The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Roof Dents

I am getting to a final stage with this truck but these roof dents from a tree fall years ago.
I don`t know how to approach this. My first idea is a bottle jack from inside. IDK
I don`t see them completely going away w/o body filler or am I wrong?

If you can get to the underside there is hope to remove them and not use body filler.
It's going to take hammer and dolly work, a shrinking disc, heat and ice water and patience!

There are lots of You tube videos for guidance.

A garage fell on my '56 F-100 some years back. I was all freaked out. One of the rafters bent the top of the window frame of the door outward.

On a whim I just sat in the seat and pushed up with my palm on the dents and they disappeared almost completely. With my newfound super strength I bent the door frame back into position by hand and never had to do anything else to it. Door closed and sealed up nicely.

Yeah, I`ve done that. Thats why its in such great shape now.

I have been working on my truck which needed a lot of repairs. I ran across this video and it was a big help. I am not a body man and the results are pretty good. I made my own slapper file and it has been an interesting learning curve. It shows how to make a slapper file and how to use it. I used it on some roof dents.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFNvxkoM7nQ

Whew, I don`t see me being able to do that. I`ll have to get those dents below 1/4 inch or so and fill.
I bought a H+ D set , I could not get a dent to move.

The trick to metal finishing is to be P-A-T-I-E-N-T! Back when the only commonly available body filler was lead, the really good tin benders considered it a matter of professional pride to use little or no filler on most body work. These days, the cost of that kind of labor would be just about prohibitive for anyone who didn't have his own printing press cranking out C-notes!
Jerry

A friend of mine who does high end body work for a living and does amazing work had an AD come into the shop that had a tree fall on the roof and dented it way worse than yours.
He used a porta-power set to push the caved in roof back up. He moved it around several times to even out the process to avoid stretching the metal even worse that what the tree did. Once he roughed it out with the porta-power, he then proceeded with thousands of specifically controlled body hammer blows to bring it back into shape.
He said one thing that stuck with me. "That roof wants to go back into its original shape, I just had to help it get there."
There is another old saying that reminds me of the same principal. A local ancient decoy carver explained how to carve a duck out of a block of wood. He said with a wry smile, "You just need to remove everything that doesn't look like a duck."

Good comments there. I kinda did the same today. I took a big rubber mallet to the inside.
Actually did good on two of them. One went away pretty much.
I did try a bottle jack and a 4x4 with a bendable piece of wood on top. That worked some.
Then put the same on the roof braces. Moving down the brace. Repeat. That helped...some.
The biggest ones above the rear doors I was able to get in better shape.
The other two are behind the cab inner roof panel. Also on an angle of the roof down.
Those may need to have holes drilled in and pulled up. But I dislike drilling a hole in the roof.
You are right, the roof does want to return back to shape. Like the two dents that did.

Here's what I did when working on oil can dents in the roof of my 1951. With a piece of plywood on the roof and some stout wood spreading the load on the floor, I could cut a 2x4 slightly long and then tap it vertical to push the roof up. Then work around it with a slapper to get the dent worked out.

thanks. I`ll try that

I got this far. Not bad from before.

To avoid drilling holes, I have used a home-brewed setup similar to this kit to pull dents in places I can't reach with a hammer and dolly. I super-glue L-shaped tabs onto the metal and use a small slide hammer or vise grips and a pry bar to lift the dent. A little bit of heat from a propane torch removes the tab once the metal is lifted.

www.ebay.com/itm/315206103060?

Here's another way to do the same thing:

www.ebay.com/itm/275702852395?

Jerry

I`ll try that puller. There are 3 small dents on a curve of course that would be right for.
Ive had a few dents pop back to pretty darn close. I have on order a slapper. Maybe I can get that back
roof a little better. Having pressure from underneath like Kevin was talking about and working around the dent.
That roof wanted to go back to original. Here is a pic of just a few days ago before I started with what
Kevin said. All that is at an angle and the bottle jack would not work. 2x4 cut long.
Thanks Jerry!! Thanks Kevin!!

Another trick is to drill a hole in a 2-thickness interior panel area or a roof support that will allow a curved rod to be inserted under the dent and apply some upward pressure to the dent while tapping around the damaged area with a body hammer or a slapper. The hole can either be patched later, or covered with upholstery where that's an option. Snap-On used to sell a set of curved dent lifters made of spring steel called "pick tools" to reach hidden dents, but they tend to be horrendously expensive antiques these days.
Jerry

I thought about using a section of leaf spring I have

Jerry is talking about picks. I made a slapper out of a leaf spring.

I know that. I am talking about leaf spring

Have you thought about cutting the roof support out completely, fixing the dents, then welding it back? You don’t have to find and remove the spot welds, although that is a option. You could just slice thru it at a convenient section just above the window frame.

The roof support I could remove. It has just 5 screws frozen. The rest are free. It is not welded in.
I did loosen it and moved it down some to be able to get to the dent.
About 1/2 the dents will come out the other half will need filler. I am limited to what I
have here in my barn/hanger.

If you want to get the dents out of the part that is double thickness, you can try the stick on dent pullers that Jerry mentioned (aka Paintless Dent Removal or PDR kit,) although with the thickness of vintage steel that was used on our trucks, I had absolutely NO success with that. What I did use was a borrowed stud welding gun and puller. I got a couple of roof dents above my rear window out to just need a skim of filler. The same principle as the PDR, but more robust. You do have to grind off the pins afterward.

Jerry, I used super glue on the dent puller tabs . Cured 24 hrs but they still just
popped off. Is there a stronger glue that I can take off with heat?

The problem with the plastic tabs is that glue doesn't stick to plastic well at all. Like I mentioned, I had no luck pulling dents with the stick-on system. Our sheet metal is quite a bit thicker than modern cars and as such doesn't "give" as easily.

I believe you are right. I did have some success with some dents on the side.
But these dents have the scar left behind from whatever dented it and will have
to filled /touched up after the dent pull.
The principal to me is sound pulling a dent that way. Have ordered some red stick glue which boasts
higher strength. At that point I think I will use something under the pull pads to distribute more force.

I used sheet metal tabs, not plastic, and hot glue. Make the tab big enough to cover a square inch or more of the metal you're trying to pull. As a last resort, use silver solder instead of glue and grind the tab off once the pull is done.
Jerry

This is what I used. The more glue the better but the glue given is lacking.
Glue gun is worthless.

I have a cheap version of a porto-power from HF and it comes with a rubber tip that looks like a mushroom about 2-1/2” in diameter. That could be used to jack the low spots from the inside while tapping the high spots from the outside. Here is a link.