Paintless Dent Repair

Welcome to the new age of repairing hail damage. (PDR) Paintless Dent Repair is the hottest new recognized trade in the industry (it WORKS). A dent must be a candidate to be repaired by PDR. Dents that are deep and large in size must be repaired by conventional methods.

A PDR repair starts with locating the dent and selecting what metal tool will be best. You must be able to have assess to the back side of the dent often removing trim, taillight, headlights etc allowing assess with long metal rods. We place a special reflective lamp allowing us to see every push that is made with our metal tools. With every gentle push we can see our dent improve ever so slightly and after several pushes we often see our dent disappear and we move on to the next one, taken one at a time. I really admire these PDR men and women they have patience and calm about them that really brings a new dimension to body repair.

What is Mig Welding

Mig welding is the choice of most Collision repair shops today. Mig welding really took hold in the mid 1970 in the repair industry. Mig is a abbreviation for Metal Inert Gas Welding. Mig welders consist of a handle with a trigger controlling a wire feed, feeding the wire from a spool to the weld joint. The wire runs through a liner which also has a gas feeding through to the point of the contact Arc. The gas surrounds the Arc protecting it from the outside air. This helps the welding area to recieve the perfect enviroment for a perfect weld.

Mig welding requires three things, electricity to produce heat, An electrode to fill the needed weld joint, and a shielding gas to protect the weld from the air.

When you adjust your welder to the perfect welding speed, temp and gas output it will sound similar to hot frying bacon a fast crackling sound.

The age of the Paint Gun

Its very interesting to see the changes in the equipment and tools used today and the tools used in the past. The paint guns used years ago achieved the same effects that our new guns do today. The air is mixed with the fluid and a spray mist is created.

The two guns on the left are what we call siphon feed guns or cup guns or conventional guns. They were used in our industry going way back and probably are still being used today in some parts of the country. But do to the EPA restriction in some cities we are not allowed to use the siphon type guns anymore. Why? The siphon guns use a tremendous amount of air to siphon the paint up to the gun nozzle where it is mixed with air creating a large amount of over spray to disperse into the air causing pollution and waste.

The siphon gun has been our friend for a long time, but we now have the HVLP.

The HVLP gun seen on the right is our choice of gun today. It also can be called gravity feed. Notice the paint cup is at the top. The paint does not have to be forced to the nozzle by air, its already right there ready to be atomized into a mist. HVLP stands for high volume low pressure. The EPA loves the minimum amount of over spray generated by these wonderful HVLP guns. The paint departments over time find a nice little savings in materials also, since the unused over spray now can be going on the job.

Electrical Damage

Electrical damage from this accident can be and will be a nightmare if not found and corrected during the repairs. Often we don't see electrical damage after a collision because most of the vehicles come with a plastic type conduit insulation around the cluster of wires. Remember I said see, you can't see the damage because all the wires are inside the factory plastic conduit BUT GUESS WHAT? Yep we have cut and smashed wires. Its very important to do a little investigating if you see a factory conduit compromised in anyway. To go back and trace and repair these wires after the vehicle has been put together can be enough to make you ( well I'll be nice and say pretty upset). We remove the factory electrical tape and pulled the wire cluster through the plastic conduit exposing the many damaged wires. In classes that I've attended in the past, recommend a repair using what we call butt connectors. Butt connectors are great in some repairs, but not here. We like to use old fashion solder. We will strip our wires and run a piece of heat shrink up one side and twist and solder our wire, fold it over and run back our heat shrink and use a butane torch to heat our shrink. Now its totally sealed against the environment and strong. Now we don't have to worry about corrosion or any butt connector coming loose. Once we complete the repairs we will wrap with electrical tape and secure back in it original plastic conduit. Oh, and guess what? When we do our final light check, I bet they all work.

Frame Repair part 2

After setting the vehicle on the frame rack, measuring and installing our centerline gauges we start a pulling plan. We have discovered that we have a diamond and a collapse front cross member, (Not good news). There is a rule of thumb that the diamond should be the first item to address but with the severity of the cross member we decide to attack it first. We set up our chains in order to hold the vehicle in place and set blocks in areas to help against sagging.
Our Chief frame machine is equipped with three 10 ton towers capable of putting a tremendous amount pressure in the area that needs to be reversed. We wrap the area where we are going to pull with chains and a super strong nylon pull strap and we start to pull. As we pull we are watching carefully how things are moving and the amount of pressure we are generating on our pressure gauges. Our centerline gauges are moving as we pull and this really helps us see the movement of the frame itself. We are happy to see the cross member moving as our space between the transmission is improving, it actually took 9000 lbs of pressure to move the cross member since this is probably the strongest area on the vehicle. After several attempts to pull the cross member to its factory position we start addressing the diamond affect. What is a Diamond? Just think again about a ladder. If you were to be able to stretch just one of the legs of the ladder about six inches and the other stayed in it original position just think how goofy that ladder would look, that ladder would be what we call a diamond. The most important item when pulling a diamond frame is the ability to hold and keep the side of the frame that was not injured from moving. After securing the side with chains, clamps and blocks we begin to pull straight forward on the damaged frame rail. As our frame rail moves back to its original position we should have equal measurements between the cross members and the frame rails as we do our X measurement. Next, we will do a computerize wheel alighnment.

Frame Repair (Diamond)

As our age of unibody construction is taken over, we still have conventional frames mostly seen on our trucks and heavy duty vehicles. A conventional frame is what we call most the time as a ladder frame. Think of a ladder, you have two long main frames with several cross members. On this little Ranger truck our customer hit a tree and decided they would repair and keep her for Jordan to finish school. Jordan and his Dad did most the suspension and upper structure repair and had us help them with the frame repair.

We first begin by setting the vehicle up on the frame machine and measure the front, center and rear frame between the cross members to see how the frame traveled at impact. When we were measuring we discovered more damage.
Our front cross member at the lower control arm was bent so much it was hitting the transmission. We discovered that we had a diamond and a collapsed front cross member and a front sway. Now we set up, block, and develop a pulling plan.

Customer Pick Up

After the painting is complete the vehicle returns to the Body Shop for reassembly. We start by assorting all trim pieces and begin to install the front headlights, grilles, bumper and all trim on the drivers door. We evacuate and check the A/C system for leaks before recharging. We had a challenging job with replacing the fuse block that was destroyed, had about 50 wires to change out. After all the trim and hardware has been installed we have a 4 wheel alignment performed we then road test and off to make ready for a detail. The customer arrives to pick up her car.

No this is not a prank, this is our awesome customer of near 15 years

Carol Crawford. She is always Clowning Around. Carol is a true Clown among other characters. She owns Singing Telegrams of Dallas. Carol recently sang to President George W Bush at a Presidents Day party.

If anyone is interested in a entertainer for any occasion please give Carol a call

at 214-381-7464 (sing) or visit her website at http://www.singingtelegramsdallas.com/

She has many characters for any occasion. Thank You Carol your awesome.