My Dent

[kkoncelik@xxxx]

As I promised 

I recently discovered a dent in my DeLorean Front left fender.(thank James 
for noticing it at Autofest LOL) The Dent was about 8"-9" long, creased in 
about an inch wide and was around .060 deep. While this does not sound too 
bad it is on a car I keep for concourse events so to me it was major. 
(besides half the concourse judges were at Autofest inspecting it.)

Well to repair the dent I did the following steps

1. Remove the front fender
took out the top six screws in the trunk after removing the ruber strip
2. took out the three or four screws holding the fender to the front under 
the facia.
I did not remove the facia. I have wide prybars that are very thin so I 
was able to deflect the facia far enough to get the screws. (Don't try this 
without the 
special tools you WILL permantely damage the front facia)
3. Removed the three or so screws along the front inside of the panel 
4. Removed the screws inside the door I believe there were 4 under the 
weatherstrip.
5. Removed the remaining screw under the fenderwall behind the tire.
6. Carefully pried down the plastic rocker panel and removed the remaining 
two screws.
(Don't do this unless you have spare plastic clips. You will break 
them.

OK now the panel is off

Picture 1: in the pic file shows the dent (I sent the pics in to be listed 
in the pic files the address will be posted later)
(The picture looks like the dent is only about 4" its amazing how much of the 
dent was covered by the grain in the pic.)

Pic 2 and 3: show the dent after being pounded out from the back side. I 
used a large 3" socket to push it out by hitting it with a hammer against a 
solid backing block (steel). as you can see it came out most of the way. 
Here you can get a better idea of how bad the dent was. 
Sections were still low and required additional hammering.

When everything was fairly flat and out where it should be I used a file to 
smoothe it out 
that pic did not come out.

pic 5: once filed down I sanded the fender. 

That was quick

Pic 4 and 6: show the fender repaired and ready to go

I can't tell it was ever hit and neither will the judges. It was regrained 
and ready to go.

It took a bit longer to put it all back together.
I did it in the opposite steps as mentioned above.

DON"T try bodywork on your own unless you know what you are doing 
One wrong hit and you have a non repairable fender. Regular hammers do not 
work well. They leave rings that are usually worse than the dent.

This is just to show you that it can be fixed. There are a lot of our 
suppliers who do this all the time and have tools to do it.

I have metal backing shoes and body hammers and a set of sockets that work 
real well and have been doing this for years.

Its a lot cheaper than replacing the body panel.

Again the pics will be in the pic file room soon I sent them in to be listed.

I am going to try Richards Dent
Its much much worse like his facia was. For those of you at Cleveland he had 
the DeLorean Tow Truck so if you remember that dent that is what I will try 
next. I will take better photos. Its about 3/4 inch deep and covers about a 
10" section.
He's been told its not repairable so we will see how good it comes out. He 
needed a new fender anyway.

If you can't find the pics e-mail me and I will send them to you if 
interested.

I have seen both Steve and Rob do this kind of work and I am sure the other 
shops do as well. Its worth it especially if its an inusurance case.

Ken 





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