forbidden error when accessing file(s) on a unix filesystem

greetings,
i was recently asked to install apache1.3.31 on an aix5.3 server so users could have access to their output files. these two directories are nfs filesystems served by a netapp filer mounted on the aix machine. i've made no changes to the apache config and it's running as it came out of the box. i created two sym links in the DocumentRoot that point to the two nfs directories they need access to. all seems well with a few odd exceptions that are seemingly random. there are files that have no date/time info and the icon that represents them has a question mark rather than lines that represent text. selecting these files yields a forbidden message. this is odd because in other folders that have the same file types they have the 'normal' icon representing them. all of these files share a common 644 permission and they vary in size from a 1mb to 3gb and their parent directories are all 775. anyone out there run into this and have an idea whats going on? please keep in mind i am NOT a web admin.
regards, joe.