Replacing sheet metal & body parts on a GM Wagon from mid 80?

Hi guys
Have been looking through the forum trying to find out if there are any section or thread with recommended parts suppliers. Can't find any. Guessing it has been deemed not necessary. However if there is a thread for suppliers and I missed it please point me and my guide dog towards it...

Anyways, I am wondering if anybody can suggest a good supplier for 1987 Buick LeSabre/Electra Estate Wagon sheet metal and auto body parts. Searching through google is not really helping much.

Thanks

 

E bay motors

 

Rock auto. There has to be a pile of resellers also. Where do you live? Call a local autobody supply store and they will let you know if parts are available.

 

Rockauto will have mechanical parts. Body and trim parts for a car this old will have to come from a donor car or any NOS pieces you can find on ebay. No one makes new body panels for 30+ year old cars (unless, perhaps, it's a Corvette). The demand is not there.

 

Ok I just looked into rock auto and they have body parts for 87 Chevrolet Caprice wagons. Also plenty of trim pieces and glass. BUT not much for the Buick body wise. If there is a comparable car most of the panels would work.

 

I should amend my earlier comments. Chevy lives in a different world, and there is much more available for Chevrolets of all vintages than other GM makes. I don't see any body parts for an '87 Buick Estate Wagon at rockauto.

Compare the front end of an '87 Estate Wagon with an '87 Caprice wagon. Nothing interchanges. But from the doors back, I don't know.

On the other hand, I don't see any body parts for an '87 Caprice at rockauto except front fenders, grille, and hood, none of which would interchange with a Buick. I don't see any wagon-specific parts.

 

Thanks for the fast replies. Maybe I came across as a complete novis.

Before I posted this thread I searched extensively on Rockauto, Ebay and been clicking on hundreds of links via google. Can't seem to find any auto body parts for a mid 80:s Buick Estate Wagon. I am not that comfortable buying from a donor car as that usually is not good when it comes to body parts. I mean there is a reason its a donor car, and these cars tend to rust...

I buy a lot of spares from the States. Living in Europe and using a shipping agent in Alabama or New Jersey. It takes longer for the parts to reach me as they are sent by ship, but I am okay with that. It is always worth buying in the States compared to where I live. And whatever is sold here locally is anyways imported from the States, so I am just removing the middle man and trying to go straight to the source. The only problem buying from overseas is if the part don't fit. Therefore I do extensive research before buying anything. Over the years I spent a lot of money on Rockauto, Summit, Ebay, Cadillac parts stores and various places. The parts been packed in a container and sent by a ship. Two to three months later they end up on my doorstep. I also buy parts from England for my English car.

I do believe there must be a manufacturer that makes body parts for 30+ old Buicks. Parts like fenders, door sides, wheel wells and so on.

 

Why do you think there "must" be a manufacturer of these parts? Don't you think that if there was, you would have found them by now? A company that makes these parts is not going to try to stay hidden. They would make themselves obvious so people can find them and buy their product.

Cars of this vintage are not collectible and there is no significant demand for body parts for them. No manufacturer is going to spend the money to make the tooling necessary to reproduce these parts if there is no market for them. Once a car gets beyond a certain age (10 years? 15 years?), the aftermarket body part suppliers no longer support them. In 2017, if my 2014 Buick needs a new fender as the result of a collision, fine, such parts are readily available, and my local body shop can do the repair and make the car as good as new. But what about my 2004 Buick? I don't know. Possibly body parts ares still available. For my 1994 Buick, a car now 23 years old? I would guess not. By that age, the car is not valuable enough for an insurance company to pay to have a damaged one repaired. If my '94 Buick is in a collision, it's very likely that the cost to repair the damage would exceed the value of the car, and thus the insurance company would simply declare the car totaled, give me cash for it, and send the car to the scrapyard. There would be no demand for body panels for that '94 Buick, so no one will make them.

The primary demand for body and trim parts comes from the collision repair industry. Once a car gets old enough and its value drops enough, it is no longer economical to repair a damaged one, and, as I said above, it is simply scrapped. At what age this tipping point occurs, I don't know for sure. But it is certainly less than 20 years old, probably less than 15. So unless there is a huge collector car interest, like there is, for example, for classic Chevies where the demand for replacement body panels is high enough to support a manufacturer, no one is going to invest the money necessary to produce replacement body parts.

Your only hope for replacement body parts for your car is to find one in a scrap yard. Yes, they can have rust as they're just as old as the car you're trying to repair. That's why most people in the U.S. looking for parts look to the southwestern U.S., where the arid climate has tended to keep rust to a minimum. It is not easy to find parts because many scrapyards won't keep cars beyond a certain age because the demand for their parts is low, and they can make more money by crushing the car and selling the metal as scrap. A few yards do keep the older cars for a while, so you have to hunt around.

 

To clarify a little, the 1980-1990 B-body wagons ALL use Chevy sheet metal from the firewall back. GM wasn't trying very hard by then. The front end sheet metal is unique to each division, but except for the fenders, the front end parts are common with the sedans. The non-Chevy wagons (well, Buick and Olds at least) use unique wagon fenders that mate the sedan header panel lines with the Chevy front doors. And as noted above, these are NOT collectable, there is no market for repro parts, and thus no one makes them. For the parts that are common with Chevy, Classic Industries is a decent source. Weatherstripping, for example. Other than that, NOS or good used.

By the way, a LOT of these wagons got scrapped under Cash-For-Clunkers almost a decade ago. There were a lot of them in wrecking yards then. They have all pretty much been crushed and shipped to China now.

