Dakota not dead? A followup...........

I found a space to rent to be able to work on my wagon and my Dakota almost two months ago. For almost two months of weekends, I get the truck loaded and it starts pouring rain. Today was no different. Today I was moving shelves I had made, and in my rush because of the rain, I forgot to check clearance between the shelves and a carport I had to pass under. Shelves were (literally) 2 inches too tall. This is the result and I wasn’t even going fast.

I’m beyond pissed right now.

That sucks, sorry.

Push it back out and keep going. Just watch you dont break the back glass

Or just leave it as is. Either way I would suggest adding a bit of urethane to what appears to be a small gap between the gasket and cab ,

drop the headliner. get a 1" X 4" piece of lumber about 6" long and a BFH, start where the roof should be curved about 2-3" away from the center of the dent.
once you are finished fill the gap between the roof and the glass mldg with calk to prevent water leaks.

NOS HIT NOTE***don't miss the lumber with the hammer or it will go thru the glass. DAMHIK

I can put my hand thru the gap. And the pop out windows don't seal now.

How ever fast you can get going by just putting the truck in gear (without touch the gas) in less than 50 ft, is how fast I was going.

Why I'm so mad is that I could have prevented the dent if I had got out to look when it hit.. The shelf hit, I looked in the rearview, saw the shelf was lifted a little, and put it in reverse not realizing the shelf was under the carport. Even though I barely moved back, the tension of it being caught on the carport, and the way I had it strapped down, caused it to flip forward with force.

I guess I'm better carpenter than mechanic as there is NO damage to the shelf unit, which I had built.

Its too bad I just cut the firewall and trans tunnel out of the 96 extended cab Dakota i have here, it was a decent cab that only needed rockers (the frame is junk, I bought the truck for the motor & trans). It does have a decent roof and all the glass is good, even has a sliding rear window. Oh well, the distance between us would kill the logic of using anything from here. Gene

From the picture, that doesn't appear to be that bad of a fix. Even if it was just a quick one. Beat out what you can of the dent and use window urethane to fill any remaining gap. By the looks of the paint, it won't really hurt the value of the truck any. Just a couple of hours work.

Buy a new/used truck.

A good dent wizzard guy could probably fix that.

And I would use window/ windshield urethane with latex gloves as that crap gets everywhere.

2 dr or 4dr I have a roof in az

Too bad about the truck. You probably could find a similar decent used dakota for $2500 - $3000 or even less.

You need some boards, some buddies, and some beer to get that fixed up.

All kidding aside if you or someone can get crafty with a port a power or BFH in the right spots you can probably work it enough to get it looking decent. A friend of mine rolled his Jeep Cherokee and pushed the a pillar down and busted the windshield. He was able to get creative and push it all back enough that the door sealed and it would take a windshield again. It didn't even look very messed up in the end.

I'm with ya and this was from lurching forward in my garage when should have been on stands.
Flatten both sides of the grille, bent the aftermarket driver fender.

It got a good jump and put the contents of the bench in to the dining room.

You must live in a different universe than me. Those small trucks are getting IMPOSSIBLE to find in any usable condition. While there are some available for that money, they are basically clapped out.

That roof could likely be fixed by a good metal man and smoothed out with a shrinking disc. Faster to just have a roof skin put in it maybe.

Ugh, sorry John. I think we've all been there in one way or another. It sickens us for a couple days at least, and then we figure out some kind of a solution and feel a little better. I hope you get it worked out soon. I'm not even going to go into details on the time I was pushing one of my cars out of the garage and didn't get the driver's door closed in time.

I haven't seen one for sale locally in ANY condition in probably a year or more. When I bought mine about 5 yrs ago, they were everywhere, now..........nothing. Even the next body style is getting hard to come by.

And as if to taunt me, my neighbor across the street still has his '92 he paid $800 for. He bought a new Chevy, and drives his Dak maybe once a week now. No, he won't sell it.

