Help Needed in Wilmington/Long Beach Cali Area... bought a Stellar Bue Sports Hood!

[SURF RUNNER]

I'm including the prices here in case it might be beneficial to anyone shipping a hood on Greyhound in the future.

Brent,

I don't want to text you yet because of the time difference and I don't want to risk waking you up. I paid for the shipping using an estimate. I forwarded you the email with the shipping label attached. I estimated high (to the maximum numbers allowed) on the width and the weight so there should be a small refund. A small refund won't slow you down at the Greyhound station, but if I owed more that would take more time. Here are the numbers I used to generate the order and shipping label:

47" x 60' x 25"
100lbs

That was as good as I could guess looking at the photos and I wanted to be high. I would assume that you are closer to 46" x 58" x 16" and 90lbs.

Total cost of OEM color matched sports hood

$300 - Cost of hood from auto salvage yard
$150 - Payment for crating and transporting hood from salvage yard to Greyhound
$140 - Total shipping cost before small refund (already includes $300 insurance; no extra cost)
$590 - Total cost of OEM stellar blue sports hood

I know many owners have paid less to have sports hoods painted a different color and blended into the fenders, but other owners have probably paid more. For me it was worth it to have an OEM sports hood in stellar blue. These are very rare and this is the only stellar blue sports hood that I have seen for sale since I bought my 4Runner over a year ago. This is a hobby for me and not an investment.

Brent, Thanks for all of your hard work! This would not have been possible without your willingness to help. I will keep an eye out for some salvage yard parts for your 4Runner in Houston as we discussed.

 

[BrianSD_42]

This forum is Best. Wow.

 

[SURF RUNNER]

Why is that a thumbs down?

Brian,

Did you call on either one of those black sports hoods I sent you a PM about? That would look sharp on your 4Runner!

So what if the scoop gets "Glued" in, why would you take it out?

Scramble,

Professional auto body and paint shops almost always separate components like this so they don't get "glued" in. Obviously you can do it any way you want, but as you can see by the photo below the paint fades on the insert at a different rate than the rest of the hood. In the future you may want to repaint the insert back to the factory color to match the rest of the hood or maybe even a contrasting color (which can look very sharp in my opinion). If the insert was painted in place it might damage the surrounding area when you try to remove it. Consult a reputable paint and body shop for their opinion.

 

[BrianSD_42]

Thanks for the links but I'm just not plannnng on spending the money on that right now.

My next mod will probably be new front drivers seat cushions from Toyota.

If it was me I wouldn't try to paint match that scoop, rather paint it gloss black with Duplicolor DIY. Or at least try it out, unless you have a paint hookup. Matching paint can be expensive.

 

[SURF RUNNER]

I am going to paint the scoop insert 2002 Corvette Electron Blue which is the accent color I am going to use for the 231mm Tundra calipers (when I get to that) and other spashes of color here and there.

Electron Blue is also really close to the medium blue in my TRD decal...

 

[Brentif]

So..... slight hiccup in the shipping side of life. I took the hood in its crate to Greyhound to ship, and it was a little on the pudgy side, 126 pounds, when the limit is 100. So i put the crate back on the roof of the 4Runner and headed home trying to figure out where to cut the weight from without losing the strength and protection of the crate. So after thoughts and brainstorms, I removed the plywood top, and chopped down one side so the overall shape is more of a wedge, as opposed to a cube. Heading back to Greyhound this evening to drop this thing back off. I removed about 45 pounds of material, so unless the scale is really screwed up, we should be good to go! The bonus, now the crate fits in the 4Runner, and I dont have to look like a jack-hole pulling up to work two days in a row with a crate strapped to the roof of Pancho. When I get there tonight and get it out of the back I will wrap in in pallet shrink wrap it all, so nothing else ends up in the crate or damages the hood.

 

[airmax233]

nice find! that's going to look badass! :trophy: on your truck man!

 

[SURF RUNNER]

Thanks! I think it will look awesome. Somehow a sports hood (with a standard-sized scoop) seems to transform the appearance of the entire front end - just a more aggressive look I guess. Below is a photo of a Stellar Blue 4Runner with a sports hood.

This wasn't possible without Brent, so I appreciate everything that he did. I am going to be on the lookout for a few 4Runner parts for him at Houston salvage yards, so he should be getting a package from me in the next few months.

Brent said that the final weight was 98.7lbs. I believe that the final dimensions were 46" x 59" x 15" (Brent, is this correct?). Getting under the 100 pound and 47" limits was a bit of a challenge, but it can be done.

We tried to make this thread a tutorial on how to ship a hood on Greyhound for the benefit of other forum members. I sent the mods a PM to change the title to more accurately reflect this, but I haven't received a response yet. If anyone can get the title changed it should be:

Shipping a hood from California to Texas on Greyhound; Finally found a Stellar Blue Sports Hood!

