn and I had the cutting wheel ready! Most of the outer cowl and inner cowl was going to be removed to get to the upper portion of the cowl to work the dent out with whatever distortion tool I could work into the area. Well, in a moment of clear thought, before the sparks flew, I decided to try another approach. I made up a dozen or so squared off "fence staples" (also resembling squared off horseshoes) about one inch by one inch from 1/8 inch steel rod (old welding rods without the flux coating). These were tack-welded to the bottom of the dent, about two inches apart. I then used my slide hammer with a hook attachment to gently pull the dent out. What was a dent over one inch deep and 24 inches long is now nearly completely pulled with less than 1/8 inch depression down the center left to fix. Little to no distortion from the pulling occurred. A dent which I thought would be a real bugger actually came out with relative ease. Progress, one step at a time!