Goodmark quality

[northerngmc]

What experience have you had with using Goodmark reproduction parts such as fenders, doors and bed panels?

My body shop is presently restoring a 72 Chev 3/4 ton and they purchased Goodmark doors for it and were quite disappointed with the quality of the fit, finish and the strength.

I purchased reproduction front fenders for my 59 GMC and I was very happy with the quality. I am now looking at starting on a 67-72 and would like to now what is available for reproduction steel before starting.

[shifty]

The only thing Goodmark I've ever purchased were their hoods and ... the one I had on my truck was sweet, no complaints, great fit and great style.

[Joe67]

Keep in mind Goodmark is merely a reseller, many other companies sell the very same items that Goodmark sells

[StingRay]

I have heard of lots of people having fit problems with Goodmark doors. The front fenders are made by Triplus and supposed to be as good as it gets including OEM. The bedsides as I understand it are for all vendors made by one company and are supposed to be very good.

[ac102nv]

I have a Goodmark RF fender on my '72. You ask about alignment...nothing a 5 lb. sledge couldn't fix...SERIOUSLY. When first bolter on the top of the fender was a 1/2" out past the door. With a little work it is now on and lined up nice. HOWEVER, in there defense I bought this almost 3 years ago and according to the grape vine they have reworked these since then and they fit much better. Bottom line, if you only have minimal rust at the bottom as I did, I'd buy the replacement piece and repair the OEM fender. Would I buy from them again...Yes if I needed the whole fender.

[Brewski*]

The front inner fenders are awesome with reinforcement where bolts go through. Fit was perfect. I am sure they probably have different suppliers for different parts so some don't fit as good as the inner fenders.

[see ten]

My Goodmark tailgate and front bumper for the K10 fit quite well.

[northerngmc]

Thanks, it sounds like the doors maybe the issue here.

My front fenders are great, but it is bedsides I am interested in next.

[4x4Poet]

AFAIK, Goodmark is selling TriPlus's Made-in-Taiwan patch panels & replacement body parts. Maybe some Goodmark stuff is made elsewhere for a few patch panels on 67-72s, I don't know. I do know that I've used TriPLus front floors, cab supports, inner rockers, rockers, rear lower quarters, kick panels and a couple other pieces on my K10 burb. This is all TriPlus stuff:

Kick Panel. Lacks the same width lip for the rubber door seal. Not the same depth stamping at the door rubber lip as the factory kick panel in that area. I don't think it will be a problem since the door seal will cover the shorty lip portion anyway. The special bulge that is supposed to fit in the floor's little matching stamped notch did not match up well. It won't show, though. The rest of the kickpanels were a good fit, though obviously not exactly like the factory.

Pass Rocker. Good fit. It does have a poor stamping curve and angle at the upper front lip for door rubber area. The door rubber should cover this flaw. As an aside, I did need to cut out the part that needs to clear the burb's pass door lower rear bulge for the bumper. No problem.

Driver's Rocker: Fair fit everywhere but where it needs to joint the rest of the body rearward. Big gap on my burb down low. Also has the poor stamping curve and angle at the upper front lip for door rubber.

Floors: Judging from my two, no two have the same stamping. Big differences, but I used them because the differences won't show under floormats and behind the rockers and I only had to replace the floor outward of the body bolt. Suck@$$ stamping that made me spend extra time fitting due to the inability to depend on the floor's shape to guide my fitting. And I mean extra beyond my own occasional indecision.

Cab Supports: Missing the both the factory drain hole and it's flat spot an inch or two from the inner rocker (floor). Has too-small flanged bolt hole bent lips with poor upper area fit under & against floor. The bolt-thru flanged lips also had the wrong shape cut in them. The lips angle down at the top rather than go straight horizontal like the factory cab spts. Again, not a problem since I could trim them and the bad part won't show (unless underneath, and it's still not easily noticed, except for the lack of a drain hole). The body bolt end lacked the proper shape to look factory. Not a fit problem, though. And I only used the outer 3/4 of the cab supports.

Rear Lower Quarters (Burb-specific bed corners): Poor alignment of the rear corner with the front wheel arch. Poorly shaped lip underneath to weld to the inner backing plate's (lower) lip. Troublesome fitting all that curve without being able to depend on both ends serving as reference points to align the rest of the panel to the reference points on the still remaining factory sheet metal to be patched to. Only the floors were worse, but these quarters will show. Workable, but with difficulty.

Inner rockers: Nice straight piece obviously not made with something close to an original die. They have much sharper bends than my original floors do, but, for appearance, it doesn't matter much since the bends are covered by the rockers, door rubber seal, door sill plates, and the floormats . The differing bends did make butt welding the cut down inner rocker to the rear of the front floor a fillet weld situation (that's an insult, for the arc-challenged ).