 

[Brentif]

I still think their scale there at Greyhound was off, but we put a thick layer of cardboard over the top, and used pallet shrink wrap to wrap it all up. The dimensions stayed the same, except for the wedge side, which I chopped down about 8 inches. Let me know when it gets there!

Brent

 

[BrianSD_42]

OP,

I didn't even know what you meant thumbs down until I logged into my PC.

It should show thumbs up lol.

 

[SURF RUNNER]

Stellar Blue Sport Hood Installed!

Thanks to Brent and his careful and ingenious boxing, spray foaming, and crating my sport hood arrived intact. There was some strange spotting and raccoon scratches on the hood from serving time in a southern California salvage yard, but nothing due to shipping. The hood I received in College Station, Texas was in the same exact condition as when Brent picked it up at the salvage yard in Long Beach almost two weeks ago.

Anyway, there are some hilarious stories that need to be told on both ends of this adventure. I will also add some captions to these photos, but until I finish my Christmas shopping these pics will have to suffice...

 

[MattJakobs]

Thanks to Brent and his careful and ingenious boxing, spray foaming, and crating my sport hood arrived intact.

You have no clue how jealous I am, looks better than I thought it would. I've been thinking of buying an after market one and having it painted due to the rarity. Yours makes me want it even more now.

 

[SURF RUNNER]

A guy I met at Auto Zone insisted on buffing my hood because he couldn't stand to look at it in it's present state (salvage yard survivor condition). The photo below is the guy enthusiastically buffing my hood in his driveway about 2 miles from the Auto Zone... turns out he is an expert detailer.

MattJakobs,

I'm glad a fellow Stellar Blue owner such as yourself likes it. Aftermarket hoods will work, but if I were you I would hold out for a Stellar Blue OEM hood. I've become really good at finding OEM sport hoods on the internet and can give you some tips if you are interested. Sport hoods were only produced in Stellar Blue in 2002, but they are out there.

Since I would have had to live with whatever color hood I bought for a while (until I had funds to get it painted properly and blend the color into the fenders) my preference was in order:

1) OEM Stellar Blue
2) OEM Black
3) OEM Millennium Silver
4) OEM Thundercloud
5) OEM Sunfire Red
6) OEM Imperial Jade Mica (Green)
7) NOS (New Old Stock) sport hood from LKQ
8) Quality aftermarket sport hood
9) Cheap aftermarket sport hood

I was never going to get to option #8 if I couldn't find a Stellar Blue... there are better alternatives in my opinion. Starting with option #3 and going down I would probably have painted one of those flat black until I had the funds to get it painted Stellar Blue. Option #4 (Thundercloud) would have been a decent choice since I could have left the hood the factory color and it would have matched my Limited fender flares, trim and bumpers. If I had used the Thundercoud option I would have probably painted my hood scoop insert Stellar Blue.

Below is some information from the Scooped Sport Hood Photo Thread linked here...
http://www.toyota-4runner.org/3rd-gen-t4rs/184098-official-3rd-gen-4runner-scooped-sport-hood-photo-thread.html

The scooped hood was standard on the Highlander/Sport Package/Sport Edition from 1999-2002. The 2002 model is the only one out of the 4 that has Sport Edition badges. The Highlander/Sport Package/Sport Edition was only available in a select colors. Every 4Runner with this package was only painted in one of these 6 colors:

1999: Black, Imperial Jade Mica
2000: Black, Imperial Jade Mica, Millennium Silver
2001: Black, Imperial Jade Mica, Millennium Silver
2002: Black, Thundercloud, Sunfire Red, Stellar Blue

Black: 4 years (popular color choice)
Imperial Jade Mica: 3 years (very popular color choice)
Millennium Silver: 2 years (extremely popular color choice)
Thundercloud: 1 year (fairly popular color choice)
Sunfire Red: 1 year (not nearly as widespread as the colors above)
Stellar Blue: 1 year (rare color)

Most of the OEM sport hoods you will find on craigslist or in salvage yards will be black, green, or silver. My guess is that 80% of all sport hoods came from the factory in one of these 3 colors. I can tell you that black and green are slightly more common than silver. The assumption would be that there are more Black hoods than Imperial Jade Mica just because Black was available for all 4 years, but that would be wrong if the sport package was painted in Imperial Jade Mica much more often that the Black from 1999-2001. From having done a ton of searches (on HollanderParts.com and Car-Parts.com) over the past year I would guess than it fairly evenly split between Black and Green as far as OEM scooped hoods produced.

As far as I know any SR5 could have a sport hood as an option, but I could be wrong (Does anyone know for sure?). The reason it is difficult to tell is because the Sport Package started as an upgrade to the SR5 and only the 2002 Sport Editions are badged.

I can tell you that from personal experience any color other than black, green or silver is somewhat rare. I looked for a year before I found an OEM Stellar Blue sport hood from a wrecked 2002 Sport Edition in Long Beach, California.

2002 Stellar Blue Sport Edition