GMCPauls doors (resolved by vendor)

[afcamaro]

I placed an order from GMCPauls for a pair of doors after hearing great things about them.

When I got them the drivers door was horrible fitting. Mostly in the hoop area. After talking to one of their reps, they told me to just drill out the spot welds and lower the hoop. I measured the hoop compared to my original door and it was at least an 1/8" taller and in the curved rear section a 1/4" taller than the old one. WAY off. Drilling the spot welds out and welding wasn't that bad but I wasn't expecting to do that at all. Since Ive read you only usually have to do that with the "other" guys doors.

Now on the passenger side the hoop fits good. It all measures out good. Except the bolt holes in the inside of door. They're 3/8 of an inch off from the old door. And their welded on the inside. Idk if I can even ream my hinges out to pull my door out enough so it isn't so far into the door cavity, and will line up with the fender and rocker. This thing has become a pain and Im almost about to scrap this $350 piece of junk. Ive measured and remeasured and this is the problem.

Either I have a rare set of crappy doors or GMCPauls has switched manufactures that their buying from or the tooling. I am not happy with the quality one bit.


On a positive note their shipping was fast and had great customer service, but the doors are just not of the quality I was expecting.

[Liz]

I would call back and talk to them again. I have yet to see Paul not attempt to fix an issue that he knew about.

[Tim Christian]

afcamaro, I sent you a PM to try to help you out.

[vanceman]

Thanks for the review. I was real close to buying some. I guess I will continue working on my OEM.
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[GMCPaul]

afcamaro I read your email this morning and immediately tried to contact you and finally contacted you by phone. Then I was made aware of this post also so I figured I post here also. So far per our phone conversation and our collaboration on measurements it appears that the passenger door had the hinge mounting plates installed approx. 1/8" off from a original doors location for them. Based on our phone call it appears you should be able to solve this by slotting the holes that the door hinge bolts pass thru on the door hinge some so that the door can be slid further out. I'm terribly sorry this has happened to you and you can rest assured we will get this righted so that you have a good door. I made sure to give you my personal cell phone # to reach me back at and Please definitely do contact me back to let me know if this fix worked. We've had Great luck with these doors and I'm really sorry that you've gotten a set with some minor problems as they've all been basically bolt on and go prior to this. I've had our supplier pull and check through the current inventory on these doors and as of noon today they've been unable to locate any with a similar problem that you've had with either of your doors so it does appear to be a isolated case at this time. My suppliers of these doors has also had a Representative of theirs contact you and he's provided you with his contact info also to try to help.
I'm terribly sorry you had to undergo this has we try to make sure everything we offer is the best available so that our customers do not experience problems. Thankfully it appears that this will be solved with some minor modification to the door hinge bolt opening slot.
GMCPaul

[afcamaro]

I have been in contact with Paul and Paul Jr whom seem to be really nice and caring about this issue. The bolt hole were only an 1/8" off but for some reason the hinge had to be reamed an extra 3/8th of an inch. I measured my cab and openings, and they are all square. The cab is a rust free one but I thought maybe in its lifetime its gotten tweaked,. That wasnt the case. IF all I had to do was lower the window hoop that wouldn've been such a bad deal. Either way they work decent now after the effort. If I was to do it all over again though I would just fix my old ones, and still might.

[GMCPaul]

afcamaro I'm glad that the idea of slotting the door hinges worked well. Paul Jr did question me why I also didn't suggest the use of shims behind the door hinge as we've removed them from cabs here before in disassembly and I wish I had rembered this when we were discussing options. Not that it helps you any but over a dozen of these doors were pulled from the same lot yours arrived with and they were inspected for the problems your having with yours and none could be found to have a problem and of the doors inspected 3-4 sets of each side were mounted to a cab to check fit and they all were correct, I'm sorry this wasn't the case with yours.
We try to get the very best there is in parts but even the best parts sometimes need a little work to get 100% exact and it really is amazing that something being off just 1/8" requires the work it does to fit correctly.
You have my appoligies for the extra effort you had to go thru to get these to fit correctly.
If you have any further problems with ANYTHING on the trucks restoration whether its a part we sold or someone else or just a general problem related to re-assembly please don't hesitate to contact us as multiple heads working to resolve something generally makes it easier and we've seen and dealt with many of the things that do come up.
GMCPaul

