Quote:
Originally Posted by HOTFUN
Hi Drew, We just put together a fleetside short box in our shop mating two Goodmark bedsides and front bed panel to an original GM steel floor and GM tailgate. The sides are really straight across the bed rails front to back and down the bed sides and only two small issues so far as the box is not installed on the truck to check the front alignment to the cab for width and lines. One issue was the box side lip on the front edge had to be trimmed where it met the front bed panel and ground a little. Really not hard retrofit but it was noticeably not right. The harder issue was the drivers side rear of the panel was not stamped and spot welded quite deep enough for the tail gate to lay flush with the taillamp panel when closed. A little body finness and slotting of the hinge holes and it appears probably as close if not better than original. I always finish out the spot welds anyway but these new ones are a little more pronounced than the originals too. The RH tail lamp panel fit fine to the tail gate when closed so maybe I got a mis stamped drivers panel too. I would definitely always do a dry fit of all your lamps and the tailgate before doing any final finish and paint work. We did some fitting and trinming to align them in the holes. Overall the whole reproduction bedsides are better than reworking rusty panels with patch panels and finding hidden bondo. I'm going to build one more with some original used boxsides I have saved and from then on no regrets building the rest of my projects with repo bedsides. The price of NOS and what condition they are and also the used originals are in anymore makes these reproduction panels a very reasonable alternative. My opinion is with a little patience and experience you can make these panels look as good if not even better than GM built them back in the day. Mark
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You said you used Goodmark bedsides. I have always heard they make good quality parts. I would think, just like all aftermarket parts you will get what you pay for. At least as a rule. I have only used aftermarket body panels a handful of times but I have always had to do a little work on something to make them fit "right". Like Mark said it's much better than dealing with the shoddy body work and rust you run into on many of our trucks.