Even minor accidents can result in quite large financial costs. When contacting workshops, a high price may be charged. You can eliminate body deformation, remove cracks and damage, restore paintwork and polish car headlights with your own hands. To do this, you need to have the necessary tools, resources and a little time in reserve.
Types of body repair
At home, restoration is carried out using several methods :
- Difficult.
- Local (small).
- Painting and polishing.
Do-it-yourself body repair requires careful preliminary preparation. It is recommended to study the sequence of actions and watch the video “How to do body repairs yourself.”
Complex repair
Complex auto body repairs done by yourself involve straightening various dents. If necessary, damaged elements are replaced, for example, wings, geometry is restored and semi-automatic welding is carried out.
Minor repairs
minor car body repairs are used to correct small dents, chips and scratches . Otherwise, they may lead to the appearance of pockets of corrosion (rust). Minor car repairs with your own hands are carried out only after the end of the warranty period .
Bodywork includes:
- Geometry restoration is carried out after dismantling all removable elements.
- Removing dents and signs of corrosion, patching holes and removing all defects. If there are hopeless elements, they are replaced.
Polishing and painting
Body repair and painting are stages that require special attention. You should not clean a surface that is larger than the damaged areas. The final stage of do-it-yourself body repair and painting is applying the paint using a compressor.
To polish on your own, after the paint has dried, it is recommended to use a sander.
straightening hammer
Suction cup for straightening the body It is the main tool for knocking out and subsequent straightening of the surface of the car. It is distinguished by a small-thick handle and a versatile striker - one side has a square surface, the other has a rounded surface. For this reason, the straightening hammer is versatile and can be used to repair any damage.
Stages of body diagnostics
Car repair requires a preliminary assessment, carried out in several stages:
- Determine body VIN code .
- Compare with the sample provided by the manufacturer.
- Step by step check the body parameters in areas that are problematic.
From Wikipedia: VIN (Vehicle identification number) - and vehicle identification numberconsisting of 17 characters, it encodes information about the manufacturer and characteristics of the vehicle, and the year of manufacture.
If a DIY car repair requires scanning the thickness of the paintwork, then brass, aluminum and ferromagnetic materials are used for this.
Painting
This is a very important stage, since the appearance of the vehicle will subsequently depend on the quality of its implementation. It is better to carry out the painting itself in a specially prepared room with good lighting and without a single hint of dust in the air - this will directly affect the quality of the coating.
It is very important to choose the right color. It is strongly not recommended to do this by eye. It is better to select the color according to the VIN code or using special equipment. In any case, if you are not sure that you will do it correctly yourself, contact a specialist.
Painting a car with a spray gun
Before painting, you need to thoroughly clean the car from dirt and putty residues. The latter can be done using special paper or a soft abrasive. To work you must be prepared:
- the paint itself;
- spray gun;
- degreaser;
- abrasive paper;
- solvent;
- compressor;
- finishing polish.
The room where painting will be carried out should be free of drafts, dust and dirt. This is unacceptable, as it will affect the quality. Pay attention to the temperature in the room, as well as the metal of the body itself. The temperature in the room must match the temperature of the metal.
And, most importantly, proper lighting. Use several fluorescent lamps - this way the light will be uniform, and therefore all the flaws will be visible.
Please note that painting the surface of a car after repair should be carried out in two stages - first, the base paint is applied in several layers. First, the paint is sprayed with a mist, after which the surface is examined for smudges and other defects. All this is eliminated, and after the first layer has dried, the next, thicker layer of base paint is applied.
Types of body damage
In order to make body repairs, you need to determine the type of damage :
- Deformation of individual areas.
- The appearance of cracks and destruction.
- Distortion of the shape of openings (windows, doors).
- Damage to anti-corrosion and paint coatings.
It is impossible to prevent the occurrence of operational damage. In order not to spend a lot of money on eliminating them, you can carry out body repairs yourself at home.
Rotting
The most “popular” reason in quotes due to which the car body is damaged. In Russian climatic conditions, the car is subjected to very heavy loads, especially in winter. At this time of year, the roads are sprinkled with unknown things. As a result, even Volvos and Audis rot, and the bodies of these cars, as you know, are galvanized in earnest, but they also cannot withstand the chemical composition of the reagents.
Body rot
Rotten elements must be dismantled in the process of high-quality restoration of the body. New parts or patches are put in their place, everything is properly primed and covered with several layers of varnish.
