Frame/chassis swap compatibility

[Brothajack93]

Honestly, the fitment on the different body pieces I've bought has been middling at best. Everything needed a little tweaking and massaging to get it all to fit, but that's expected with the Taiwanese molds.
The best luck I've had is with OEM donor pieces from the spare parts trucks, and making my own if needed.
I've got body parts from partshub.ca and from classictruck.ca. both roughly equal in quality, since I believe they're just two different distributors for KeyParts branded body panels. You can also get the panels from rockauto, and sell your firstborn son to pay the shipping.

Anything I can find on PartsAvatar, I get from them because any order over $75 they ship for free and they carry basically the same quality of aftermarket stuff as rockauto.

I’ve definitely noticed parts avatar to be a great source when looking but they have 0 body stuff in stock for these trucks unless you count radiator core support body mounts. But I guess that’s just life in Canada. We treat china and taiwans trade market better than our own neighbours. As unreasonably priced as it may be for shipping I’ll probably decide to get salvage from my southern parts guy and support a hard working family man who buys obs chevys to strip and send to guys like us in his spare time and he’s an all around great guy if you can be patient as he only gets so much time. Far better than already over paying for inferior product. Might buy the cheap-ish ones for my spare cab cause it’s practice and part of being good is working with things like that

 

[Brothajack93]

I'm not saying schooling for the sole purpose of pursuing a career in autobody. It will benefit you in other ways as well.

One of the things you have said is that you got into this truck not knowing what to look for.

You'll at least come out of it with some basic understanding of what is the right and wrong ways of fixing stuff, be more familiar with what's available to you as far as materials go, have a basic understanding of painting, and of frame/structure diagnosing and measuring.

You do make a good point and I can’t argue that… I might have to look into what options like that I may have here to have more technical knowledge from the books rather than just guys on YouTube/trial and error. Plus I have lots of friends with many skills that could always use a friend to fix some body rot on their 10 plus year old vehicles that they’ve neglected. Always a great bargain for friends to trade skills!

 

[Canadian Rust Bucket]

When I'm buying stuff from the States I'll sometimes use a courier service to ship it across the border and save on shipping and taxes. Check out crossborder pickups, they'll give you an address in NY to ship to and then ferry it across the border for a nominal fee. They've saved me thousands in shipping from US retailers.

 

[Brothajack93]

When I'm buying stuff from the States I'll sometimes use a courier service to ship it across the border and save on shipping and taxes. Check out crossborder pickups, they'll give you an address in NY to ship to and then ferry it across the border for a nominal fee. They've saved me thousands in shipping from US retailers.

Hell yea that’s like the greatest service ever!!! You must be another onterrible guy then? Or Quebec?