Paintless Dent Removal (PDR) Using the Harbor Freight Crossbar Dent Repair Kit
🛒 Product link(s) at bottom of video description.
⚠️ Note: There have been a few comments about getting this professionally done. Unless you've practiced this on some sheet metal or a beat up car and have gotten good at it, I agree that you should seek a professional to do the repair work to prevent any further damage such as stretching the metal by pulling it out too far.
How I removed most of large dent left behind from someone hitting my car with their truck door. This method essentially uses a crossbar tool and hot glue gun to pull a dent up. It is a time consuming process, but it only costs around $15 to do. It works well on simple dents, but it may not completely fix deep dents or ones where the metal is creased such as in my case. There are before and after pictures at the end of the video.
🛒 Crossbar Dent Repair Kit: www.harborfreight.com/crossba...
☕ If you find this helpful, you can buy me a coffee at ko-fi.com/vampyrex13.
So useful thank you for posting this; my dent kit instructions were terrible so this was a huge help!! 👍
Thanks for the video this is exactly what i was looking for.
Thanks for your video help I pulled a tiny bullet dent out last night used the same kit I’m left with a tiny crease now but much better. PS the bang was loud
Thanks for the demo.
Thank you!
Im gonna use it on my mail box...thanks for showing..didnt know it exsisted
Thank you so much ima try this someone did the same thing to my truck From what I saw in the video you can tell a big time difference 90% difference
Practice on a piece of similar metal or a beater car first.
Derrick Aquino ok thanks for the advice I’m glad I still have my 95” Dodge Ram my dent is on my 2019 ram some stupid drunk guy park next to me and he had no idea where he was at I just left it alone and moved on I knew I wasn’t gonna get no where with him 🤦♂️ but thanks for the advice
Thank you! Best wishes!
Good job, nice seeing a DYI tool that really works. This looks like a must have tool for any car owner, my cars hood was smacked by a small stone while driving this week, leaving a small dent. I'll for sure give it a try. Thanks
It definitely took a while to do, but it worked. It also has a tool you can use with a mallet tap the edges of the dent to help lift it out. I messed around with it on some scrap metal pretty succesfully.
I want to buy the kit. Is it available online?
Honestly, if you're going to pay shipping to buy this online, I would try to find a better tool.
Man...this damn thing actually worked! Thanks!
Glad you were successful! I have to dig mine back out and fix another door ding this weekend.
Derrick Aquino Yeah. I had a tiny dent on the front nose panel of my Porsche 944...it was the only imperfection the car had. Popped right back out straight!
I have the same kit and I made sure to clean the car area and the plastic piece you apply the glue to with denatured alcohol, I also use it to clean off the residual glue stick from the car and it works great to remove a dent, but it does take several attemps to get the dent mostly or completely out. If you clean things well the pop as the glue releases is loud.
Wonder if doing this to an older vehicle ( 19 year old Tundra ) would the paint not come off with the glue/pulling process? Also ,the bracket with the suction on either side of the pulley keeps you from pulling the dent out too far?
Super video explaining the process. And really nice work. Night and day difference. Looks like it never happened.
This was very very helpful. Ty 🥰!
Thanks for this, I'm here at HFT considering to get this kit for motorcycle fuel tank dent repairs, and this answered all my questions. Bonus points for doing it all one handed! 🥳
If your tank is steel, which it probably is, you may want to get some stronger glue sticks on Amazon. Also, make sure you have your gas cap off when you're pulling the dent.
@@VampyreX13 I already have some gorilla glue sticks, I will use that instead. It's hard to believe glue stick of any kind would work at all, but I'm about to find out! Thanks!
Let me know how it works out. This kit is really meant for the softer metal on modern cars, but I've had some limited success using it on steel. I did not have any success with it (or heavy duty suction cups) on my '92 Cadillac door dent, but that thing is built like a tank.
So, after trying 3 different types of glue stick and laughing at how lame that was, I thought about trying epoxy, but I just welded a threaded stud to the tank and used the bridge tool to pull it out. That worked 💪
Mines was with a runaway shopping cart 🛒. Gonna give this a try
Nice job
Thank you
As soon as he said, "...it pisses me off", I was in. Same scenario for me, thanks to some jerk at a home supply store. Looks like that kit did a pretty good job.
I think I'm going to upgrade my dent puller to one that has multiple size attachments since I have a few tiny and long shaped dents I discovered. I'm looking at amzn.to/3AA9kA7 right now.
thank you
Works pretty good for a cheap tool, used it on my son's car after he hit a deer for the smaller dents.
