quistions about aftermarket panels

[krazy_texan]

I am seriosly looking at buying an entire aftermarket front clip including wiring harness and headlights and the whole shabang for my 67 gmc but i am wondering where can i get a radiator support for the truck all i seem to find is chevrolet core supports, who has the best prices on such parts and so on and so forth, i have never bought any aftermarket body panels for a truck and so i want to hear all the good and bad things about them such as fittment and stuff like that, i am also thinking of going with the cowl hood just for looks but am not sure on that part yet, tell me what you guys think and know, my plan is to order the parts while i am missouri, send them to my parents house, put them on the truck when i go home on leave and drive the truck to mississsippi when i go in october.

[LUV2XCLR8]

All of my aftermarket (Repop) stuff has come from www.christiansclassics.com

[Erl]

Krazy,
Do you have a set of 351 v6 heads you would like to sell?
Erl

[Blue4x4]

I would highly suggest you look for used oem parts. There will be nothing like the original. Finding the parts you need are difficult and the repairs are easy after they have been bead blasted. The trucks that I have built with aftermarketparts looked like cra* with those parts, so I removed them. My wife works as a parts Mgr in a local body shop and we had a few of the body guys come over and try to fit these parts: doors, fenders and cowl and grill assembly. I ended up selling most of the parts at 1/2 price. I am still fighting the cowl hood 2.5 years later on the alignment. If you want a honest opinion, Call a few local auto body shops and ask them what they would suggest. If you want wide gaps and sheetmetal that doesn't have the same angle/curverature then by it. If you do buy it, find a vendor who will support his product and give a 100% refund on parts that don't fit. Just my 2cents.

[MAR-Ktech]

Ditto that Blue4X4. We have attempted to offer the import body parts, fenders, bedsides, and found the quality problems more than we cared to deal with. We are selling out of inventory and not reordering most parts. There are three general problem areas with the import parts, freight damage, sloppy construction, and poor tooling design to begin with. Parts are damaged from shipping them through the distribution system with zero packing support in the box, there is nearly always at least one really bad weld, and even when you fix those, the parts don't fit that well. We cherry picked the shipments of parts and still were not happy with quality and had to sell at a higher price to cover it. If you must use the import body parts, at least work with a supplier where you can inspect and dry fit the parts before purchasing. Avoid shipping them anywhere because they typically are not packed well to withstand truck freight handling. Original body parts are hard to find and are worth it for a fine truck.

Mar-Ktech

[Joe67]

I agree orig GM parts are the way to go, but if you cannot find anything just remember, there are only one or two companies that actually MAKE these repro parts. Everyone else is just a reseller