[GMCPaul]

Not that it helps but we did have another customer experience almost the same problems you did. We've placed on our web site now in the description the following info
Our recent experience has shown these doors may require minor adjustment to upper door hoop or slotting of door hinge to achieve a perfect fit.
We are passing along the info of the problem to our supplier whos also letting the manufacturer know. These Apex made doors we sell are Still the best available door from any of the 3 manufacturers making them and the mods needed to achieve a perfect fit should take no competent body man more than 45-60 minutes to complete. We are selling these as low as possible at $310.00ea + freight to help ease the costs. I wish these had maintained the earlier bolt on and go status we intially experienced with the first 50 or so sets but it appears some deviation in the assembly of them has occured from the intial releases.
GMCPaul

[Crash_OK]

Originally Posted by GMCPaul

Not that it helps but we did have another customer experience almost the same problems you did. We've placed on our web site now in the description the following info
Our recent experience has shown these doors may require minor adjustment to upper door hoop or slotting of door hinge to achieve a perfect fit.
We are passing along the info of the problem to our supplier whos also letting the manufacturer know. These Apex made doors we sell are Still the best available door from any of the 3 manufacturers making them and the mods needed to achieve a perfect fit should take no competent body man more than 45-60 minutes to complete. We are selling these as low as possible at $310.00ea + freight to help ease the costs. I wish these had maintained the earlier bolt on and go status we intially experienced with the first 50 or so sets but it appears some deviation in the assembly of them has occured from the intial releases.
GMCPaul

Paul,

Any ideas on the best way to slot the hinges? I admit I am not a competent body man, so I am sure it will take me longer than 45-60 minutes to modify the hinges and lower the door hoops..

Thanks..

[GMCPaul]

Originally Posted by Crash_OK

Paul,

Any ideas on the best way to slot the hinges? I admit I am not a competent body man, so I am sure it will take me longer than 45-60 minutes to modify the hinges and lower the door hoops..

Thanks..

Myself I would use a carbide burr in a drill press, they make single cut & double cut carbide burrs. The single cut removes metal faster than a double cut does, and of the various styles of carbide burrs I would recomend getting either a ball nose cylinder, oval or flame shaped carbide burr. You can use the carbide burrs in a drill press, drill, or a grinder that has a chucked head. The ball nose, oval, cone & flame carbide burrs having a cutting edge on the tip and sides which is why I would recommend using one of them and if I only had a choice of 1 style for my tool box I would probably recommend the flame or cone shaped as you can use one of them to enlarge a hole from small diameter to larger diameter, or to elongate or slot a hole, or to chamfer metal edges. A single cut is better for fast removal of metal so they get the job done faster than a double cut but if it were thin metal I'm working with then I choose a double cut carbide burr so as not to remove to much to fast.
The double cut carbide burrs look like they would be more aggressive to most for metal removal but trust me the single cuts are the more aggressive of the 2.
Using a drill press with a carbide burr slotting a hinge bolt hole would take maybe a minute to acomplish per hole in something like a door hinge and I'd do it by clamping the hinge to the drill press deck plate. If using a hand drill or hand grinder best is to use one with a handle 90 degrees to drill body as it is better for greater control and using either of those I'd clamp the hinge in a vise.
GMCPaul
The first burr pictured is a cone, 2nd is a flame, 3rd is a cylinder burr, and 4th is a ball burr.

[1moretime]

I bought a set of doors from pauls a couple years ago for a 69 chevy. Since I live in Indiana I drove to Rockville and picked them up. It took me all day to make the trip but it was worth it. He had trucks all over the place. The doors fit great and I didn't have any problems.

[merlin3]

i had the same problem with my drivers door [new Goodmark] but the hoop on my door was a half inch too high it took about a hour to cut the hoop off ,tack weld,install door for a test fit,take back off and weld it still does not fit right.the time i spent repairing rust and installing a outer skin on the pass door i could have bought 2 new doors but the pass door fits perfect.the drivers door was not from GMC Paul's i have bought stuff from them and had great product quality and service.