Thanks.
Bravo!
So, I tried this on my 2018 Tacoma on the rear side of the bed. It pulled the ding out all right, but it also left a mountain in its place. Caution to Toyota owners. The metal is very thin. To the body shop I got to get it professionally done. I should have listened to that little voice in the back of my head.
Oh no! Glad you were able to get it fixed.
The raised metal is what you want then you use plastic tap down tools to level the metal
nice! Harbor Frieght here i come..
If it took you that long to find the exact location of the dent you were just working on that I would consider that a very good fix for the money and time you spent on fixing it.
Thx
PDR pulls can take 3 to 4 hours to complete ..also tapping down the highs first before the actual pull helps alot and using a heat gun so you don't crack the paint
Will a heat gun get the metal too warm for the glue to set properly?
Nice vid!
Good job
This would be good when detailing a daily driver
I bought this kit today from HF and it works pretty well but you must wait longer than 10 second before pulling the dent out! otherwise the glue does not stick to the paint very well.. Also It will take multiple attempts to fix a dented area..
thank you so much such an underated comment
@@lumossxmap5636 I'd give it a higher rating than just saying wait longer than 10 seconds? 20? 30? 45? Too long will it be stuck ?
Thanks for the video but what is the white pencil looking thing for
You use it to tap down the edges of the dent. You can look up other videos on this process. I didn't know how to properly use it when I made this video a few years ago.
Super 👍😉😀
Not going to lie this product worked good enough to hide some hail dents to get this sucker traded off on a cloudy day my insurance company just wanted to pay one week of car rental and me to pay the other weeks out of pocket
How much easier would this process be if you used a heat gun beforehand? I have seen some autobody/dent repairmen use a heat gun.
It might make it a little easier, or it might make it take longer for the glue to cool down. It wouldn't hurt to try. I know it's easier to work with dents when it's warmer out.
what is the point of not showing the crease removal?
Cool HF tools do work after all
They generally do. It's a question of how long they will last. That being said, I have wire strippers that I use for all my electronics and car projects that still works fine after over 16+ years along with a hand held electric screwdriver (although the battery only has a minutes of runtime at this point).
Hi, good vid, but I have a question for you; A dent stretches the metal, so if you pull the dent with this gadget wouldn't it just invert the dent and you'd end up with a volcano instead of a sink hole? Once metal is stretched, it's stretched. Cheers
As long as it's not a major dent, you can use the fact that metal has a memory and work it back to it's original shape. It requires other professional tools and tricks aside from this consumer level hot glue gun puller. There are articles online if you search around.
Thanks for the video I got a dent and been getting repair cost and it over $250.00 where did you buy your dent puller kit?
I got it from my local Harbor Freight. It's really the most basic of dent puller tools, but it works well with simple dents if you take your time. If you are going to venture this route, I recommend watching other videos since I was just an average user when I made this video. Also, I would practice using it on something other than your car until you're comfortable with it.
Derrick Aquino thanks for the tip
Will this be strong enough to pull a dent out of a trunk on a 56 chevy? The metal is much thicker. It is dented on the curve line where it goes from the horizontal top of the lid to the vertical side of the lid where the lock is, only higher
Probably not. You would need a different, stronger PDR glue stick. I've actually upgraded to amzn.to/3E60zmq after my Harbor Freight one finally broke earlier this year.
Rubbing alcohol will break the glue away. After your done with a pull. This dent might need a dozen pulls. Personally I'd use a rod. Make sure u have a very light hammer and a tap down. Also a vertical shop light. Not in broad daylight. Hard to explain. But there other dent videos you can watch on KZhead.
What about a really deep dent in a Schwinn bicycle fender. The rear rack came down with weight and mashed it in. The fender is a compound bend, and the damage is really deep in medium large area.
This is really only good for modern cars with the thinner metal. For your bike fender, you have better luck unbolting it from the bike and using PDR hammer set to gently shape it back.
My glue doesn't stick enough to the bit puller for some reason, I try both color clear and black that came with it, I notice a hold in the center of yours, did it came like this, or did you make them. Sick very well to the car but not on the bit puller.
Mine came as is. Did you try cleaning the surface with alcohol first in case these was any manufacturing residue?
