sheet metal repair

A carport can do a heck of a lot of damage

But actually less than you think.

So how would the GRM crowd handle this repair? Cut that section of roof skin out, straighten it and weld it back? Just pry and tap from underneath?

I will try and get some pics from the inside up in a bit

Heat, hammer, and dolly.

Ranger50 wrote: Heat, hammer, LS swap, and dolly.

FTFY

With that crease it will be impossible to shrink it back enough. If it were mine and i wish it was... I'd take a cut off wheel and cut the bottom of the crease then hammer and dolly it back you'll have overlap and thats okay it gives yo a way to weld the seem back up.

No body man here for sure but i do like to play with metal and did stay at a holiday inn express last night...

If you can find one these work and are easyer then you'd think to use.

http://metalshapers.org/101/video/planish.swf

^^^HF makes a cheap one.

http://www.harborfreight.com/pneumatic-planishing-hammer-94847.html

I'm not sure it would help, though, unless you are cutting the roof off to put it between the dies of the hammer. I would probably try tapping it out from inside first.

They use to make hand held units they looked like modifed valve spring compressors...SAY...wait a minute...

Not a huge deal. Set yourself up with a shrinking disc.Remove headliner. Find a piece of timber that you can shape somewhat to the shape of the roof. Use a floor jack and a 2x4 or a porta power if you have access.

The metal is stretched. Push it out while beating off-dolly(off wood block?) Apply shrink disc as required.

See you tube for shrink disc demos.

Shrink discs are cool.. I wish you look in fixing the fiat!

The fiat will be fixed. The challenge car Vespa wasn't so lucky

It was actually banana shaped bending to the right by 8 inches.

First rule of collision repair: CUT NOTHING until you have gotten it as straight as possible. If you jack that out, attempting to reverse the sequence of events that caused the damage, it will be remarkably straight. There will be some minor stretching, but a great deal of that will be caused by your straightening.

Work slow and easy.

I second what Streetwise Guy sad. DO NOT CUT IT. I would press it out from below with various pieces of wood and a jack and various hammers and dolly. Before I got in to this I would put a tape on the roof and measure diagonally as well as front to rear across the roof. I would want to know what moved (if anything)

For the jacking of the roof back up I I would remove the seats and get some cinder blocks and put them on either side (outside the car). I would then get something substantial and put it through the doors resting on the cinder blocks to jack off of. I am thinking a 6x6 landscape timber but you may be able to used a 4x4. The problem will come if you need more force than the weight of the car. You don't want to jack against the floor or the bottom of the door opening. If you bend those you are causing more problems that it is worth.

Can you get a new roof for it? It may be easier to just have all the glass removed and then cut the roof off and weld on a new one. I worked part time in a body shop for many years and since I have a welder and have put more than a couple new roofs on cars before it does not intimidate me. However if you have not done it do a lot of reading. It is not as daunting as it sounds. The biggest thing is to weld in X bracing in to the car before you start cutting. AND MEASURE EVERYTHING and write it down. Take photos double check your cut lines etc.

The reason I like this is it will be easier to hid the repairs / welds in the pillars than trying to get the roof back to being perfect. I would rather fix 4 or 6 small welds in the pillars than try to get the roof back ready for paint. That would take hours. This is a big reason why we would change roofs, hoods etc. It was much faster.

Without actually seeing it in person it is very difficult to determine what is the best rout.

Another determining factor is how the roof attached to that car from the factory? Where the seam is. and how the b pillars are attached.

Do you photos form the side and from the front taken from a similar distance that you took the photo from the rear?

porta-power

floor to roof, bolster under floor (to ground) so it won't deflect, press out

fasted58 wrote: porta-power floor to roof, bolster under floor (to ground) so it won't deflect, press out

yep.

ditchdigger wrote: The fiat will be fixed. The challenge car Vespa wasn't so lucky It was actually banana shaped bending to the right by 8 inches.

That makes me very sad.