We'll its time to replace the front fenders on the 70 so I can get it out on the road for a test drive, and I just can't seem to make up my mind on what to do. I'm hereing to many stories about the new fenders not fitting properly. I'm thinking about just patching the fender I have a purchasing another that needs the patch also. I'd like ya'lls opinion, is the repo's that bad, I've also heard that the metal is so much thinner, is that true?
Plus I must tell ya'll about my adventure this past weekend when I went looking for fenders. I was way out in rural AL, found a guy that had in his yard/woods, 2 70 Chevelles, a 69 El Camino, 67 Big Block Vette Convertible(basket case), 1 or 2 69 Chevelles maybe a 68, a 68 Camaro, a 70 or 71 Camaro, tons of 55 thru 57 Chevys, all these cars were being kept from the weeds overtaking them by a couple of Goats. This does'nt even start to cover the cars that were actually in his barn/workshop being worked on, these were just the one's outside in the woods/yard. I started talking to this guy about needing a 12 bolt for mine and he said to look down and there was one in the grass not 2 feet from me, that a guy had paid him a $150 for but had'nt picked it up yet. He told me that the 70 Chevelle fenders were owned by a boy down the road, so I took a trip to find him and on the way I past 2 more houses, where I spotted either 68 or 69 Chevelles sitting in the yards. I get to this boys house, their out working on sombody's car, sourrounded by 4x4 trucks, a 70 Olds 442, and a nice 70 Nova with a 302 in it, to which he said it has been parked for month's leaking water thru a bad head. Man if I only had money to spend I'd be buying a warehouse to put these cars in, I know some are junk, but man you'd be surprised at what you find the further you get away from the city.

tried repops on my 68 .they didn`t fit well at all.found 2 good used ones and they fit great

I needed doors, fenders, hood, core support, bumper, etc. I found good used and NOS. No Goodcrap or Dynajunk. Tried it the first time, didn't work.
If you've watched the show CCR they were building a Camero. They were showing how they had to elongate the holes to make the new stuff fit. Now this was a car that was all repo parts, sponsored by Dynacorn. Doesn't say much for the product.
That's my two cents worth.

It took the body shop two days to get the new fenders fitting on our '69 el Camino. Should have just repaired the old ones. They weren't all that bad once I got looking at them.

I saw that show and was not surprised at the holes being elongated, I would love to see that car in person, tap on the sheet metal and hear what it sounds like. I also saw a show called Musclecar, where they built a 68 Camaro convertible maybe it was a 69, either way they put so much body filler in all the hood and door gaps to make them flat, then a straight edge to check it. Then he took a cut off wheel to cut out the gaps, sure it was arrow straight, but you can't tell me that car won't be cracking around all those door and hood gaps in the future! surely thats not the way to get your body arrow straight.

nothing beats original metal
I searched high and low just to find a fairly decent set of doors for my 68
I am not even sure if they make repop doors, but I am not chancing it either

used fender with patch!

i'm looking at getting 2 new fenders, 2 new 1/4's, front and rear bumper and a hood. my 71 chevelle needs a lot of body work and i was thinking it would be more beneficial for me to buy all the new sheet metal from SS396.com. is this the wrong way to go?

Stay Away from repro metal. Patch the originals or find nice used parts.

I would go with good used fenders and repair them. I have a set of NOS GM fenders for my 69 that have been sitting in boxes for years, and I am still thinking about repairing the ones on the car and not using the new ones. I have heard that even the NOS parts sometimes need alot of fitting to look good.

Im not very picky with my cars. but a freind bought a pair of repops for his 70. To tell the truth, I would have returned them. He ended up buying a pair of originals and had them reworked. jim

Is it a big deal to patch the bottoms of the front fenders? I'm thinking about doing that myself.

Go with patched fenders. I used repops on mine and the body shop played hell getting them to fit. They had to open some mounting holes at the firewall and the fit by the headlight extentions still isn't perfect.
Took me two years to get the car in the shop and I ended up picking up a pair of GM fenders with very little rust just 3 days after the shop finished the last coat of paint.

Well, my goodmark 70 fenders fit better then the OEM fenders that I replaced them with. No tweaking, bending, hogging out holes nothing but bolting them in.
http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2103086303
http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2103086044

I would go with good used fenders and repair them. I have a set of NOS GM fenders for my 69 that have been sitting in boxes for years, and I am still thinking about repairing the ones on the car and not using the new ones. I have heard that even the NOS parts sometimes need alot of fitting to look good.

Alot of the NOS stuff U will find today was made at the very end of the production run when the tooling was way wore out.

Some repop sheetmetal is made with the original tooling that has been reworked. In this case IMHO the repop would be better.

If U can find a rust free original piece off an original undamaged car thats your best bet ( not always easy).

Not all original sheetmetal fit perfect......ask someone who worked on the line.

Guess what I'm getting at is that there's no absolute answer.

I just got home from doing a deal on one of the fenders, $50.00 but needs a patch, pick it up tomorrow. A guy just left as I was getting there, he bought the 68 Chevelle for $200.00, the body had lots of rust, but the frame and firewall was OK. There's an Elky there that has body rot on ever panel, but it has a big block in it that's just flat out shaken the rest of the rust right off the car. He's the one that got the 12 bolt I wanted. The guy said not to worry that he'll get me another easy, lots of them are in home made round track cars they have. These guy's do a lot of drag racing (country road drag racing that is) down there, the owner has a 55 Chevy that does nothing but drag, nothing but a seat, tach and shifter in that one. Used to be a 4 door, now 2 door, scary looking car to be draggin in.

I bought both front fenders and both rear quarters. They fit just fine with a few tweaks. No more than you would get with factory fenders.

I'm very greatful for the GoodMark (overseas repops).
I live in North Alberta and I can't just go drive around and find used ones.

Not to long ago you couldn't buy very much in the way of repops for Chevelles and other old cars. GoodMark Thank YOU...lol

been down the road with my current project (69 Blazer custom). Griped and complained on the truck forums about China re-pops from Tri-plus....bragged on Goodmark from a previous project. Found out that Goodmark gets their metal from Tri-plus!! It seems that there is only one source now, Tri-plus that stamps out metal for our projects no matter if truck or muscle car....it is good someone is doing something, too bad GM or some other stateside company didn't keep waving the flag and making stock quality metal repros. Oh well everything is going or gone to China.

My experience is that stock metal is better fitting overall, but still needs massaging. The tri-plus fit was horrific from LMC truck...I guess the stamping is a roll of the dice, because I worked on a Camaro with Goodmark panels and not bad....a few years ago but not bad...what a crap shoot!! Good luck