I used a MIG welder for everything, BTW. Unfortunately, the panels can't be blamed for the quality of my welds. In my defense, all the TriPlus sheetmetal has, on their labels, a thickness of 1.2mm listed with the other listed dimensions, if any. Whatever the gauge thickness conversion is, that's not as thick as the factory. This was most noticeable in the floors. The factory floors could not be easily bent by hand, while the TriPlus floors could easily be bent by hand. For my K20 that I'm keeping, I'll use Made in the USA patch panels where needed, or maybe find NOS, or use good parts trucks to cut out what I need.

[Joe67]

Good post Poet, thanks

Cab Supports: Missing the both the factory drain hole and it's flat spot an inch or two from the inner rocker (floor). Has too-small flanged bolt hole bent lips with poor upper area fit under & against floor. The bolt-thru flanged lips also had the wrong shape cut in them. The lips angle down at the top rather than go straight horizontal like the factory cab spts. Again, not a problem since I could trim them and the bad part won't show (unless underneath, and it's still not easily noticed, except for the lack of a drain hole). The body bolt end lacked the proper shape to look factory. Not a fit problem, though. And I only used the outer 3/4 of the cab supports.

Can someone post a picture of a factory cab support along side a replacement? This is the first time I read about a drain hole?

[4x4Poet]

Originally Posted by 67c10step

...Can someone post a picture of a factory cab support along side a replacement? This is the first time I read about a drain hole?

I should say that I just call it a drain hole. It's on the bottom of each front cab support, but the fact that it is also in the middle of the flat (parallel with ground/frame) spot could mean that it is a factory spot to attach lift arms with which to lower the body on the frame. Just a guess either way.

And please, everyone, keep in mind that I noted in my tirade that, except for the rear-lower, burb-specific quarters and the driver's rocker where it butts to the body rearward, all the TriPlus flaws were covered by something else or were left exposed only underneath the truck. The poor floor stamping and the thinness if all the pieces angered me more than any design differences or flaws.

[arkracing]

Try to find good used stuff for outersheetmetal/inner fenders. You will be much happier, even if it costs you a little more.

The amount of time wasted on modifing your new panels to even fit close to original is not worth the cost to find good used stuff

I agree with 4x4 poet on pretty much everything he said.

Kick panels- i had the same issue with the "door lip" and the lip that meets the downslope of the firewall.

Rockers - HUGE DISSAPPOINTMENT!!!!!!! I had to modify/cut/slice/reweld to get them to get some what of a gap that looked "normal" and by no means is it show quality. drivers side rocker at the rear "up bend" part of the stamping was not done well - hits the bottom of my door.

Radiator Support - another huge dissappointment = had issues with OEM fenders/hood lining up - had to "tweak" the support.

Front InnerFenders - ok, but also had to "strech/bend" them slightly

Cab corners/Floor supports/floors will all have to be modified to fit properly.

Floors were very far off the orignial - the beads were not rolled in the right spots...being as much as 1.5" off the original mark


and like others said. Goodmark is selling Tri-Plus sheetmetal (i'm not sure about the doors....but most everything else)

[Joe67]

Originally Posted by 4x4Poet

I should say that I just call it a drain hole. It's on the bottom of each front cab support, but the fact that it is also in the middle of the flat (parallel with ground/frame) spot could mean that it is a factory spot to attach lift arms with which to lower the body on the frame. Just a guess either way.

Gotcha, thanks. I can see it being used as a locator.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Original doors don't fit well either, in my opinion. I had a heck of a time trying to get my original doors/fenders/ and cab to align right. I'm happier with how they are, but without getting out a welder and big hammer its the best its gonna be. Most really good shops will weld beads along door edges and grind them down to get the proper fit. They didn't have good standards back then for body parts/fit/alignment. It would be unrealistic to expect the "knock offs" to fit "perfect."

[northerngmc]

Yes I agree that doors are hard to get to fit at the best of times, but the Goodmark doors I saw bowed out of place when the door rubbers were installed.

The doors were aligned prior to paint and then after paint when the door rubbers were installed the door would be flush with the cab near the latch, but at both the top and bottom corner the door stuck out about 1/4 of an inch.

[HeavyD]

Wow. So the consensus is that most of the repro stuff except for bedsides, hood, and front fenders are not very good. Will have to remember this and try to get as good a cab as possible.

[StingRay]

HeavyD I wouldn't worry about floors, supports, rockers, etc. When you are that far into a cab the tweaking required really isn't that big a deal in relation to the whole job. Most of the stuff I've seen for cab repair is pretty good and my biggest concern around here would be cab corners. I have had some Cross Canada supplied tin that really sucked. I got all of my cab tin from Scott's in Penhold and it all was pretty darn good! If you can find a rot free cab it would of course be ideal. Just be sure to buy from a vendor that has an intrest in these trucks. They try not to sell crap and will usually stand behind the products they sell.

[northerngmc]

Scott does not like to sell crap.

I was very happy with all the stuff I bought for my 59 from him. He steered me away from some stuff because he would not sell it due to the quality.