 

You may be able to find parts that are new that share body panels. Don't give up because someone says it's impossible. I have a 65 impala convertible and needed new wheel wells. They do not make aftermarket for convertibles. They have ten different things attached to them. I didn't need the whole thing just the bottom half and it was the same as the hard tops. Top half was different so I just cut off the part I needed and all worked out perfectly. People were telling me I had to get one custom made and to give up looking for one. Moral of this story is don't give up and you'll succeed.
One last thought on body panels. I know the cost and wait to get parts from the USA is taxing at the best of time for Europeans but you may be able to find a local shop that can make you an exact copy. This is how they did it before there was an aftermarket. People made new panels by hand. Today we rely on them for everything and if it's not available we think it's not do able. I bought a stretcher shrinker a few years ago and love the thing. I'm doing things with it and my bender I never thought possible. Lots of online tutorials for these body tools also.
Good luck with the searching you figure out what to do in no time.

 

You have a Chevy. Buick is not Chevy. The demand for parts for classic Chevys often IS high enough for manufacturers to make replacement panels. Heck, I think it's possible to build a complete '57 Chevy, from the back bumper to the front bumper, from the frame to the roof, from aftermarket parts made in 2017.

I do see wheel wells for your car at Classic Industries, as Joe P mentioned above. They only mention coupes, though, not convertibles, so maybe these wouldn't fit.

https://www.classicindustries.com/shop/1965/chevrolet/impala/parts/body-panels/

 

Chevy or not they didn't make convertible wheel wells period. They are two different animals and may as well been Buick wells. The point is you can do anything if you do your home work. Quit telling the guy what he can't do. There are hundreds of car models that are saved all the time that have no aftermarket parts. ZILCH parts available for exotics but they are repaired for collision and rust damage and everything else. Haggerty insurance doesn't scrap a car when it totalled. If your car is properly insured with them they even help you find those "unobtainium" parts.
Equipment to make your own body panels is so cheap today it's sometimes cheaper to make your own panels with your tools. Ask me how I know this. Along with my 77 CP and 65 Impala I also own a 64 Cadillac, 89 vw convertible and a 87 Mercedes 560sl. Not the most popular cars LOL.
I do all my own work on my cars. That's why I'm in this hobbie to work on them. I may be different from others because I love a challenge.
Jaunty you are right about Chevy parts. Sometimes I'd like to stick a Chevy badge on my cars just so that unobtainium part magically appears. But because the Chevy parts are so available it seams to make buying even a basket case unaffordable. I like unique cars and you can find them in great shape for reasonable prices. My 77 cp is like new and I paid 6 grand for it. That's top dallar lol. Find a Chevy with 49 thou original and mint for 6. Now that's the proverbial needle in a haystack.

 

Thanks guys,
I guess I am the odd character here. For me a car that is 30+ years and still in good shape is worth saving. Didn't realize that these cars are considered not worth saving. When these cars hit 50+ I reckon someone will see their worth and maybe someone starts to fabricate replacement body parts. Or not.

Off course there "must" not be any manufacturer that has parts. But as GM wagons were made in several hundreds of thousands I was thinking there would be a market for reproduction parts, as there is for the Volvo cars. And Volvo did make a lot less cars and there still is a body parts aftermarket. I didn't know about the Cash-For-Clunkers. Makes kinda sense in a way.

Well, at least I know for sure. If you guys don't know about any replacement parts its probably not there. So I will let the body shop use the hammers and whatever they need to fix the problem. The reason for the question in the first place was to get some good steel parts to replace the dented ones. What is dented on my car is fixable. Was just hoping for an easy solution in replacement.

Thanks again for your replies. I learned a lot.

 

Don't be twisting what I've said into something I didn't say. I've never said he can't make the parts he needs. Of course he can. What I've said is that there are no manufacturers of these parts. He seems to think that if he looks hard enough, he'll find one, and he's going to be disappointed. If he has the capability to make the parts he needs, good for him. I, too, am in this hobby for the fun of working on my own cars. You are not the only one who does so.

 

Let's be a little careful here in our choice of words. Whether or not a car is worth saving depends on the car, it's condition, and how easy it is to repair it. In the aggregate, station wagons are not seen as collector cars, so the aftermarket doesn't exist that would make manufacturing replacement panels profitable for a company. Wagons do have a following as evidenced by the existence of this website, but it is small. It doesn't matter how many were made originally. Back in the day, wagons were seen as utility vehicles, owned by families, driven hard, and gotten rid of after they had been driven in to the ground. No one saw them as future collectibles.

But an individual car may be worth saving if parts are available and the owner has the time, money, and inclination. An individual may want an '80s GM wagon because he likes wagons or because it reminds him of his childhood or who knows what. But overall, they're not sought after. It's just as simple as that.

And what applies to wagons applies to almost every other old car make. There are many much more sought-after vehicles than station wagons for which no aftermarket manufacturer of replacement body panels exists. Unless you have a Chevrolet or a Ford, the chances that a manufacturer of new body panels exists for your car is pretty much zero.

As just one example, if there were ever a popular non-Chevy collector car, it might be the '60s Buick Skylarks, GS's, and so forth. Very sporty. Very stylish. You see them all the time at Buick shows. But try to find body panels for them.

Here's two websites that cater to the collectible Buick crowd. If any sites would have body parts for these cars, these sites would. But no.

https://www.classicbuicks.com/

http://www.oldbuickparts.com/


A '68 Buick GS 400 convertible. Beautiful car. I'd love to own one. Need a new hood or left front fender for one? Forget it.