Advice for self-repairing some bodywork

[Bl0ndie]

Hi PHers, I need a little advice.

As my partner and I are in need of a second car now she's about to pass her driving test, and her dad is no longer driving due to illness, we have been gifted a mk2 Mitsubishi Outlander. However, shortly before he decided he would no longer be driving, he had a run in with a bollard and created this wonderful picture:



I've already got lights from a breakers yard on the way, and the plastic bumper will probably be either replaced (if I can find the right colour available) or smoothed over with sand paper/body filler and resprayed.
The thing is, I'm not sure what to do about the metal bodywork. The larger dent will likely come out, but my main worry is the 'smaller' scratches which are visible that have gone down to the bare metal. I don't want to risk this becoming a future rust issue. Should I just clear coat over them and cope with a few scratches on a 12 year old car, or would it be wise to respray? I'm assuming if I did it would have to be the whole panel rather than just the small section that needs attention?

[Decky_Q]

I'd remove and sand down the bumper with a bit of filler as needed.

Then pull the bigger softer dent out, or if that fails push it out from the inside with 2 pieces of wood, and push what I can out of the sharper creased one from inside with a flat screw driver.

Then fill the corner with sharp crease and sand back to shape it and just spray that corner rather than the whole wing, and respray corner of the bumper with rattle cans followed by polish and wax. 2 days work and about £80 in materials.

[paintman]

Based on the photo it looks like the impact has pushed the lower part of the quarter panel inwards & upwards causing the deformation in the panel & I suspect you're going to find a fair bit of bent metal when you remove the light unit & the bumper.

Likely it will require pulling back to shape & that will need specialist pulling equipment to do the job properly.
The sort of tools you see here: www.basicwelding.co.uk/collections/chassis-pulling...

You could probably try bashing it back into some sort of shape with hammers & bits of wood/lengths of steel bar from inside the body if you can get at the bent bits from inside but it could just make a mess.

ETA Simpler to repair the bumper as already suggested.

[Bl0ndie]

Thanks both for the input. Plastic bumper I can do myself, and it seems like you both agree with my plan for that. I've got a friend that should be able to help with the dent pulling as he's a bit of a project-aholic. He currently has 2 Mini Coopers and a Defender on the drive, as well as some hulking great american v8 beast in the garage held together with rust and hope.

[Decky_Q]

If you have a handful of glue sticks and a blow torch you can melt the ends, stick them into the middle of the soft dent and whens they are hard and cool pull on them to pull the dent out. Bug and tar remover will get rid of the glue residue.

[Panamax]

Leaving aside the obvious of "some touch-up paint" what you need is one of the suction cups used for picking up large sheets of glass and/or double-glazed units. I'll post a link below.

All you need to do is suction fix the glass lifter onto the side of the car and gently pull. Go carefully and the dent will pop out. It won't be perfect but it will easily be good enough compared with a cripplingly expensive bodyshop repair or driving around in a battered car.

Ask me how I know...

Link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Suction-Lifter-Suckers-Re...