I need to purchase replacement quarter skins. Is the quality of the Goodmark skins as good as that on the full quarters? I've heard good things about the full quarters. If the quality of the skin isn't as good I'll have to buy the full skins and just cut them down, but I'd like to save the money if I can. Thanks for any help you can give me.
My personal opinion if the need of repair is great enough for the skin id go with the full quarter.the skin is a lot more work ad the is alot more of chance the the end result might not be as good.where as the full quarter goes in where the factory put it all if you play your cards right in installing the quarters no one can tell you did it.if the quarters just need small patch work thats one thing get the skin and use it for patch work.If you think you need to replace the whole area where the skin goes go with the full quarter.I had to replaces the quarters,one peice full floor pan, doors, hood , tailpanel , decklid ,deck filler panel,part of the fire wall,patch the lower fenders, on my 69 last winter i did all the work at home myself and im only 25 working on a gm mechanics paycheck and was trying to "budget" the restoration. I at first was going to install the skins but they do not look as nice in person as the do in the catalogs so i sent back the quarter skins and ordered the full quarters and i was very happy.this car does not look like its had any sheet metal replaced in the trunk or underneath you cannot tell because everything was repaired(except for the fender patches) where it was spot welded.so i guess to sum things up.Kevin in my opinion,go with the full quarters but thte end result is how much are you will to spend to get this car done and how good do you want it to turn out.I originally "budgeted" $14000 for a full resto,After nearing completion and still needing some fairly pricy items i have enough in this dang thing to buy a fully loaded new GTO.sI know you want to save money but to me if youre going to save it in a place that is easy to repalce later(like the engine or interior,something that can be taken out the winter) the body is not one of them.
Thanks for the great answer Jeremy. I have the money to buy the full quarters so, I think I will get them. I wanted to hear from some people with experience with them first. I'm doing all my work myself too, the only other things being relpaced are the outer wheel wells. The rest of the car is pretty solid with just a couple small patches.
The passenger side repro quarter needs a lot of work to make it fit. If your only rust is around the wheel well and lower rear quarter, I'd seriously think about skins. The door jams of the repro quarters leave a bit to be desired also. You can see how we grafted the full quarters on to my convertible on my website below. Had the rear most part of the quarter where they meet the tail pan been in good condition, I would've gone with skins.
Kinda falls back to bird and doug's comments--depends on how good the body man is. You can make flawless repairs with hand fabricted patches. One of my quarters is made from a chunk hacked out of a rwd Fleetwood hood. And it's flawless. Then again, it was a good body man--not me--who "installed" the quarter.
Mony not being a factor is nice, but sometimes it is what is more practial than and a better repair than what costs the most money.
You mention buying skins and cutting them down. If you have to cut a skin down, that means that the repair could be done without a full quarter. (The quarter made out of a Cadillac hood? Yep! It could use a full quarter because the quarter was damaged beyond repair, the reason that it wears a hand fabricated quarter. Actually, I could get away with a skin or an 80% part.)
Based on the patch I bought for the 9 lower fender--that I sent back and fabricated my own fender patches--pictures that I have seen of the extremly poor fit of repro fenders, and the comments I have read on the fit of skins and full quarters, all of them are peices o/s. That means installation of these parts are hammer to fit. So if you have to hammer to fit, you might as well section the metal.
Hammered, do the skins have the line going down the cneter or are they just rounded? The ones I've seen had nothing that looked like a line, more of a gradual bend.
I think that if you look at the original sheet metal you will see that the feature line is not that sharp. It's the shadow line that this creates that makes it look sharper than it is. That area was not a problem for me on the full quarters. The scallop area (lower front rear quarter) is slightly off on both sides so you need to cut the quarter to get it to line up. The belt line (top of the quarter, 90 degree bend) is blunted on the passenger side, the trunk drop-off toward the gutter is too shallow needing cut to raise up, and the front top of the passenger side quarter curves in sharply and needs cut to be straigtenend. A good body man could fix all this (I once was one and owned a shop) but why pay one to unnecessarily? All my metal was butt welded in and you cannot tell from the inside that the quarters were replaced. There's also the issue of alignment. If the factory sheet metal is lined up well (i.e., door gap, trunk gap) why monkey with it using aftermarket sheetmetal. We had to do some major gymnastics to get my trunk gap presentable. I'm very picky and too 99% of the people it looks just fine, but if I could've avoided it, I would've.