@@VampyreX13 Yes I clean the surface
@@larrykenney7091 I wonder if scuffing it with some sandpaper would help the glue stick to the puller better.
yes i used it very happy i had multiple dent basically all gone ,but i found the puller would remove dent but once dent remover pulled off,dent returns,so i used heat a hair dryer that was when things started to really work,so once you remove puller apply heat be careful not too much or you strip paint off,and also let it cool for say 5mins, ok bye
Nice tip. That reminds me, but you can also try using a heat gun on a dent followed by a can of air held upside down so it blasts cold propellant out. The sudden thermal change can sometimes get a dent to pop out on it's own.
IT WORKS MAKES THE DENT OR CREASE almost unnoticeable , I did it for ten minutes and a 4 inch crease across is almost all gone i may hit it again tomorrow. The glue coming out of the gun goes all over like it did to me until I got use to the gun. They were going to charge me 600 to fix it glade I did it for 16 dollars I see some people had bad luck In guess I got lucky .
Nice! I still use this kit, but the plastic cracked on me after several years of use. I just picked up a different one on Amazon, but haven't had time to test it out.
@@VampyreX13 Cool I like it for the price paintless body work . I liked the video very informative , you say to take time I like that , I just was shocked at first the glue was blowing all over in the slight breeze until i got use to the gun.
Cross bar cracked the first time I used the kit. On my way to return it to Harbor Freight. Guess you get what you pay for.
Wow, that sucks. Their return policy is pretty good though. I would just get it exchanged and try again before deciding on dropping money on a more expensive dent pulling kit. They have more intricate kits with other tools in them, but you need a lot of practice to get good with them depending on your dent. I spoke with a professional dent puller and he said it took him years to get where he's at and he's still learning. The simple crossbar dent repair kit is nice if you don't have a lot of experience and the dents aren't too bad. If you have a really bad dent though, it might be worth saving up and having a pro take a look at it.
They do have a good return policy. They had no better quality tool in stock so I exchanged and will try again.
Let me know how it works out.
What type of glue is used in this video and what is the item I. The small bottle
It all came with the kit. This was a while ago though, but it was more or less a hot glue stick and a bottle of release agent you're supposed to apply to the dent before using the glue, but I didn't need it.
Do you not use release agent for more effective results? i used agent, and it did nothing. I noticed you have to apply glue generously, and have to wait up to 5 minutes for glue. it says like 10 secs. Not a chance. I'm thinking if i don't use release agent it might take hold.
I didn't use the release agent, even on a newer kit I got that's similar to this. I just use alcohol and a plastic scraper to help get the glue off afterwards if it's really stuck.
@@VampyreX13 Thanks buddy. much appreciate your time.
I just bought a 2014 charger less than a month ago and someone parked next to me must have opened their door as hard as possible. Kids? Perhaps. However, there's still a nice dent in my door hopefully this helps.
Practice on a piece of metal (grab a fender from the junkyard) and practice on that before trying it on your car.
Would you recommend this for a plastic rear bumper with a small indentation left by a license plate screw?
No. Try a heatgun to soften the plastic and see if you can push the dent out from the back. It won't be perfect since the plastic may have seen stretched, but it might look better. Be careful not to burn the plastic or your fingers.
@@VampyreX13 I see. I'm gonna have to see how to get access to the other side of the bumper. Might have to work my way around it. Kind of nerve wracking to use a heat gun though isn't it?
The other option is pouring boiling water over the plastic.
Try pouring a little cold water over it if you want a good loud pop
Heat gun and upside can of air.
I bought this and try to remove very similar dents as yours and I have had zero luck it, every time I try to pull on dent hot glue breaks free giving no pulling power. I have tried to pull easy, hard, let it sit long, cleaned everything well so glue sticks etc. nothing works! Am I missing something?
Sounds like you're doing it right. I had to repeat the process 15-20 times before the dent came out. Depending on your dent, you may need to use the tapping tool that came with the kit, but I didn't go over that in this video since I didn't need it at the time. There are some other channels dedicated to PDR that are full of more tips.
clean the car, things gotta be filthy
Can this crossbar kit be used on dents on the roof rails?
I don't know. I would assume roof rails would be thicker though. This might work, but you may need to get different glue sticks that have better grip.
I'm scared to use the glue method Is that glue totally safe to use on car surface?
As long as it's OEM paint and it's not flaking off, you should be fine.
Use could also use cold glue
Any advice on what glue stick to use? I tried this but the glue will not give sufficient grip on to the car body.
There's a few different ones if you go to amzn.to/3o6RPqe and read through. Maybe the high bond amber sticks?
