1968 Chevy Nova Project Car - Smooth Move

Ron Aschtgen really loves his work! Here, Aschtgen has attached the slide hammer tip to the stud by rotating the collar until it grips the stud shaft. Once it’s tight, lightly tap the slide until the metal is pulled out in the affected area. You don’t want to go overboard here—doing so will cause the sheetmetal to “volcano.” In the days before spot welders, it was common to drill a hole for the slide hammer to fit inside. This caused lots of jagged peaks that are much harder to level.

Removing dents is most easily accomplished with a spot welder and slide hammer set, like Eastwood’s Unispotter Deluxe 9000 Stud Welder kit (PN 12374, $549.99). The kit comes with the 110V stud welder, a slide hammer, two boxes of copper-coated studs (2.2mm and 2.6mm), body side molding rivets, and a T-handle puller for hammer and dolly work.

With the depression area cleaned of all debris, the spot welder was called into service. Just place one of the copper-coated steel studs in the tip of the Uni-Spotter. Unlike other spot welders, the 9000 Deluxe will hold the stud in place even when the Uni-Spotter is in a vertical position. It also plugs into any 110V outlet.

Once the metal is worked sufficiently, cut the studs off with some side cutters.

Any kind of serious bodywork will also require a competent hammer and dolly set, like this seven-piece kit from Eastwood (PN 11979, $119.99). This pro quality collection contains a shrinking/skinning hammer, cross chisel curved hammer, pick, toe block, heel block, general purpose block, and light dinging spoon.

Position the head of the stud inside the dent where you want to attach it. Hold it there with light pressure. Warning: Just pull the trigger for one second—no more. Any longer and you risk melting right through the sheetmetal.

You can weld as many studs in the dent area as you like. We used two in this oblong-shaped dent.

The remaining stub of the weld can be ground down even with the rest of the surrounding metal.

Now you can begin to evaluate and refine the surface flatness and work it with a different set of tools. Here, another stud has been welded to a low area and the T-puller has been attached to it (included with the Eastwood Uni-Spotter kit). This allows you to work any surrounding high areas with a hammer (the skinning hammer is used here). Locally high areas can then be worked lower without pushing the center area low.