Quality of sheetmetal repair panels...

[NoAZ68]

I was wondering if anyone has noticed a quality difference between any of the vendors replacement panels. I was looking and Duff appears to be the cheapest for some panels, but I was wondering of quality. They say that their kick panels and inner fenders are 20 guage. Is that what all of the others are?
I need:
Inner fenders
Kick Panel (only drivers side, I think)
Floor panels (ribbed that extend to vertical part of firewall)
Front drivers side door post (actually only the very front has a rust hole that I was thinking of patching)
I was looking at the Bronco Hut (since they are not too far from me) and noticed that they have a cover for the front door post. Anyone tried this???
Any recommendations will be greatly appreciated...

 

[malcolmzilla]

IIRC, the new panels I got were about 20ga, whereas the small patches I made myself were 18ga and more closely matched the original material on the tub.

 

[NoAZ68]

Thanks Malcolm. In your opinion, was the 20 guage to thin? I don't want this thing to be a flexy flyer. But I encountered much more rust (now that I get into it) then I expected, so I need to keep my budget within the Boss' (wife)limits %) .

By the way, what do IIRC and AFAIK mean? I see these phrases often, but just haven't figured them out...

 

[malcolmzilla]

The 20ga was piles better that the rusty holed up pieces adding nothing to structural support! LOL My floor pans and kickpanels were also galvanized, a nice touch.

The panels have worked fine, and it "yielded" a bit better for final fitment, (not on the chassis yet, everything fit up on the rotisserie, tried the doors too), as everything will require a bit of tweaking... I'm sure they faced the same fitment issues at the factory.

As for the door post vs. cover, you should open it up and have a look, then decide if you need posts or just the cover. Mine were OK inside so I made my own patches for the front.

IIRC = If I Recall Correctly...
AFAIK = As Far As I Know...

 

[NoAZ68]

Anyone used Bronco Hut?

 

[ZookBronc]

I bought my panels (both floors, inner fenders and kick panels/galvenized and ribbed) from JBG www.broncograveyard.com and they fit pretty darn good. Im thankful to say that i havnt needed to replace anything in the past though so I can t compare to others but I was very satisfied with JBG.

 

[NoAZ68]

I was originally going to go with JBG, as I believe that they use a lot of Dennis Carpenter stuff. I have had good service form them in the past. I started shopping around, and noticed the Bronco Hut and saw that all of their stuff was stamped in the US. This made me think that there are probably only a few places at most that stamp this kind of stuff, and most vendors would get their sheetmetal from the same place. So my thought was/is that BH and JBG have the same product and are very similarly priced, but BH is much closer and shipping would be cheaper. I am sad though, because I am spending much more money in sheetmetal than I wanted and has taken some of my play money (for my MM210) %) .