@@VampyreX13 Thanks, will have a look
Dang no mas bondo man 😳😁
We wouldn't get this dent if all parking stalls everywhere are wider.new cars especially trucks are getting wider while most parking stalls are still narrow.
Gotta say, I love Costco for the fact that they have large parking spots with a double line on each side of the parking spot. Even with doors wide open on most vehicles the doors won't hit your vehicle.
THIS SEEMS TO ONLY WORK ON PANELS WITH A CLEAR COAT. I just tried it two motorcycle tanks that are sanded down. The glue wasn't strong enough to do anything. It would peel from the tank before actually doing any pulling.
I was able to mostly pull a small dent out of one of my canister exhausts with it, but it was a smooth and shiny surface.
You need that slick surface for the glue to have a good hold
Water mixed with alcohol helped removed the glue
Methylated spirits ; )
I agree. As soon as i finished a few beers, i drank a water and the glue came right off!
I have an ignorant question. Can we not fix the dent by taking the inner door panel off and pushing from the other side?
Yes, you could do that but you would need to be able to see the front of the dent while you were working. They make an entirely different set of tools for doing that. It's actually difficult to see the backside of the dent sometimes if it's too small.
Seeing dents really gets to me. I have a few on my car and it drives me insane. I never park my car near anybody for that reason.
Sometimes it's just unavoidable.
I parked my car away from others, but still damage happens. People just don't give a shit about other people's property.🤬
@@channelsixtysix066 I parked far away from everyone else at Home Depot and came out to find a shopping cart in my fender one day.
@@VampyreX13 That was precisely what happened to me, three days ago. It has caused about $3k worth of damage. Gives you the frigging shits. I even went to the trouble of putting a cart into the rack, prior to entering the shopping centre, so it wouldn't happen. Came out 20 minutes later and found a cart smashed into the car.
@@channelsixtysix066 that pisses me off. I'll go thru and put any random carts away just so no one has to deal with their own cars getting damaged... and then finding someone either smashing my door with their's or hitting me with a cart... super irate!
The metal is already stretched once dented
IS there a way to do larger dents?
They make suction cup dent pullers.
Is your car metal or plastic? Hoping to get this dent out of my car as well.
It's metal. I recommend practicing on another piece of metal before you work on your car.
Didn't work, but it's unusually cold for May. I'll wait for a warmer day. 😎
You can use a heat gun to warm it up. Depending on the dent, you can warm it with a heat gun, then blast it with an inverted can of air to freeze it and that sometimes causes the dent to pop out.
@@VampyreX13 Thanks for the tip.
@@JeepTJWheelin no problem. I recommend more researching if you haven't already and practicing on a test piece of metal first so you don't end up making things worse. Also, be careful not to pull the dent out too far because you can stretch the metal.
The rods work better but you have to know the technique. I once paid 80$ for a guy who did this for a living get he removed 14 dings perfectly on my impala and never could tell the car had any dings after that
Did the paint and clear coat come off soon afterwards?
No, it's perfectly fine.
@@VampyreX13 lo
you only see him use the dent puller once @4:10
That happen to me today , I berry hungry
You are able to easily remove the glue without the release agent because you are not letting it cure. A minute is not nearly enough time to wait before applying pressure.
Thanks. I'll keep that in mind if I need to pull another dent down the road.
How much time is enough
Try two minutes. Basically, until the glue cools down.
I find cold water over it for good loud pop
pittsburgh brand means...Harbor Freight!!
Yup!
Alot of times ounce the sun hits the dent will relax and won't be as noticeable .
Really depends on the dent though. The one I had to remove in this video had a sharp crease because it was the bottom edge of a door that hit my car.
Excuse my language, but all I'm saying is "phat lazy people". This happened to me a few times already, while I was in my car. I saw them pushed their doors out all the way, before they pulled their phat as$ out of the seats. Just walked away like nothing happened. Ridiculous.
I would of beat the living shit out their car once they walked in. I can not stand people having no respect for other's property.
Not just fat people, but bunch of idiots that don’t know how to open a simple door. Careless, envious people tend to do this.
I was sitting in my car when someone pulled up and threw their door open because they were busy screaming at their children, and if I was just an inch or two closer, it would have slammed into my door.
What are you talking about, The amount of time to do this procedure is nothing compared to repairing and painting the panel!
what glue name
I don't know. It's whatever came with that kit.
thank you because i bought that kit didnt get glue
Maybe try amzn.to/3soqP3v or just search for "pdr glue sticks."
