Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk body line dent removal with PDR Glue
We recently removed a softball-sized dent in the upper body line of this Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk in Arlington, Virginia. The owner of the car was off-roading and ran over a branch which popped up and struck the right front door. We used a combination of PDR glue pulling techniques along with traditional PDR hand tools to remove the dent from the door. No paint or bodywork required.
This was a medium sized PDR dent. However, being on the body line created some challenges. For starters, the metal on the body line is much stronger than the metal in the center of a flat panel. As a result it requires more power and flat directional pushes to move the metal back to its original stamped shape. This dent had distortion on both the top and bottom sides of the body line. There was also a pronounced crown on the top portion of the dent. It is a true balancing act during the repair of this type of door body line dent. The main strategy is to lift the body line and return it to its original position. This relieves tension. The next step is to slowly push out the lows on either side of the line, while knocking down the crown simultaneously.
For this dent I decided to start the repair with the PDR glue pulling method. I placed hot PDR glue on plastic tabs and then used a leverage bar to pull the tabs away from the panel, thus lifting the body line. This allowed me to move the metal quickly without a bunch of push marks (which would have been created if I started the repair with PDR hand tools). The glue pulling technique also saved some energy. Pushing on a large dent on a body line with PDR rods can get very tiring. The glue pulling strategy along with knockdown work on the crowns resulted in removing a large portion of the dent. It turned an intimidating dent repair into a manageable job. I then finished the job with traditional PDR rods and more blending with my hammers.