TheSamba.com :: View topic - Sheet Metal Repair Help

Tue Sep 02, 2025 7:29 am

Hi all,

Can someone please steer me in the right direction - Novice bodywork man here, but experienced with metal fab. 1971 Ghia Coupe - Stripping the last of the Willow Green factory paint to prep for acid etch and epoxy sealer, ran into an issue with passenger door. Uncovered many small dents and two areas of previous repair with fillers where it looks like the door was hit with birdshot (square foot on inward dent with little divots inside it). The old filler was maybe 1/8" thick at the most.

The concern is that the door skin bows/pops in and out easily, I worry that the metal is stretched/fatigued. Prior to stripping the doors looked straight if you were to look down the side of the car, aside from dents all the body lines looked good.

Do I need to "shrink" this outer door sheetmetal a bit to avoid trouble later on? I worry if I start doing hammer and dolly work on the dents it will further fatugue the sheetmetal...I dont wanna leave any turn unstoned here that I will regret later. Thanks so much for any input.

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Tue Sep 02, 2025 6:22 pm

There are some excellent tutorials on heat shrinking out on Youtube. The Make It Kustom channel with Karl Fisher is a good one. Most use Oxy/acetylene, but I have seen guys on youtube do it with MAP gas and also with the electric pin/stud welder guns. I intend to do it on the sliding door on my bus.

Tue Sep 02, 2025 10:51 pm

You definitely want to take care of the oil canning before moving forward(That popping in/out is called oil canning). If you don't, it will be very difficult to be able to block that area without the panel deforming as you press your sanding block on it.

Get a hold of an oxyacetylene setup. People are always getting rid of them on facebook marketplace. you want to heat up a small dime-sized spot to dull red as quickly as possible without the heat spreading too much, do your hammer/dolly work around the hot spot, then quench it with a damp towel/sponge to shrink it down and remove the oil canning. It may take more than one heat/shrink to get rid of the popping.

There are a lot of good tutorials on youtube that show exactly how to do it.

Wed Sep 03, 2025 9:50 am

Thank you guys for the input, I've been reading up on oil canning but wasn't sure if this was a case of such. Now the evil has a name and that's half the battle. I'm fresh outta oxygen for my mini torch so I'll have a go at it with mapp gas and my hobo fright hammer and dolly set.

I looked up Make it Kustom and watched his metal shrinking video on my lunch break...very informative. Probably my new second favorite to Sylvestor's Customs.

This forum is fantastic, look forward to paying back the knowledge.

Wed Sep 03, 2025 1:00 pm

Why repair what you can easily replace? If I had a dollar for every Ghia door I've seen at swap meets... I probably have a pair of willow green doors in my stash. I decided to get out of Ghias and focus on Bugs years ago.

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Thu Sep 04, 2025 7:01 am

Follow up for future noobs like me...the door skin metal shrinking went well! Used a mapp gas torch and a spray bottle of water to cool. There was a couple areas that I had to heat then wack the metal from the back to pop the metal outward, but mostly I was simply heating and cooling one area at a time to increase the metal's ability to hold it's shape. Would feel for areas on both door skins that would buckle inward easily with minimal pressure, then heat and cool until the sheet metal was firm and kept it's shape when pressing. A few substantial dents I heated right in the center (pictured) then used a dolly on the inside and worked the perimeter of the dent from the outside with the hammer.

Very happy with the results, the doors have tiny little hammer dings and imperfections from me running out of skill but should smooth out nicely with some light filler and blocking. Only took about an hour a door, and well worth the repair time and having confidence later on in the bodywork.