Best Reproduction Front Fenders and Body Bolts

[AZ Chev]

Good day fellas, does anyone have suggestions on the best fit reproduction front fenders and inner fenders for a 56 3100? I'm the excited new owner of a 56 3100 with a big window. It has fiberglass front fenders, and I would like to at least go back to metal, if not oem. The truck is on a 72 C10 frame, and the inner fenders are trimmed a little more than I like. I'm hoping to buy good quality fenders that won't take too much work to make them fit. I wold also appreciate suggestions for a real good body bolt kit. All the nuts and bolts on this thing appear to be mismatched and out of the old bucket of extras.

I appreciate any advice I can get!

[MARTINSR]

My advice is to do anything you can to come up with OEM ones. The work you have to do on the OEM ones that are damaged will still be less than making the reproduction ones fit.

Sit back, relax and start looking for them and you will come up with them before you HAVE TO have them, you know what I mean?


Brian

[vintovka]

Originally Posted by MARTINSR

My advice is to do anything you can to come up with OEM ones. The work you have to do on the OEM ones that are damaged will still be less than making the reproduction ones fit.

Sit back, relax and start looking for them and you will come up with them before you HAVE TO have them, you know what I mean?
Brian

What MARTINSR said. I regret the decision to buy a repop fender. Overpriced, tremendous shipping, 3x+ cost of fender+freight in tries to get it to fit and ultimately a failure. Classic should be ashamed to sell such trash.

[mr48chev]

I've seen that across the net, the general consensus is that none of the available repro front fenders fit very good at all.

Unless they are bent up around the headlight area you can usually work the smaller dings out of a stock fender pretty easily.

I've that "fender bolts don't match issue myself. I think some of the truck trinket vendors do sell kits with the hopefully correct bolts.
These are a bit spendy and may be too fancy for you but the 55/66 thing means that you should be able to scrounge the correct bolts off 55/66 trucks in the pick a part yards. https://www.classicparts.com/1955-66...tinfo/37-925B/

[slammed57]

I bought repro front fenders and doors, the doors are pretty good , the front fenders aint bad ,not to much tweaking had to be done... i would rather have originals but just couldmt find any in my area so i had to settle for repros, the originals seem to be a tag thicker gauge steel as well . when i first put them on i thought the doors were way out of wack, but it turned out that someone insalled new door sills and were done poorly, but after i re did the door sills and insalled them correctly everything lined up pretty well

[dwcsr]

Originally Posted by slammed57

I bought repro front fenders and doors, the doors are pretty good , the front fenders aint bad ,not to much tweaking had to be done... i would rather have originals but just couldmt find any in my area so i had to settle for repros, the originals seem to be a tag thicker gauge steel as well . when i first put them on i thought the doors were way out of wack, but it turned out that someone insalled new door sills and were done poorly, but after i re did the door sills and insalled them correctly everything lined up pretty well

You can't say that in a public forum, They're like never trumpers here when it comes to re-pop parts. Your supposed to take what you have and bang the dents out on a tree stump with a rock then live with it. re-pop bad, re-pop bad. repeat after me Re-pop bad.

[slammed57]

Like I said, I rather have had originals , Iam only expressing my honest opinion. Are the great, no. But not all that bad either. I believe in the short future with originals coming hard to come by, people will have no other choice but to get repops
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[AZ Chev]

I appreciate all the feedback. What brand of re-pop fenders did you use? Anyone know a good place to check for used? I'm in Arizona.

[Patrat]

I used repops and yes they took some work but so would fixing the originals. I would prefer to use original but as a matter of time to adjust repops vs fixing rust, holes etc plus the originals didnt fit perfect either and would have needed some work.

[slammed57]

Originally Posted by AZ Chev

I appreciate all the feedback. What brand of re-pop fenders did you use? Anyone know a good place to check for used? I'm in Arizona.

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[slammed57]

CPI is where I got mine, very nice people to deal with and good products as well
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[paulspickupparts]

Chevy this out . Most of the repo fenders are made in the same Taiwan factory . Then put in different boxes and brand names.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vwg_loea5w

Not long ago there was a very long thread/post on your same question. Right now I cannot find it but has a lot of good infro. Maybe someone else can post a link to that thread. This is turning into a repeat of that thread. Good luck .

[dwcsr]

Originally Posted by slammed57

Like I said, I rather have had originals , Iam only expressing my honest opinion. Are the great, no. But not all that bad either. I believe in the short future with originals coming hard to come by, people will have no other choice but to get repops
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I completely agree. I've used many many fenders, hoods, doors and other panels with few of the fit issues that are mentioned here. Guys tend to forget that it may well be their truck that's out of whack not the re-pop part.

Have I seem some that just came out of the stamper wrong, of course but its not the norm. 10's of thousand of re-pop parts are sold each year maybe even millions and if they are all bad non of the stampers would be in business today.

The exceptions I have seen are 67 72 C10 fender and hood fits, they don't seem to be able to get them right between MFG's, but in the 47-59 series most all panels fit very well, 10 years ago it was not the case. Then if you got a good fit it was dumb luck.

[AZ Chev]

Thanks again for all of the great advise folks. After the advise, I located and purchased pair of old-rusty front fenders that are actually in decent shape except for the lower rear portion of each fender and fender support. These are a bit hard to come by. I purchased Goodmark patch panels for the back lower portion of the fenders, and reproduction fender supports. Will let everyone know how this works out.