Team,

My beloved but aging '93 del Sol Si had a bad day last week. I have pieced together the sequence of events and share it here for interest, but my question is a paragraph lower.

The right hinge had rusted through its pin, and I think the hood latch wasn't completely tight. As soon as I hit freeway speed, the hood flipped up and whacked the windshield, then twisted around the left hinge, striking the side view mirror, reaching the pavement with the front edge of the hood at 70mph, then bouncing back up onto the windshield, fluttering -- all this in a fraction of a second. With a now quite limited range of vision, I checked mirrors and determined that nothing had actually detached from the car, and signaled to exit the freeway as promptly as possible (jerks in the right lane actually refused to let me merge, even though I had a hood flapping in the breeze higher than my rooftop... grrr...). I twisted the hood back down over the engine and limped home on surface streets (didn't make it to work that day). A quick search of junkyards found only one del Sol within 50 miles. I dashed over and found that someone had damaged that hood whilst removing something else. I took the salvaged hinges home, banged my crumpled hood into an approximation of its original shape, and got everything reconnected so it's operational. I paid a pro to replace the windshield, replaced my cracked exhaust manifold myself "while I was at it" (a phrase often humorously used in my family), and I appear to be functional again.

So now I seek a replacement hood. Amazon doesn't appear to sell them, but some big dealers in eBay do. I tried writing to the most expensive seller to ask questions about their product and have them tell me why theirs was the best. All I got was essentially "we source our parts from quality vendors" with no attention to any of my questions. The vendors I see range from ~$350 to ~$600 (including shipping) for hoods with the same general descriptions, and include: Evan Fischer Auto Parts (via CarPartsWholesale), CARiDAUTOPARTS, and Tobacco Road Auto Parts. Have you any experience or recommendations for any of those, or for another source for a hood? Anyone know if the more expensive ones are any better?

And, unless I can find a used hood in the oh-so-common Captiva Blue from the '93-'94 product line, I'll want to paint it, too. The new hoods from eBay appear to come primed in black, which I hope I can rattlecan paint myself at home (it's a well aged paint job with little left to match precisely, so an approximation will suit me). A non-blue used hood will presumably require a lot of prep work to change the color. Got advice about this? I see rattlecans of Captiva Blue (base+clear coat) on Amazon, and estimate between two and four cans (at ~$60 per set) to do the job.

Questions and commiserations also welcomed.

Ken

 

You could try LKQonline.com or if you know someone in the autorepair business they could probably order you a non certified hood from keystone is prob your cheapest options. Best bet is prob a decent used one from LKQ or ebay and eat the shipping.

I was just fighting the same battle with my 92 si, I'm rebuilding it and the hood has been what looks like sat on many many times.. it just looks like rolling hills now lol. Non certified from keystone was $300, capa certified from amazon/rockauto $500, I ended up ordering a Seibon CF one for $1300.