HARDCORE POSER

Does anyone have any recommendations on where the best place to order rear 1/4 skins or panels to fit a 1969 Cutlass convertible? I'm in western Canada if that makes any difference.

joe_padavano

The only repro parts you can get are the Chinesium partial quarters for the HT, which must be modified to fit a convertible. They all fit poorly and all vendors get them from the same one or two overseas stamping plants, so just shop for the best price. Expect to spend a lot of manhours making them fit and look good. Good used OEM quarters will be a better choice if you can find them.

rcorrigan5

Concur. I had to replace the driver side quarter on my '68. The replacement panel cost about $300 as I recall. I don't do body or paint work, though, and the labor was about another $800 to get it cut, fitted and installed. The finish product looks great, but I know the body shop that did the work went through a lot of swear words along the way!

HARDCORE POSER

Thanks guys, I was afraid of that, the shame of it is the reason I'm looking at relpacing them is a previous replacement wasn't sealed properly and the rust is starting at the top where the skin was overlapped and the holes for the trim drilled. Might be smarter to get an old school bodyman to cut and replace the small sections along the top?

csstrux

If the rest of it looks good, you might want to dig into it a bit and decide from there, though likely the whole job is botched if you can see rivet holes. When I got mine the quarters were AHEMMM welded on, but so poorly done that I cut them right back out. Am still considering repair vs replacement vs a different shell vs a different car altogether. but mine has issues elsewhere on top of the rust.

malibu406

You can buy american made quarters. They are made by TABCO in Ohio and stamped right on them made in america. I have used the quarter panels on 2 on two cars (4) total. They are galvanized, not the electro statically sprayed stuff. Plus they are thicker that the Korean junk. Search tabco on the web. I paid $400 for two this year at the big Carlise swap meet in PA. They are normally listed as $250 each. I would not buy any other panels. Here is the email address of the guy I bought them from.
Ron ph: 216.299.7612

roncandy@aol.com

Also, when you search for tabco, you should be able to find a guys website from Canada. He did a very detailed documentation using these panels and he was very picky in his opinions. If you find it, it is pretty interesting.

I hope this helps.

Bluevista

Pretty cool, thanks for the heads up malibu406.
I drive by that place all the time, thought they just made truck panels.

Why would a rust repair panel place be around here?

http://www.tabcobodyparts.com/

jturkey69

nice find!...I will be ordering from there soon I htink..just have to decide if I need just the wheelhouse area, or whole 1/4, but at 179 each for my application...its cheaper then the only other website I found which is Muscle Car Metal.

malibu406

Your welcome. Looks like you got them cheaper than me, unless they were for different car. Like I said, I used 4 of them and would not even consider the other more commonly found foreign junk that is all over ebay.