How to Repair a Car's Doghouse Frame Without a Body Shop

How to repair a car's doghouse frame without a body shop

A car accident is the result for a doghouse on a vehicle to be damaged and bent inward. If a repair was to do this type of work, it would cost you thousands of dollars to repair. However it can be done on a budget, by your own hands. There are things to be considered if you decide to do this heavy work on your vehicle. This type of work done by yourself can cause some wear on your transmission and engine.

Park the vehicle. You cannot do any body repair to a vehicle if the vehicle is in gear. Be sure the vehicle is not near any other vehicles. You would not want to cause damage to another car, truck or building.

Double check toolbox. Before you can begin any type of work on a vehicle, make sure you have all the tools in check. Without the proper tools you can not do any body work repair to the vehicle. The tools needed are the basic, screw drivers, hammers, tow strap, chains, wrenches, and etc.

Remove all body parts from the front end of the car. In order to straighten out the doghouse frame, all parts need to be removed. Such parts include, the bumper cover, bumper, and headlights. If you do not remove these pieces, you may damage them and cause you to replace them. In the end costing you more money.

Inspection. Before you can begin this heavy type of work on the body frame. You need to double check all the engine and transmission components. This will ensure that everything is working order and nothing is leaking or broken. If something is broken or leaking, repair or replace it before doing the heavy pulling on the doghouse frame. A key point to remember is that the radiator and it support frame may not be straightened, if the doghouse frame is bent inward and damaged.

Latch tow strap or chain to the frame of the car. The other end of the strap or chain needs to be either attached to the back end of another car or wrapped around a tree. The trunk of a tree will cause a stable and yet strong force. If you are deciding to use a tree trunk, the car you are trying to repair will be the one pulling against the tree.

This action will cause a friction between the tree trunk and the doghouse frame. The harder you pull, the more of the frame will be pulled out. However with either method, a third pair of eyes needs to be watching the doghouse frame. The more force being used, the more will be pulled out and straightened. You don't want to pull too hard, because you don't want to cause more damage than what you had in the first place. While pulling the frame out, a hammer can be used to pound out all the kinks out of the metal.

Latch in different locations on the frame. This will help to straighten out the entire frame itself. If the frame was damaged as mine was, you will need to move the strap so you can straighten out the rest of the doghouse.

Replace all the front end pieces back on. The parts you took off in order to do this heavy work, needs to be put back on securely. The radiator may have to be relocated by an inch or two due to the straightening of the frame. With all the parts back on, you have a whole car again.

Doing body work yourself isn't for everyone. It can be done. The doghouse of my car was damaged in a car accident over a year ago. Two good friends of mine rebuilt my car. It will not be straight as an arrow if you are doing it yourself with these two methods. However it will be straighter than it was after an accident such as mine was. Heavy duty work such as this isn't easy and very time consuming. You have to remember to be patience with work like this. Plus it is very loud. It will all come together in the end, trust me.

After this type of work, you will have learn so much about your own vehicle and be able to do this type of work on other vehicles. Straightening the doghouse out myself, saved me thousands of dollars in the long run.

The photographs I included show the work that was done to it after the accident and some work was done to it. The other pictures include the work after the doghouse frame was straightened back out as well as pictures of the accident.