Where to buy Reproducton Parts??

[Ryan536]

I have basically finished an entire interior restoration on my 1973 Vette. I bought 95% the parts from one place, (A Corvette Speciality Store), because they are friendly, polite, have stock and the parts arrived in a timely manner. I have dealt with one other speciality company and was very disappointed and they didn't seem to care or want to make things right.

My beef/frustration has been most of these reproduction parts are not exact... some not even close. Nearly every part needed some kind of tweaking or modifying. I'm NOT bashing this store at all because I know they didn't make the parts - it's where THEY are getting them from - offshore junk. I'm sure it's the same story with the other guys.

After my experience with installing the carpet I would have gladly paid more for a TRUE "proper fit, made to origianl specs" carpet. But the point here is a carpet set that is advertised as "proper fit, made to original specs" should be just that... regardless of price. I shouldn't have to spend 3 to 4 hours cutting and modifying and using my old carpet as templates to make it fit properly.

Has anybody else had any similar experiences with reproduction parts or is it just me?

Sorry for the rant but I needed to blow off some steam. I just spent about an hour trying to get the window felts /outer door seals to fit properly on the doors. The driver side just snapped right into place but the other one.....ad A job that should have taken less than 15 minutes in total.

Fifteen years ago my dad and I restored a... GASP... 1965 Mustang and we didn't run into any of these problems. Was it because the parts were probably made in North America?

Aren't Corvettes a collectible/valuable car? Surely there is somebody who makes/supplies proper fitting parts or is this just the way things are nowadays.... "Made In China"?

 

[6880 Mike]

Shop around. You will find certain vendors are much better than others. When in doubt, call the vendor's customer service number and ask. Haunt ebay and the swap meets for used original parts in good condition or the (rare) NOS part.

 

[Tom73]

You will find that most all get the parts from the same sources so there will not be much difference between vendors. What to look for are GM Restoration Parts. Those are built to GM specs by licensed manufacturers and are labeled as such.

tom...

 

[hotshotzny]

its a shame that all this stuff is coming out of china... a couple years back someone who didnt like me took thier foot and put it to the fender of my wifes mustang.. for what reason i dont know... but anyway my friend who owns the body shop figured he was gonna do me a favor and order the new fender from a different source to save me some money... the car took a couple days longer than it should have cause the piece of chinese junk they sent him was in as bad of shape if not worse than the one he took off the car... he said he could have straightend out the old one easier than he could have the new one they sent him.... so he never orderd from them again and i had to wait for the right fender to show up! i think they make thier parts out of tsingtao cans

 

[petes74ttop]

Restoration Parts.

Years ago I called GM at 800-222-1020, they offer a free "Specifacations" guide and a list of "Licensed GM Restoration Parts Vendors" for free. I also found a vendor who was friendly, polite and had parts in stock and at a fair price. (www.riksvet.com) Still the carpet needed to be trimed and many parts needed to be tweeked to fit just right. While relplacing my tail lights the chrome ring came off while I was holding it with one hand and putting the nuts on with the other. I agree, most parts are make by just a few companys and are retailed thru many outlets. We pay good money for these parts but I'm not impressed with the quality in the least.
Another gripe I have is with the underhood vacuum line diagrams, Zips is wrong and so was Riks, for $9.95 I expected correct information. I corrected the mistakes and sent both of them back for a refund, Zip refused a refund and Ricks sent a refund and said they buy them from a supplier and would pass along the corrected diagram so others would not go thru the frustration of changing all the lines only to find out that the head lights still would not pop up.
Overall I enjoy my Vette and thats all that matters, the little time and effort that was put into it to get the parts to fit properly just make me that much prouder of my car. PG.

 

[GaryS]

I think that you will find that many restoration parts are not reproductions, but are functional replacements. Thus, there can be engineering changes for function or form. Make certain that you are buying reproduction parts versus replacement parts.

That said, there are definetly some reproduction parts that claim to be exact yet have significant differences from the original. Imo, if a company is attempting to reproduce a part to make it accurate in every way, then there shouldn't be any differences.

 

[petes74ttop]

Dear Paul @ Zip, thank you the quick response. The diagram you posted today is 100% correct. If you go to http://www.corvettemagazine.com/content/view/86/ and look at #15 you will see the connections at the headlight switch and pull down switch are wrong. PG.

 

[killain]

restoration parts.

I did a complete on frame restoration of my 79 corvette. And I found the best vendors, for carpet is Auto custom carpets@ 256-236-1118 and Zip products, Volunteer Vette @ 865-521-9100, Ecklers @ 800-327-4868, Riks corvette parts @ 704-433-6506 and finallyVBP @ 727-345-5292 I found all these vendors to be excellant, courteous and have excellant customer service. I tried other vendors all of whom were either rude, stupid and or just plain a waste of my time. Parts that didn't fit or come with installation instructions. I wasted so much time and money trying to get the right parts, ( I was trying for NCRS flight judging) and the process to get "THE" right part was ultra important. I also found 'Contemporary Corvette @ 215-788-8605 were i was able to get the 'correct' part used, and then had it rebuilt locally so that it not only worked but also had the exact correct serial number. BTW I won a second flight award for my car at the NCRS meet in Cape May, NJ in 2003

 

[Bob Chadwick]

Paul,

Is Zip ever going to put the repair guides back on line (example). I found them to be invaluable both from the perspective of which parts to order from your guys and for assistance with the actual repairs. They went away several years when you reorganized your web site, or at least I can't find them.

Bob

 

[Bob Chadwick]

That will be great. Zip had a whole bunch of tech articles in a similiar format with the specific parts and instructions that were very helpful. That article was printed out just before Zip started using Corvette Magazine for their tech articles. It looks old because it had been printed out sitting in the garage for a couple of years before I was able to scan it and put it online.

 

[red70vette]

I have been working on restoring my vette for the last 7 years. While I have not tried all vendors I have found that DR.Rebuild and Paragon have parts which are for the most part true to original, fit correctly and are of good quality. They are not always the cheapest. I would rather pay a couple of bucks more and get a part the looks and fits correctly than save and spend an lot of time getting it to fit and function as designed.

I have also tried Riks and Volunteer vettes with success. I have found that the good DR and Paragon have some of the real hard to find items especially the one year only items.