That one dent on a '97 Civic took me 5 days to fix

Had a little 2 inch dent on a rear quarter panel of an old Civic last week. Thought I'd knock it out in a morning with my slide hammer and some filler. After 3 days of pulling, shrinking, and re-pulling, I finally gave up and cut out a patch panel from a junker. Took another 2 days to weld it in smooth. Anyone else ever get humbled by a dent that looked simple but just would not cooperate?

3 comments

3 Comments

pat_schmidt601mo ago

Slide hammer was useless on my old Toyota too, ended up doing the same thing with a patch panel. Sometimes the metal is just too stretched or rusty to bother with.

leelewis1mo ago

Yeah but a slide hammer is one of those tools that's supposed to do everything and ends up doing nothing well. You gotta really commit and yank on it like you're starting a lawnmower from the 70s for it to even budge anything. Half the time I think people just slap it on, give it a couple half-hearted pulls, and then blame the tool when the dent doesn't pop out like magic.

rileynelson1mo agoMost Upvoted

Once I ripped a slide hammer so hard I pulled something in my back and had to sit down for an hour.