Please excuse the WTB post in this section, but I need to solve my problem quickly. It is my 666th post, after all.

My painter decided to tell me today that the hood is waffled and needs to be replaced, oh and the paint is going on next week. They want me to get a replacement asap. Fixing it would take too much filler and money. You know, they lay down the money, and then the filler, and more money, and more filler, etc.

I see a hood at The Maserati Compound and a bunch on eBay. I also see repos on Futofab and Z Car Depot. Usually I would want OEM, but I'm kind of inclined to go with the repo so I don't have to have anything fixed. It's going to cost more, but with the potential rust or warp fixes the bodywork might make OEM more expensive. That said, the repros might fit badly.

So my questions are, does anyone have a hood that doesn't need any work they want to sell (direct message me please) and does anyone have experience with the reproduction hoods and how is the fit?

Thanks in advance.

Edited May 9, 20195 yr by Matthew Abate

I think I found 7 nation wide. Closest seems to be in Norfolk. Several in California

I searched "240z hood" in auto parts

If you are willing to cross the border, there is a gentleman in the west Montreal region who has a significant collection of S30 body panels.  I do not know if he is set up to ship (or is interested).  PM me if you want contact details.

PM sent

I believe my buddy @GGRIII (you met him at my place at the wheel bearing party) has the original hood from his 260. It has the traditional parking lot dent on the front point, but other than that, I believe it's straight. He was going to fix it but found a near perfect replacement instead that saved him some time when he did his car.

Would you like me to find out if it's for sale or if he had plans for it?

25 minutes ago, Captain Obvious said:

Would you like me to find out if it's for sale or if he had plans for it?

Yes please!

Sending you PM...

For the collective, here's a pic of the dent on the nose of the hood I mentioned above.

For those of you with body experience... How hard of a repair is this? I know everything is repairable with enough time and effort, but where on the scale does this fall?

Those kind of dents are very difficult for me. There is basically no access from the backside. So I would resort to stud welds or maybe even a plate and pull it. But you can't really hammer and dolly it to fine tune it. The 2 crease lines also make it harder to reverse the dent. If you were super adventurous you could de-skin the hood and fix it properly but a daunting task! You might could open the structure up on the bottom side, so you could slide a flat bar up in there from underneath. Then drive the dent out that way. I think there are 3 stampings at the front of the hood but I'm not sure and dont know the finer points on the construction.

Echo what Patcon said. My hood had a similar dent, but not as bad. Stud welder got it into decent-enough shape for body filler, but the vertical face on mine is now slightly diamond shaped instead of a consistent height all across. I was fine with that choice, but I know others might not be. Stud welder and relief cuts might work, too.

Yup, worst place to have damage on a hood.  I've banged a few of them out from behind but never in that location or that bad of a crease...

Yeah, my painter says no go. Thanks for the attempt, though!

right now I’m wondering if a repro would be easiest, even though it’s most expensive.