i would love to know more about how you do this. My attempts are more “by feel” and certainly not grounded in any method. Are you using a force to heat the panels? A bullseye pick to raise the depressions? Just hammer and dolly? Inquiring minds want to know!
To be honest I just kind of "had at it" I picked up the cheap body hammer dolly set from HF no picks, I don't want tiny pock marks in the skin. I am resisting removing the whole side to get a better handle on things, it still has quite a bit of small craters, I'll knock them around a bit more and a skim coat should handle the rest or just leave it. I like series trucks with some character! I didn't anneal it, the aluminum moves so much with heat and I wasn't correcting any real kinks or creases. I tried a bit of heat down low, there are 3 spots of oil canning and I can get it fixed, that's frustrating. My solution may be to cut a "backer" piece of aluminum to mimic the lower dogleg and use a panel adhesive and sandwich the 2 together, it will be substantially thicker and should have tons of strength.
I found that by using the Cleco's or riveting it back together at least temporarily, adds strength to the panel therefore keeping it from just clanging around. Also, I used a long straight edge to check every now and then to make sure I was going in the right direction. As far as finding the contour again it's mostly by eye and feel, reinstalling the back panel occasionally to check the curvature of the hip.
The suck part is there are a couple of other spots that have a fair bit of filler in them, I know the right front wing has some issues, which will present its own issues in straightening, but certainly not like this section.
It's a long game of patience, if I keep at it long enough I can planish it smooth, but again the panel may have to come off to make my life easier. The tub seat base is smack in the middle of this damage and I have to keep levering it out of the way, it's tight to get effective and controlled swings of the hammer, but that tub side has some intimidating spot welds up front and I haven't figured out a clever solution to putting it back together without a spot welder.
All in all 1 billion percent better than the shite that was there prior to.
I'll add updates as I progress.
