So went to swap my steel hood for my aluminum hood and realized the bolts to take the brackets off are under the fender. What should I do and how bad is this going to screw up my aluminum hood if I just swap the hoods and no brackets?

 

I did that seven years ago and haven't seen any problems.

 

Ok just what i wanted to hear, ty clokker.

 

just undo the 10mm bolts on the side of the hood..undo the windshield washer tube and lift the hood off.
Replace..
DONE.

You may find that you will now have to "slam" the hood as the new aluminum hood is lighter than what the latch was used to,seeing it is now looking at a 28 pound hood instead of a 56 pound toboggan.

 

Supposedly, Mazda used a special hood latch for the alloy hoods.
Compared side by side, there is no discernible difference except maybe the spring.
I tried both, couldn't tell any difference.
YMMV.

 

Cool, im gonna swap em today. I have the latch from the aluminum hood, if its tough to close ill have to look at switching it. That sounds a heck of alot easier than trying to remove the hinges.

 

For good measure though I suggest some dielectric grease between the steel hood hinge and aluminium hood.

 

Mazda lists 4 different LHD latches.

there is a steel hood and no alarm, AL hood with no alarm, and then steel with, and AL with alarm.

 

Roger that on the dielectric grease, why so many diff hood pieces. Shoulda kept it straight aluminum. This steel hood is ridiculously heavy for a sports car.

 

Say something about this photo





All scribed up waiting on backup to arrive.





Someone come help me pull her out lol!





Almost 30 years old still looking great!

 

I just stretched the hood latch spring on mine when I swapped an aluminum hood on, so that the hood didn't need slammed or dropped from too high to latch easily.