Preparing the car body for winter is also the responsibility of the bodybuilder who carries out high-quality restoration. All the most vulnerable parts of the frame are treated with special anti-corrosive compounds.
Methods for restoring car tins
- If the metal is severely damaged , then to repair the body on your own you need:
- Use an anvil and a small mallet .
- Place the anvil on the outside of the dent.
- Make light blows with a mallet from the inside.
From Wikipedia: Mallet - carpenter's hammer made of hardwood or rubber
Geometry straightening
In case of severe deformations, auto body repair requires complete removal of the paintwork . In this case, to completely restore the body, you cannot do without a welding machine and an industrial hair dryer. Welding is carried out using graphite electrodes. First, the dent is straightened from the rim to the central part. To do this, the metal is heated and only after that they resort to a targeted effect. Thanks to this, the tin becomes pliable and plastic.
Correcting dents without painting
Restoring a car body with minor deformations can be carried out without repainting . In this case, the change in shape is carried out mechanically. The process takes a lot of time and involves exposure from the reverse side.
Soldering metal onto a dent
When independently repairing a body without pulling, the method of soldering special solder using a soldering iron, acid and flux (a chemically active substance) is used. This option allows you to eliminate defects and get an ideal result.
Spot welding method
Repairing a car in case of body damage involves correcting the entire defect from the outside. Using a welding electrode, metal is picked up in the deformed area. Extraction is carried out with a reverse hammer. The graphite electrode breaks off and the welding site is ground.
Welding a patch to the body
You can even eliminate through holes yourself . In this case, you need to completely cut out the damaged piece, and then weld the patch. If the areas of corrosion are not large, then the damaged areas are cleaned to solid metal.
Inventory
If it is impossible to use these methods, we recommend preparing the necessary tools in advance. To begin with, it will be a spatula, a rubber hammer, a sanding machine, and a hair dryer.
To carry out straightening, you can purchase a specialized kit for such purposes. Their composition varies, but most often there are various hammers, hooks, etc. Choose a set depending on the work to be performed.
Sequence of body work
When carrying out body repairs, as shown in the video, you must follow the sequence of actions:
- Geometry restoration.
- Carrying out welding and straightening work.
After completing the body repair of the car, paint and polishing is carried out:
- Cleaning and dismantling of external parts (bumpers, headlights and lighting equipment).
- Processing defective areas to bare metal with a chisel and sandpaper.
- Applying putty to an uneven surface.
- Next comes the sanding and priming stage .
Welding
To eliminate the more severe effects of rust, patches are used. Its use is rational if the damaged area is no more than 10 centimeters in diameter. Otherwise, the part will need to be replaced.
The welding occurs overlapping, which means that the patch is slightly larger than the damage. Most often, a sheet of thin metal is used for these purposes.
Armed with a semi-automatic welding machine, you can try to carry out this procedure yourself. Then, you can easily answer the question of how to repair holes in the car body.
Required tools and materials
Before you do car repairs yourself, you should get everything you need:
- Hammer, keys and measuring devices.
- Homemade slipway with a purchased hydraulic unit.
- Sander and sandpaper (#60 or #100).
- White spirit, primer and polish.
From Wikipedia: a slipway is a floor-mounted system for straightening a deformed car body, acting with the help of multi-ton pressing and tensile forces.
Restoring the body can be done without any problems if you have basic welding and straightening skills. The actions performed do not depend on the car brand. Carrying out body repairs and painting in-house can save you time and money.
What determines the service life of a car?
Unfortunately, a perpetual motion machine has not yet been developed. The only thing that the world leaders in car production can now offer is a longer service life of their products, of course, with timely maintenance and proper operation.
And the quality of the car and how you use it determine how long the time for its first repair will be delayed. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a foreign car or a domestic car.
But foreign cars are still more durable than our cars. Galvanized bodies, metal quality, million-dollar engines, build quality, reducing the influence of the human factor on the assembly process, all this ultimately leads to one result, a high-quality, reliable car.
Repair of cars of this class is carried out very rarely and, as a rule, with the complete replacement of failed components and assemblies, which, unfortunately, cannot yet be said about our cars.
However, there is still one advantage: repairing domestically produced cars is much cheaper.
Let's figure out what types of repairs exist and give them a brief definition.