RWG75 .....DANG!! That sucks! I wish I had hit something with the front as I have extra fenders and a rad support, but I don't have an extra roof. Long time ago, a friend did something similar to his place with a '68 Bonneville.

Of all places, I may have found someone at work that can fix my roof. He was in business with a friend, but when that friend passed away, he decided to just work on his own stuff and friends cars. He doesn't do full paint jobs anymore, but is willing/able to tackle a spot repairs. He drives a '90's Suburban that looks flawless and he claims 'all metal work, very little bondo'. Says my roof is 'easy'.

I guess if all else fails, I can go this route.........



Thanks for letting me vent.

For one reason or another, the guy at my job probably won't be able to look at my Dakota until late Sept, early October.

Now that I've calmed down some, I decided to dig in and see what I could do before the whole mess gets blown away by two hurricanes............

The hardest part so far was just getting enough of the interior apart to make room and gain access. On my old Club Cab, I could have the interior gutted (except the dash) in 30 minutes. TWO HOURS later, I still didn't have everything out I wanted to remove, and decided to just work around what remained.

The dent couldn't have happened in a better spot, right where the hole is for the interior light. But, that hole is only so big, and I'm struggling with the crease that remains down behind the inner structure..

A floor jack, 2X6, a 5 lbs hammer a ball peen hammer and various pieces of wood and metal, this was the results after 3 hrs.











Not done yet, the heat of the afternoon got to me and I had to stop.

You can do it!

That ain't nothing. You should have seen my 450,000 mile '92 CC before I sold it for $500, still running and driving! lol

If you had a welder you could cut the inner brace out to get to the roof and then weld the brace back in.

If I had a welder, I could replace the roof skin.......

what do you need a welder for?
just cut out the flat part of the brace enough to get behind the dent. try to leave the rt angle part of the brace in the truck, just cut the flat part.
once you have the most of the dent pounded out, just add a few strips of sheetmetal and pop rivet the metal you cut out back on. use the metal strips to bridge the gap where you cut.
it doesn't need to be that strong. it wasn't very strong to begin with or it wouldn't have bent so easily.

That is a good idea.

If you can get to both sides of the metal you'll be able to make it look much better

Hmmmmm............

I'd be VERY tempted to sawzall out a chunk of roof at Pick-a-Part, cut out and flange the roof on your truck, and get some of that 2-part body epoxy to stick it on...

I was looking at that 2 part body epoxy. $40 for the epoxy, over $100 for the special gun required to use it?

If I'm gonna go that far, maybe swap a skin over that has a sunroof? The truck already leaks........ (no, I wouldn't actually do that)

i wouldn't wast my time replacing anything.
just cut out the inner brace like i described earlier. get some wood and a BFH. pound out most of the dent,straighten the inner brace on on something flat, pop rivet it back in like i described, them re install the window. probably take you less than a day from start to finish.

as a experienced body man i could do the job in about 2 or 3 hours.

as a experienced body man i could do the job in about 2 or 3 hours.

Well, the interior slowed me way down. Took me 2 hrs just to gut the interior. Working the dent was maybe an hour.

I might buy a shrinking hammer to help with the high spots.

I'm thinking that while the truck is down for this repair, going ahead and (finally) swapping out the damaged drivers fender and core support (I have them already). I don't ever see the truck having a show car finish, but I would like to make it more presentable.

"Just doing a little body work" is a complete lie! Its never, ever, just a little, it always grows into a time consuming monster. You start getting into that "while I'm fixing this, I should fix that too" and it never ends. Soon that little dent over there needs to get fixed too, and the next thing you know, you got to paint the whole truck because it has spots where you fixed stuff.

The worst part of the whole deal is, after you finally give up doing body work and paint it, you will find that one spot you missed and it will drive you nuts.
Or at least that is how it works for me.... LOL! Gene

What's the term? 'Project Creep'?