If you had knocked the shoulders at the edge of the dent back between pulls with the knock down tool, you would get rid of all traces of the dent. You have not been prepared to keep on with it, as its so time consuming. A good video nonetheless!
@Waldo Forsest you are right, but a little more time with it and the result could be so much better.
how does got glue not remove any paint lol?
If hot glue pulls paint off your car, then you have a bad paint job. I've used this style puller on various cars without pulling off paint.
If you ever see car that did it aka still parked next to you, have a can of black spray paint and ruin there door
People are ignorant, not even 2000km on my new sorrycar and only parked in a parking lot no more than a dozen times and always park in end spots where I can leave a lot of room for doors to be opened and already got a dent from a door and someone keyed the car approx 1 foot scratch. Hell, I was sitting in the car when someone swung their door open and hit my mirror.
People can jealous / malicious and go out their way to damage your car, disrespectful and just swing their doors open without care, or just plain cowards and not take responsibility if they (or their kids) accidentally hit your car.
Don't you just hate it when someone carelessly opens their car door and giving you a dent? My wife was so so upset when she got home coz someone did it to her car.
It does. Especially because I'm very careful not to do it to anyone else's car and I even put clear vinyl trim on edges of my door so that I don't accidentally scratch someone's paint in case I have to open my door wide (the bane of 2 door cars). But some people just have no respect.
This happened to me, multiple times even since I live in a big city with little parking, so I am doing this plus a lot of other minor fixes today lol
Buy the blue glue sticks are red they work way better Amazon
Didn’t work for me.. it was a hot day though. The glue wouldn’t stick to the car
Yeah, if the glue doesn't harden, it won't stick.
I would five star this video but cant. Part of me wanting to watch this video is the part where you show how to do the glue. Whats the purpose if you dont show the whole process.
This is one of my original guides before I got better with making videos. I'm actually planning on making a newer video at some point since I'm not really happy with the quality of this one and it gets so many views.
Just show us.
If it's Acetone don't use it on the car paint... Go buy yourself some denatured alcohol...
91% isopropyl alcohol will work. Basically its for cleaning the area of any grease so the hot glue makes a good bond.
These tools are good for removing paint, but not dents.
If this removes your paint, then you have have bigger problems then a simple dent. That being said, I think I read somewhere that you only want to use this with an OEM paint job.
Nahitaji hicho kifaa
Instead of pretending to do it ,why not show us how to do it? Been working for an hour showing nothing.
This is a really old video before I got better at making them. If I get the unfortunate opportunity to have to pull another dent, I will make a more detailed one to be inline with my current videos.
Yeah, you have scumbags everywhere who don’t respect other people’s car’s
Yeah...what that guy said!
This thing won't get out even the slightest of dents.
I had pretty good luck with mine, but it finally broke and I got a better one from amzn.to/3yogZlG.
man.. this is the worst tool EVER
Lol. It's the most basic tool for simple dents only. It's not my favorite to work with because of how long it takes and how repetitive it is, but it got the job done.
A gimmick?
It does actually work. It's just a long and tedious process. I still use that same kit to this day, but generally only for small dents and dings. Anything larger and I usually just pay a PDR professional.
Dude you ain't letting glue dry long enough it takes atleast 5 minutes glue is not suppose to come off car when turning out knob 🤦 oh boy .. no wonder it took you an hour
10 seconds is what the manual said so that's what I was following when I did this video back then.
@@VampyreX13 👍🏼
These kits are worthless . The glue doesn’t hold the piece that pulls on . As soon as you start to crank on the nut the pull piece pulls off of the dent where it’s glued. And it didn’t come with the glue removing fluid. Nothing.. TOTAL SCAM IT DOESNT PULL ANY DENTS . THE GLUE DOES NOT STICK
Why bother. Still not normal.
People now days are secretly full of hate & endve
Excuse me Joseph but may I ask what "endve" is??? Hint: Envy✅ 😆
This guy talk to much.
This is one of my older videos when I started doing this channel. All my new ones are much better and more concise.
how much can you talk about nothing?
This shit doesn’t work
Blah blah blah blah blah 5 seconds of useful video blah blah blah blah blah... you want something done right, you got to do it yourself....
Then go make a "useful video". FFS
P S 🍼
@@goldwolf0606 No thanks, got some from your mom
P S you mean YOUR mom 😂!!!!