Central Valley, California - Advice needed

[Lugnutt]

I live in San Jose, California and need to find a body repair shop to fix some rust damage and re-paint my 72 Chev 4x4. I talked to my regular body repair shop that fixes my two cars, but he and others say they are not interested in working on older vehicles.

My regular "car" bodyshop owner recommended that I find a shop in the central valley of California close to the bay area like Tracy or Merced to get the work done. He said that bay area shops are going to need to charge between 12 and 15 k to do the work I discribed where a central valley shop may only charge about 7k to 8k.

The problem is that I don't know which shops are good and which shops are not-so-good out there. Price is important, but so is the quality of workmanship, knowledge & experience, and most of all, the "time element". I don't want the repair process dragging on for months.

Can some of you that have had body/paint work done in this area of Califonia recommend some good shops. And also if you've had bad experiences; I'd like to know of them too. Any feed-back would be helpful.

Thanks

[PanelDeland]

I know this guys schedule is extremely busy but if you're willing to wait and he is close enough to you......Lets just say he does awesome work.Here's a link to one of his posts.You can do a search to see some of his work and what others have to say about it.


http://www.67-72chevytrucks.com/vboa...d.php?t=248428

[neonlarry]

I recall a place in stockton on the west side of south airport that did some really nice work but I can't find any info in my paperwork or roledex with the name. You could probably find it easy enough with a phone book and a map.

[John Fabris]

If you want to come up to Vallejo (about 45 min north east of SF) there is the guy that painted my truck. Eric at Hot Rods by Lew. He mainly works on older cars and trucks. Like I said, he painted my truck and he currently has a 72 short fleet in his shop getting a complete color change (cab swap, motor swap, all sheet metal blasted clean) and that is running around $9000. His basic paint job starts at $5500. Let me know if you are interested.

[72CSTC5]

John's truck looks awesome and if you can convince Rok to do another one he is worth the wait too.

[sighlurr]

I've found a couple of people on Craigslist here in Sac. One guy is an instructor at Wyotech looking for sidework on the weekends. He is charging $25 and hour, but is now booked thru the next 6 months. Your best bet is finding guys that are able to spray in the evenings or on the weekends.

[Lugnutt]

thanks for the feed-back guys; keep em coming. I'll look into the couple of suggestions so far and see if they might work out.

Again, thanks for your help

[Lugnutt]

Update,

I sent a message to Rok to see if he's interested or can recommend someone; waiting for a reply.

Couldn't find any body shops in stockton anywhere near the west side of Stockton Muni Airport. They all seem to be grouped around the downtown quite a ways to the north. Maybe he moved.

Also couldn't find the shop in Vallejo; googled every combination of key words I could and even tried Vallejo Yellow pages to see if something matched the info you gave me. If you could think of any other info, please let me know.

I can see, this is gona take some time, but I'd gladly trade time for trouble anyday.

Thanks again, all, for the leads

[lbpd719]

Ricks Auto Body here in Los Banos does excellent work too..

there are a few places here in LB that would be interested for sure.. and most to pretty good work

[John Fabris]

Just sent you a pm regarding hotrodsbylew...

[hotrodhomi]

I don't want to hijack the thread, but will any of these shop smooth and paint my blazer top?

[John Fabris]

PM sent to Hotrodhomi,

[PanelDeland]

Rokcrln is probably busy for a while.

Check this http://www.67-72chevytrucks.com/vboa...d.php?t=249192