With replacing the fender, its not just about making the truck look better, its also about getting more junk out of my garage (at least that's what I tell myself... )

I bought a tool set that came with one of those textured shrinking hammers and it doesn't do much other than mark up the metal. Not sure if I don't know how to use it, or if my expectations were too high? I just use a normal smooth face hammer and a dolly with the right shape and the shrinking disc to knock down the high spots. Repeat until satisfactory.

Keep going until you get it

Thanks Neil, I may look into a shrinking disc instead now.

Looked at several videos on YouTube and the disc seems to be the preferred method.

The shrinking discs scare me. I've seen too many horror stories attached to them. If you get one, be sure you have good hearing protection, and be sure you give the process your full undivided attention. A sheet metal thick piece of stainless steel disc spinning at high speeds can do a lot of damage if it gets out of control, both to a person, and to other objects. Gene

Yes, they are next level noisy. Enough that you may want to warn your neighbors ahead of time if you use it outside

The one I have is big and the grinder is also pretty heavy so you do have to hold it tight and pay attention. I don't think they will catch anything and go crazy and fly out of your hands, but they do have a gyroscopic effect that you have to pay attention to You'll want to wear gloves and watch your knuckles too as they are right above the edge of the disc. Basically treat it like a chainsaw or any serious tool that could harm you and you'll be ok.

They do sell smaller diameter ones that mount to the smaller angle grinders and that may be easier and cheaper to try out first. The grinder I have is construction site sized so I bought a used one at a pawn shop.

Dang, John. Sorry to hear this. Always something, isn't it?
My first thought was make it a Dakota 'vert.
Anyway, good luck on the repair.


Tim

Geez, been over a month already..........

BUT, its not like I'm working on it everyday. At this point, I've got about 7 hours into it.

I didn't buy the shrinking disc (yet) but I did buy the finest body working tool set Harbor Freight has to offer (re: the only one). I'm REAL close now. I'm not expecting perfection, but I want to use as little bondo as possible. The way it sits now, I should be able to get the window back in, but before I do that, I want to try to minimize the high and low spots on the roof. I may just try to slowly work with heating/cooling the areas.

This:



To this:



It's not as rough as it looks, my sanding didn't get off all five layers of paint. I made the window plug to not only close the back window, but to monitor the curve of the opening as I work the roof. I know if I used the actual glass I'd either drop it, or drop something on it.

Hopefully one more weekend.

Fwiw shrinking discs only take out high spots if you do end up buying one.

Be careful with heating anything. Heat is good, but uncontrolled heat like from a torch can make things way worse. A hair dryer or heat gun likely won't get the metal hot enough to do anything you want it to do.

I carefully used some heat today trying to get out a couple of oil can spots and ended up chasing one all over the back of the roof. Its still there but not as bad as it was.

Lacking a real cut off wheel, I bought some cutting discs for my Dremel to cut the inner structure. That was a waste of time and money......"Ziii *SNAP*Ziiiii*SNAP" Honestly, I was worried that with a real cutter, I'd end up going thru the outer roof too, so I did the best I could with it in place.

Doesn't look too bad out in the sun......





But, get it inside under a shop light..........



I've got it to where I can put the window back in, so I may do final shaping with

I bought larger thicker wheels for my Dremel at Carlisle some years ago - they work great on sheet metal. Just have to let the dremel cool down now and then

I wasn't aware there were thicker discs available. I'll have to look online.

These wheels are fiber-reinforced. Much more durable than the plain ones, but still not what you'd call heavy-duty.

Hmmmm....if that's the only difference, then that's what I was using. They didn't seem noticeably thicker than the regular ones.The disc wasn't shattering, it was breaking around the mounting point. The mounting screw isn't long enough to use washers to reinforce the disc.

Wonder if I have the wrong bit?

Lookin' good, John.



Tim

Yeah, that's coming along nicely!

I use reinforced 1.5" wheels that are 1/16" thick. They work great, just have to let the wheel do the cutting.