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I want to repaint my Datsun 810 coupe. It has a good number of nasty hail dents. Can I grind these and fill with body putty? Or is there no satisfactory repair? Thanks for your help.

I don't know much about body repair, so can't help you with that. But I think you get more useful reactions if you place one or more pictures of the dents.

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'83 Mitsubishi Galant 1600 GLX

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Yes, I'll do that but later. Right now it's 9 degrees outside and wind is blowing.

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Looks like a job for POR15 rust paint followed by por15 body putty. Anybody used por15 products? What say you?

glazing putty/spot putty. unless they are really deep it works better than bondo. its also really easy to work with. then use filler primer followed by sealer and then spray your color

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-Ryan-
1980 mx32 riding on advan a3a's and hachi suspension
1987 k5 rock crawler

I always heard of dry ice hail dent removal. but I don't know if it works , google it and you will see what I mean.

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Some of these dents are big time deep. Over many years of Dakota winters and hot summers many of these dents have weakened. The paint on this machine still looks good. So I'm tempted to clean her up, and forego the dent fixes. Get new wheels and tires and do enough to the motor and running gear to make it a dependable ride. Thanks for your input.

2door ,4door or wagon?

Have a painless dent person look at them. They fix hail damaged cars for dealers all the time. No repainting is necessary.

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2007 Honda Fit sport, 5 speed-daily driver
1975 Datsun 280Z-turbo conversion underway

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Terolla,
This is a 2-door hardtop. Will try and get some pics taken today and post 'em.

nice always wanted one of these

Speaking from a body man's perspective, take it to a painless dent repair guy and ask him for a price on doing the best he can with what's there. Then once he's done, you may be happy with it, not all of your dents will come out with that. If you want to take it further, take it to maaco or earl sheib and have their body man fix whatever is left. Then take the car home, take off anything that touches the paint or comes very close to doing so and then wet sand the entire car with 600 grit 3m wetordry. Then take it back to maaco or earl sheib and have it painted. It will probably cost you 800 to 1000 total to do it this way. A regular body shop will probably charge you 5k-6k... If you have to ask what the best method to fix it is, you will be several months of trial and error to get it right, if you do. If you wanna learn how to do it, go buy a hood or trunk lid from the junk yard and read a couple books on body repair, buy some cheap tools (harbor freight is great for this) use a ball peen hammer to duplicate your damage on your junk hood, and practice. Paint it with good rattle can paint and give it a good gloss. Look at your work under direct sunlight. If your work looks good enough for your tastes, start on your car, if not keep practicing on your junk hood until it does. Sorry for the novel, but I've been there. I went to wyotech and I have years of real world experience.

Thanks hiroshima1320 that is some of the best real world advice I've read on a forum regarding paint and body. Thank you, I'm going to go that exact route for my project.

Happy to help. If you have any questions, feel free to pm me. There is a hell of a lot more to body work than most people think. Getting the filler straight is only a portion of the battle. Quality products play a huge role in how hard your work is also.