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Re: exterior body parts
I am not a professional auto body expert. I have done lots of repairs on old rusty panels and I have used a lot of new repro parts.
Old rusty parts have rust in all their pockets and crevices. No matter how much blasting, sanding, dipping you do. the rust that started is still there. Rust Never Sleeps.
If I use the original part in its original location (and don't screw it up with bad blasting or welding) it will usually fit as well as it did when it was new.
To get clean, level, 3/16" gaps, it usually does not matter whether the part is original or repro, it is going to take hours to get a really good fit.
For me the question is whether it is worth the time to fix the rust versus the cost of new parts. The quality is not as much an issue as cost.
DWCSR gives a perfect example, a customer will spend $1200 dollars to keep the original door. Is is almost certain that a new door would cost less no matter how bad it fit initially. You just have to do the math.
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