Hey all,

I'm starting to sink some love and care into my '84 RX-7. While the car is in very good shape for its age, I'd like to restore her interior and exterior as much as possible, and I'd like to start with a very ugly little dent in the front of the car on the panel in front of the hood. The problem is, I can't seem to find information on the panel in the first gen haynes manual, and for that matter I don't even know what it would be called! Does anyone know how to remove this panel or know where to look?

 

open the hood to see the bolts there(5 or 6 of them). it's bolted to the fenders at each end. there may be some bolts behind the bumper cover along that edge. but why remove it? it can be repaired easily without removing it and chancing damaging it. wished mine looked that good, even with that insignificant little dent.

 

I've had similar dings on my FD and I found a dent removal wizard who spent about 1 Hr. working on my car and removed door dings I didn't even know I had as well as visible stuff like you have. He charged me $65. He used light reflectors to find hard to see dings. It's worth looking up "auto dent removal" on google in your local area. Dings drive me crazy.

 

Search paintless dent removal, that's who you need.

 

the lighting of that shot doesn't really do the dent justice. it's a more crater-shaped dent, and sadly i've lost some of the original paint there. i'll look for dent removal experts in my area though before i risk removing the panel and doing damage. i do have the original bottle of touch-up paint, so in the right hands i'm sure it could be made to look good as new. thanks!

 

If the paint is cracked/missing and the dent is as big as you suggest, then the metal may be stretched too much and PDR with touch-up paint won't be satisfactory. Only you know what you can live with.
IDEALLY the panel would be removed, repaired, edged, reinstalled and repainted. But on a budget they could probably fix it in-place and save you some labor. The bigger challenge may be matching the paint if it's original.
IIRC from all those years ago on my 81, that area tends to take a beating. I have no personal experience but I think there are chip resistant products out there that might help in the future. If you have it professionally fixed you could ask.
Terms differ and I've not done that work since your car was new. But FWIW back in the day I would have called that either an "upper valance" or "front facia"