[anandpadhye]

Originally Posted by jyobeb

We spot weld a number of clips onto the outside of the door that needs to be repaired and pull the dent and door back into shape, After the door is brought back into shape over 90%, we finish the rest with bondo and then paint it back to originality, without touching the door inners at all.

That's a good option. Is there a way to retain the paint and recover 100% of the dent (I guess that's difficult)?

Originally Posted by anilntny

Nice thread. It seems paintless dent repair,very popular in western countries.

How I wished we had professionals doing the same with better tools in India.We could have saved, some hard cash in dent repair.

I agree.

Originally Posted by prakhar1998

I think the dealer is taking you for a ride when he says that Skoda does not allow such a thing.

Of course he is. You are lucky to have found a reasonable dealer.

Originally Posted by Sunsh!nes

Thats a wonderful result. Most part of the dent is not even visible, this definitely is a solution to paintless dent removal, I guess I know what they do to remove the dent and with what tools. I have seen couple of them in Bangalore as well. Have to figure out where they do it. This helps only when the paint hasnt cracked due to impact, if it has then this may not help much. But still a effort which is definitely worth the try.

Yes, as long as paint is intact, this technic has high chances of bringing the metal back in shape.

Originally Posted by Sheel

Curious:

Why is the floor running board so difficult to repair?

I am told the running board is made of very high strength steel.

[jyobeb]

Originally Posted by Sheel

Curious:

Why is the floor running board so difficult to repair?

The floor board is fully closed on all sides and hence is fifficult to bring back into shape using regular methods. To repair a dent or damaged running board, you would ideally need to hammer the damaged part from the inside, which is not possible.
Hence what most people (without a panel repair system) would do, is cut it open and repair/replace and weld it back on.

[anandpadhye]

Originally Posted by jyobeb

To repair a dent or damaged running board, you would ideally need to hammer the damaged part from the inside, which is not possible.

Can the running board dent be pulled out using this technique (that was used on my door)? I was told no, because the running board metal is quite thick and strong, unlike door and bonnet metal.

[Sheel]

So, the conclusion is, try to limit any damage to the running board.

I believe a running board is mostly damaged when your car's any of the wheels fall into a ditch deep enough to rest the body on a running board and while taking a turn and finding an iron pole or something of that sort scraping it.

Thanks guys

[anandpadhye]

The riveting story continues...

A friend needed the car as his Octavia started leaking coolant and was taken to Kulkarni motors, Vimannagar. This meant I had to get the door trim (that has been in the boot) fitted. So we decided to meet at Kulkarni and ask them to fit the door trim for now, as well as check their readiness to remove and install the rivets (and also their setup for denting painting). Their guy took a look at the rivets and said these are too big for their tool to handle! He said he can remove those properly with a drill, but can not install new ones. The riveting tool they have can only install smaller rivets...

Anyway, asked them to fit the door trim, they did in 5 minutes, but then I found the left front door speakers are not working! Not sure if this is caused by the actual impact on the door or happened during removal of the door trim. Kulkarni guy told me the connection looks OK,and next thing will be to check using s/w and then remove the rivets and open the door assembly. Good to know they have VAGCOM or something equal. Now the question is - are the speakers and music system really controlled and "sanity checked" by ECU? Well, anything is possible with Germans, but seems unlikely.

Friend needed the car so we decided to debug this later.

I did some more search about rivets and found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nozX56N8TX0

Strange that such a simple riveting tool is so rare to find in Pune!

The guy kept telling me these are pop rivets. Here is what I learned about POP rivets from wiki:
Blind rivets, commonly referred to as "pop" rivets (POP is the brand name of the original manufacturer, now owned by Stanley Engineered Fastening, a division of Stanley Black & Decker) are tubular and are supplied with a mandrel through the center. The rivet assembly is inserted into a hole drilled through the parts to be joined and a specially designed tool is used to draw the mandrel into the rivet. This expands the blind end of the rivet and then the mandrel snaps off. These types of blind rivets have non-locking mandrels and are sometimes avoided for critical structural joints because the mandrels may fall out, due to vibration or other reasons, leaving a hollow rivet that has a significantly lower load carrying capability than solid rivets. Furthermore, because of the mandrel they are more prone to failure from corrosion and vibration. Unlike solid rivets, blind rivets can be inserted and fully installed in a joint from only one side of a part or structure, "blind" to the opposite side

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivet

Another good explanation on blind rivets (the small animation image in this is really helpful):
http://www.aboveboardelectronics.com...advantages.htm


Also found this company that makes rivets and tool in India:
http://www.rivetsindia.co.in/riveting-tools.html

Note: I visited Kulkarni because of the incident with my friend's car. I have noted down all other references that fellow members have provided and will check them out soon.

In the meanwhile, any clue on what could be the problem with front left speakers? (I checked the Balance and Fader settings. both left and right rear speakers work fine, so do the front right speakers).

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

In the meanwhile, any clue on what could be the problem with front left speakers? (I checked the Balance and Fader settings. both left and right rear speakers work fine, so do the front right speakers).

Connect another speaker there and see if it works. That way you can figure out if it is the speaker that is faulty or the connection.

cya
R

EDIT : You don't need to do anything complex in terms of removing / fitting another speaker - just extend the speaker connection by attaching a wire to the two contacts (can be held in place manually) - and you can then just attach the other end to the speaker of another car to test.

[AbhiJ]

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

Strange that such a simple riveting tool is so rare to find in Pune!

http://www.ebay.in/itm/like/hand-riv...aultdomain_203

[anandpadhye]

Originally Posted by Rehaan

Connect another speaker there and see if it works. That way you can figure out if it is the speaker that is faulty or the connection.

cya
R

EDIT : You don't need to do anything complex in terms of removing / fitting another speaker - just extend the speaker connection by attaching a wire to the two contacts (can be held in place manually) - and you can then just attach the other end to the speaker of another car to test.

Will try that, but how to access/tap the wires? Will need to remove the rivets for this as well (even the speaker is riveted)! Any suggestion?

Originally Posted by AbhiJ

http://www.ebay.in/itm/like/hand-riv...aultdomain_203

Will this one be good for the size of the rivets you see in the opening post? I don't know what's the official way to measure the size of a rivet, so not sure which tool will work. May be there are tools that can install multiple sizes? I can buy this, but I am afraid I won't have any regular need for it, but I can then lend it to all those who need...

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

Will try that, but how to access/tap the wires? Will need to remove the rivets for this as well (even the speaker is riveted)! Any suggestion?

I can see the wires in the picture you posted on page 1.

cya
R

[anandpadhye]

Oh yes, you are right :-)
The yellow/black pair going behind the riveted panel was the one I was worrying about but it may be going to something else (window regulator?).

Will check and update.