My '83 w250 has a bedliner in it but when I removed it, I found heavily dented wheel wells - my guess is that this was a ranch truck and someone had rock duty in a pasture and just tossed in large rocks indescriminitely and really bashed up the wheel wells. I believe our trucks bed wheel wells are double lined so to repair, a stud welder and slide puller? Anyone else have this problem? How did you handle this repair? Thank you!

 

Not double-lined. Every dent in the wheel tub shows up on both sides.

 

Just hammer them out from the wheel well.

 

Yep, I forgot that I had looked at the wells some time ago and forgot that I had noticed single lining

 

yep, might even be able to jack out those large dents using a post and bottle jack and finesse the rest with a hammer

 

Probably just need a hammer and tap them out .... try tapping around the edges towards the middle .... metal has a memory and will often return to its original shape with a little help.

It is a tough area to work, because you can not use a hammer on one side while backing it with a dolly on the other. ... will be a lot of back and forth.

Really depends on what your final goal is, as to what level of finishing you will need .... will you still use it as a truck?
If you really want it to be smooth and paint it, .... you might want to create new patch panels, cut the damaged out and then just bodywork the welds.

If you just want it to look better but not perfect, then pop the dents out the best you can. A little putty would not be terrible if needed. .... main thing is to have fun and learn from the process.
Metal does have a memory, but if it gets stretched it will lose memory and be difficult to work with. .... Just jump in and give it a try, is the only way you can learn.

Here is a difficult dent, it has been hit hard.


You can work them so far and get it close


And because the metal was so stretched, this is as close as I could get it. I would like to take my time and hammer/dolly it smooth.... when I touch it, it just gets worse.
The only thing left to do is cut out the metal and weld in a new piece, or putty it up and drive it the way it is. .... I'm fine to use it as is.

In the end it will be fine. ... just take it one dent at a time ... in this photo I can point out 3 dings that I left, just fixed the big ugly ones ... it is a truck and should have dings.

 

Thanks for the tips! Might be worthwhile to have a buddy hold a dolly while I work against the dent with a hammer - heating up the metal might help too

 

Sometimes things seem complicated, when they really are not. ....
If a buddy was over to help me .... I would be better served that he kept my beer within reach.
Hammer/dolly is something where the left hand knows what the right hand is doing .... because you are constantly moving the hammer you need to move the dolly .... just not going to work well between two people.

Heat is a nice tool, if not used properly, it could cause more harm then good.

It is not something hard to learn, If you got a lot of dings on your wheel wells ... you might hit a smaller one in the center and it just springs back to it's original position. Thats what we call memory.

A large dent you work from the edge and parts of it springs back to original shape ... It is all pretty repetitive once you start working at it.
It is not rocket science, it does take patience and time ... time cost $$ at a body shop .... just dive in and DO ET!
You will not make it worse then it is now.