Like many of us we're in the market for patch panels for these old beasts. I'm no exception. I'm going to fall Carlisle in a couple of weeks and CPI truck parts will be there. With the "I'll avoid shipping while I'm there" mentality I decided to look at what other vendors were asking for their panels. Got a little confused. So... for arguments sake I just used the passenger side floor panel that I need as an example. Pricing is very different between vendors.
So the difference in cost is between the CMI panel, $119 if I pick it up in Carlisle and the other two Summit offerings, $80.99 for the AMD panel and $117.99 for the Goodmark panel. Is there a difference in Quality? Summit offers free shipping above a certain amount. Trying to sort this out. Thoughts?
1954 3600 Stakebed non-original engine out of a '55 passenger car with powerglide
In my experience, there's not much difference in quality between panels. Pretty much all of them need to be beat into submission to fit correctly. It's just part of the game. I believe I've received panels with one vendors PN label pasted over a different vendor's label. Generally speaking, I'd go with the lower priced items. In fact it has been said that they all come out of the same factory in Taiwan. Jim Carter used to sell that same passenger side floor/toeboard panel, but now sell just the floor section for $85, and a separate full width toeboard. Those two pieces are more correct, assembly wise to the original cabs with a spot weld flange between the floor and toeboard, if that matters.
Kevin 1951 Chevy 3100 work truck Follow this saga in Project Journal Photos 1929 Ford pickup restored from the ground up. | 1929 Ford Special Coupe (First car) Busting rust since the mid-60's If you're smart enough to take it apart, you darn well better be smart enough to put it back together.
The one panel that comes to mind is the inner to outer cowl piece. There seems to be two types, ones that are stamped with round indents for the kick panel bumps and another welded with rectangle indents for the kick panel bumps. The welded one is terrible. The other looks more correct but have not used it. The kick panel inner piece is not bad but the full pieces from what I see are better. I used the partial piece and the bottom curve is wrong and needed to be bent and something I noticed after as I had the doors off is they also need to be tweaked to line up with the door lines on the inside. The floors I used looked correct but when I used a half piece for the drivers side the bead rolled bumps don’t line up with the rest of the bumps across the floor, but look okay. My truck is a 1954 GMC Canadian model and that may be why as it could be a little different than a US truck.
Agree with Kevinski on the welded inner to outer cowl piece being terrible. But it's possible to correct it by cutting and welding. Like most other panels, the basic shape is there, but needs adjustment in most cases. I ordered both short and long inner kick panels, but didn't use the short ones. There use to be a Dynacorn inner kick panel that looked like it matched the factory pieces, but seems to no longer be available in their catalog.
Kevin 1951 Chevy 3100 work truck Follow this saga in Project Journal Photos 1929 Ford pickup restored from the ground up. | 1929 Ford Special Coupe (First car) Busting rust since the mid-60's If you're smart enough to take it apart, you darn well better be smart enough to put it back together.
