U.S. Body Source
 

I wanted to warn all of you about the quality of fiberglass parts that US Body Source produces. They are located in Hampton, Florida which is about which is just south of Gainesville. I ordered a 62-66 Chevy hood for my '63 GMC way back on the 16th of December in 2008. Of course they require a 50% deposit at the time that you order for any product that needs to be produced. I figured from the first place that they just wanted you to be locked in on the hood from the beginning so that if you back out they have atleast half of your money. The 62-66 Chevy hoods cost $799 plus tax which in Florida is 7%. We payed the $427.47 down so that they would make the hood and while the order was being processed they informed us that it would be 4 weeks before we could pick up the part. This was fine because the holidays were coming up and that time of year is hectic with vacations and some company's will even close for several days for Christmas and New Years. Once the month estimate wore thin I gave them a call to find out it would be about 2 more weeks. This went on for two more sets of "two more weeks" until we agitatedly called to find out what was taking so long. We were informed that it was ready and told them that we would be up the next week to get it. On February 19th my father went and picked it up and brought it to my buddy's shop. Honestly, it doesn't look bad but the sharp, uneven edges along the inner-bottom edge and the two different types of primer screamed "POS!". This is the product that I found when I arrived (keep in mind that we had not been able to look at it in-depth yet):

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF4964.jpg

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF4968.jpg

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF4970.jpg

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF4984.jpg

A few days later my buddy and I were finally able to really have a look at it and see what all we needed to do. My buddy is a professional bodyman who has been in the bodywork business since he was a kid doing paint and body in his front yard. This is what we found :waah::

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF5120.jpg

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF5121.jpg

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF5124.jpg
Notice the white spots that stick out against the black seal coat. Those are where gobs of wet putty still sat to fill crappy little defects in it which is goofy because instead of little valleys, there were now small mountain peaks. And check out the unsealed patched that hardened with an outward wrinkle. Crappy Crappy Crappy.

U.S. Body Source cont.
 

A few weekends later the time finally came to set the hood on the front end of the truck to see how it all lined up and how it fit. There was no consistency in the lines at all. I understand that a mold is made from an original hood and that in the mass production of our pickups consistency was not always the prime focus. But in looking at this hood, the original that they used to make the original mold must have been rotted out. There were dips that were more like channels and in comparison, high spots that could have been the equivalent of the Andes mountains. The passenger side had an incorrect, rolled shape to the main body line while the drivers side of the hood had an almost perfect line. This was opposite when it came to the lower edge of the hood as the passenger side almost lined up perfectly and the driver's side was out. That was just the beginning because we then noticed three things on the top end of the hood. First off, the passenger side top-edge sat about 7/8th's of an inch above the corresponding peak of the cab corner and the driver's side was 1 1/8th of an inch above it's cab corner. Secondly, the back edge of the hood where it meets the cowl was all screwed up. The cut on it was in a zigzag pattern that screamed at you once there was a straight edge to compare it to. To show this, we used a strip of painter's tape following a straight line between the cab corner/hood. Thirdly, the slope ascending each side of the cowl were completely different from one another and did not even have matching edges resulting in one that was slightly sharpened and one that was rolled. Here pics of these discoveries:

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF5050.jpg

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF5083.jpg

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF5085.jpg

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF5064.jpg

The kicker on this was when I called US Body regarding it, I was told that this was a pretty regular condition for these hoods and that we would need to block and maybe even shear parts of it to make everything line up perfectly. That statement made me wish that there was a button that you could push that would make a ejection seat of of the persons chair.

Finally after many weeks of sanding, smoothing, filling and more sanding, we though that we were coming to a close on this tedious process. Then while blowing off the surface we found about slightly-larger-than-pinhole sized holes. These were airbubbles in the mold that we could pick at and they would quickly spread into large areas of broken surfacing. Most went all the way through the surface and some were just on the surface but they were all disturbing. We even found one that reached to 3.5 inches along the front edge where the vent holes are set to be cut out. This was right beside the hood hinge on the very inner section of the driver's side vent. Once we found all of the one's that needed to be filled, we filled them with fiberglass and drilled out the full-on holes so that we could fill them with resin. All of that done, the hood has now been checked several times so that we can make sure that new one's won't appear.

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF5253.jpg
This is a pinhole on the top of the hood that went all the way through.


http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF5293.jpg
This one was on the front bottom edge beneath a parking light.


http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF8221.jpg

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF8225.jpg
Resin front end holes.

Re: U.S. Body Source
 

My main point in this is to warn all of you against the parts made by this company along with their crappy customer service and response time. I do not understand why they are perfectly content selling a product like this and it really bothers me that it took almost 4 months of weekend work to just get this thing solid. I don't think that I deserved that quality of a part for $800 dollars, nor should we have had to put that much time and effort into making it into the equivalent of what it should have been when we picked it up. We used various colors of fiberglass while working on it just to show how many spots needed it. Notice the fact that it looks like a paint by the numbers done by a preschooler.

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF5256.jpg

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF5284.jpg

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF5342.jpg

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/DSCF8004.jpg

Re: U.S. Body Source
 

wow
thtat's some bull ****

Re: U.S. Body Source
 

I hate to tell you but there stuff is race grade and that is the best hood i have seen from them.I made the mistake of buying a hood for my mustang off them it was just as bad i ebayed it for half what i paid and buy one off a better company.

Re: U.S. Body Source
 

Most of their stuff might be race grade but the hood was made to work with the stock hinges and the stock latch. It was obvious it wasn't going to be used for race so they should have taken quality into account. Plus, there are not many race hoods that are almost double the weight of the stock steel hood.

Re: U.S. Body Source
 

Mine turned out ok, but it was just a lift off hood. It did take them along time on building it tho. My body man did have to work on it to get the lines to look perfect.

Re: U.S. Body Source
 

It sucks that you can't buy quality glass for our trucks.

Re: U.S. Body Source
 

Sorry to hear of your problem,I to went through the same ordeal about ten years ago,I broke the cardinal rule of fiberglass parts I cut out the parking light blanks before I test fit the hood.When I did test fit it was no where near to fitting.I called and when they found out about me cutting the blanks out it was game over,I ended up having to scrap it,I later ordered from unlimited in CA and it was'nt much better but I was able to salvage it.I cannot recommend either one of these when other glass companies can make their product fit with little to no fitting.