Walked out to the garage last night and found a small dent in the top of the quarter panel in my 64 Pontiac catalina and have no idea how it got there. The car was painted in 2004. Stored inside a 2 car garage. Taking it to a paintless dent repair guy tomorrow to have it looked at. Curious to know how much paint work it will need or if I should even bother with it.
Its on a body line, in the stretched part of the panel, paintless guy wont be able to do much. Paint is cracked, it will let water in behind to rust and keep lifting the paint. Best option is to have it fixed and have that panel shot and blended.
Paints cracked no point taking it to a painless dent repair. Sent from my SM-G950W using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
My next door neighbor is a professional paintless dent guy. He has told me that the couple of times he has tried to smooth the dings out on older classics, his tools and skills didn't work because the metal thickness was much thicker than the current, modern day car metal. What you have there will probably have to be hammered out the ol' school way. I don't suggest you simply leave it. From your photos, it looks like it's liable to rust inside those cracks.
You'd be amazed what a good paintless dent guy can do. I watched the guy I use do one on a body line and said the same thing you did. Mind you, it needed painting. But here's the kicker. A body shop owner brought the car to my work where my truck was being fixed. The dent was repaired in about 30 minutes and body shop owner was still going to charge full shop rate for dent repair. All the body shop had left to do was sand away broken paint, filler primer, block then paint.
I wish for the best results. If a paintless guy can do it, please post up. The paint being cracked, still have to contend with that. Ive seen some amazing metalwork. Ran the repair / salvage shop at a GM stamping plant. A lot of repairs were made with rods from the backside of the panel, similar to what paintless dent guys use.
That's not as bad as it may seem but it's beyond paintless. With some dedication and patience it can be damn near a no fill repair with a push on the point of impact. Not a strongman push into the next county, just enough to "reverse the film" of how it happened. I'd figure under an hour, but the color? that might take all day (!)
Hello, Your car is worth it, if the paint guy can match the color. Most paintless guys can do wonders with dents and bumps, but if the crease is too strong or the paint is cracked, there is no amount of "paintless" techniques that will make it look like new. There were two neighborhood cars that had the local paintless guy remove a couple of door and body panel dings/dents. They let us watch as they knew we would be customers in the near future. They had some very strange looking tools. In 1960, I got a dent that cracked the black paint on my 58 Impala rear tail corner. It was foggy and this neighbor had a giant military truck parked where it wasn’t the day/night before. It was my fault as I did not stay looking back after the initial look around. Out popped the truck in the fog and before I could fully stop, the truck bumper hit the smooth rounded corner of the rear fender area. I was very sad, but I was late to an appointment in Bixby Knolls, so I took off. The next day, I went to my dad’s friend in Los Angeles and asked if he knew any paintless dent removers. He said yes, but that dent, since the paint cracked, would need a good repair man. He just happened to have the best body and fender repair guy in LA and the fix-it guy came over and said no problem. He would push out the dent as much as possible and then used real lead filler to make I absolutely smooth. I knew of several custom cars that had “lead” work done and it was immaculate. So, I opted for the lead and not the paintless route. Besides, the mechanic body guy said once it cracks, it has to be repainted. top curved area of the rear fender Jnaki The black paint was a perfect match and it looked like the original shiny paint that I had detailed over the years I worked on the Impala. To be appropriate, I told the friend that bought my 58 Impala years later, about the leaded in repair and when he looked at it, it had fooled him all of these years. He did not care because I took the appropriate lead filled body work over the paintless, shaky, work that could not fix the crack, anyway. Get it fixed the right way (lead or not), repaint and you will be happy that you did it correctly. Don’t get me wrong, I watched the local cruise by the neighborhood paintless repair guy do some wonderful things to my neighbor’s 64 Chevy truck without painting. Those guys used to cruise by all of the streets in our old Long Beach neighborhood and did driveway repairs every day. But, the paint was not cracked…
A good body guy can remove 90+% of that from behind by old school pic work. The rest would involve a file and grinding. A good paintless guy should be able to get that close. The paint matching would take longer than the dent repair. Looks like it’s in a great spot for a color blend.
Had a paintless dent guy around here that was amazing. Seen him work stuff others said couldn't be done. Find a good paintless dent guy and let him try his magic. Sure you'll have to have it painted but depending on dent guy you may end up with zero filler and some filler primer. Besides that you probably won't have a bunch of hammer marks on the metal inside the quarter too.
My neighbor had a dent and scratch in his OT Denali. A dent guy came over and fixed the dent then blended the paint right in the driveway! Was amazing and undetectable when done-1/3 the price of a body shop too!
New vehicle and 1964 Vehicle sheet metal...way different..that’s a body line too...paint broken....a good body guy could work that area relatively easy..than it’s up to the painter to match and blend the repair area
I think a push mower handle got it. The dent is about an inch long. Took it by a body shop. First talked about using PDR on it to see how close it could go back to original without messing up the paint. After that, see how the paint looked. From the paperwork, looks like they want to paint match (blend) the decklid along with the quarter. Estimate barely came in under $2000. He asked if I was going to turn it in on my insurance. My insurance is pretty large and he didn't think my premium would go up due to it wasn't in an accident. They deal with the company and the agent a lot. Its a 4dr car that I bought when I was in high school. Wouldn't bother me a lot if the paint didn't match 100 %. My mom had a PDR guy take out 3 door dings in her late model truck. I know the 64 metal is going to be tougher but the guy said it would try to work on the dent for $100. He does work for several dealerships but he's about an hour north of me. Just trying to figure out what to do.
The paint is cracked. Water WILL get behind it and start to rust regardless if the dent is there or not(PDR) and then you will have a bigger more expensive mess on your hands. The paint needs to be fixed. How good you want that fix to be or look will depend on how much you want to spend.
$2k seems high, but, maybe not. In any case,don't leave it and spend the money to have it done correctly. For $2K more, build a shed and park the mower out there.
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