Face palm. A stupid thing happened, the weight bar stored in the garage fell onto the nose panel of my GSL. Some pretty deep dings and a cracked front logo.

Could have been worse!



The parts catalog for 81-83 lists these:

Nose panel, 8871-52-810G
Ornament, F001-51-771

It looks like the body panel is still available and some online Mazda dealers show the ornament as in stock. Can that really be true? I'm gonna call a local dealer to see.

If the panel is available, is it best to get a new one rather than repair mine? Or would fitment have changed over the years?

Thanks for any advice you might have!

 

That can be fixed without even removing it. The back side is open and the dents can be pounded out and a very small about of filler used. It looks like a nice car so I'm betting you'd take it to a body shop anyway. They can fix that in a couple of hours minus time to paint.

 

Yeah, that's repairable and shouldn't take too long or cost too much either. The emblem is easy to replace.
Before you go that route though, see if a pdr can work their magic to make the dent disappear?

 

A good bodyshop will be able to fix your existing panel. The emblem is still available, so this should be replaced. The hard part will be color matching the panel. Depending on the age of your paint, it may have faded over the years, and painting the panel without scanning the "faded" sections for an exact color tone match can cause the panel to stand out. Wherever you take the car to be repaired, ask about color matching and ensure they are able to match the color if it has faded over the years.

 

Thanks so much, you guys! Good thinking