I don't have pictures at the moment but I can get them later. The car is a 67 Barracuda and this is the problem.

Imagine parking a couple feet away from a wall and opening the door with a good amount of force. The edge of the door is pushed in at about a 30* angle and is an inch wide all the way down. To me it looks the door was opened into a wall or a post of some sort but it's more damage than you'd imagine if you opened the door with a normal amount of force. The pic is not my car but this is the relative shape of the door. Just imagine the damage being done from right below the body line until where the curvature of the door disappears in the picture.



I imagine with my skills, If I just grab a dolly and hammer and go at it, I'll wind up with a wavy mess where the edge of the door looks awful.

What if I took a 4x4 and put it up to the edge of the front side of the door and traced the shape into the 4x4 so I get the curvature of the door traced into the wood. Then I cut the wood so I essentially have a big door sized dolly that's the same shape as the door. Then I could either use that to hammer into or I could now take both pieces of wood, one has the convex and the other has the concave shape of the door cut into it and I could clamp them to the edge of the door and try to beat it back into shape and hope that the wood kind of molds it back into it's original shape.

Am I over thinking this? The unfortunate part is both doors have the same type of damage

MUST HAVE PICTURES!
Jay D.

badsix wrote:MUST HAVE PICTURES!
Jay D.

Here ya go.

I'd use wide-jawed vice grips with the jaws padded with paint stir sticks.
Pry the door edges back into shape, working from the ends and going
slowly. Pry a little at a time, then go back and start over until it's back in
shape. Then go with the hammer and dolly work...

It should work out nicely.

I did a similar one, albeit not quite as long, this week.

Used a slide hammer with an "L" shaped fitting after putting 3 layers of electrical tape on the back edge of the door. Pull a little then gently start tapping down the ridge on the face of the door. Rinse and repeat, many times.

The trick is to go slowly, don't expect to straighten this with 3 hits. And keep relieving the pressure by tapping down the ridge, again easy does it.

In the end it needed only a skim of filler on the face and no painting necessary on the inside of the door.

Tip: Gently applying heat to the seam sealer on the edge of the door skin will help it return to original without cracking and breaking. Mine was a 5 year old Kia, so seam sealer a bit newer than OP's, but it usually works for me.

I have another in the shop. An FPV Falcon with same kind of damage to the leading edge of the bonnet. With that one, because of the curved edge, using a slide hammer is more difficult. Instead I've been using a small block of hardwood and hammer. Same thing, repair in small increments.

I've done it before the way Night Train describes but found it has a high risk of collateral damage. Sure, you can pull the lows with a stud gun or spotter and tap town the highs but the slide hammer fitting spreads the force over about 50mm, so produces less damage in my experience.

a heavy flat dolly on the outside then start at the beginning of the fold and work your way down with a hammer, don't try and move it out in one pass. what's probably going to happen and I can't really tell from the picture. is that it stretched the outside skin, resulting in a bump on the outside skin when straightened. this will also make the door gap be off, the door is going to be slightly longer in that spot making the gap narrow. you may need to shrink it, the outside skin.
Jay D.

Thanks fellas. Lots of good info. I'm going to start with the least aggressive and then work my way from here so I can stay out of my own way. Sounds like patience is key here.

Luckily the damage isn't as bad as I had pictured in my head after I went out there and took a picture of it so hopefully I can get it back into place with minimal problems. I'm not a huge stickler for gaps like a lot of people so if it's off by just a little bit it's not going to bother me much. Appreciate all the advice.

I was able to hammer and dolly it about 90% back into shape. Like you guys said, I just went real easy on it. Instead of getting it back into place with a few swings of the hammer, I probably used about 500+ swings of the hammer and it came out much straighter than I thought it would. There's just one low ding near the edge of the door that can't be hammered out so I ordered a stud welder yesterday and should be able to get it out once that comes in.

I appreciate all the advice.