In the process of collecting information and parts to cut the top on my 53 Bel Air hardtop. I am somewhat stumped by the vent window door posts. The hardtop vent window post is a Pot metal or cast something, My question to those that have cut a top on a 53 Hardtop is simple. how is the cutting down and welding back together done? I know that pot can be tigged if you know how to do it, but with all the chopped hardtops I see, there Has to be a simple solution. I know 52 Ford vent window posts are cast pot also, but the 53 which is almost identical are stainless over metal frames and can be cut and then swapped over to the 52. do the 54 Chevy hardtops also have stainless over metal ? so just How is the vent cut down 3" and made good again.?
I made new frames from angle iron for my chopped '56 Caddy, to duplicate the original die cast. It was the 80's, the car was blacked out, no chrome, so I just prepped and painted, but they could have been chromed. Sorry, I can't help with the die cast welding question...
Talk to your welding supplier about good quality pot metal welding rods and use oxy acetylene . You will have to make a trip to the chrome shop though.
Do a search on HAMBer 'Tony' past posts. He had a tech post when he did his and he did a beautiful job on it. He's quite an accomplished craftsman. If you can't find it, shhot him an email and I'm sure he'd be happy to share his knowledge with you.
Hi Best you take a trip to the chrome shop..ask them who they use to repair pot metal...Platers can be finicky about who does repairs and wont re plate your pot metal if looks cheesy..... I use to weld pot metal back in the 50-60' with oxy acetylene...you have to use pot metal filler stick from the same year -make car as all pot metals have different blends and wont bind when welding...I would go down to the local breaker and buy a door handle of the same car-year and make filler sticks from melting them down.....or if it was a grill repair and a rarer type car would break of pieces of pot metal off the back of the grill to use as filler rod.... Its like tig ...takes practice and flame control on work piece.....it can melt- disappear in a blink and be a blob of solder on the floor..........
Good advice so far. I have 53Cad convs so i know the drama of just rechroming the shitty pitted diecast. I fabricated then tigd new window frames in stainless and then got them chromed. The vent frames are abit more tricky but unless your originals are really nice (ie pit free) go the fabricatefrom scratch. I have rewelded many cracked 59 rear window frames and did like morac (melted old door handles into sticks) but it is temperamental stuff and expensive to chrome. . . . and rechrome . . .
After reading the suggestions here, I went to the Local AirGas welding store and inquired about pot metal welding rods. ...Deer in the headlight syndrome. we discussed various ways of creating the sticks that I would need, the main point being a match in metal formulae. I didn't really expect any door handle on a 60 year old car to be original. But THEN.... an epiphany..... I will be cutting approximately 3 1/4 " out of the existing pot metal frame....Duh.. all I have to do is melt the pieces I cut out down into sticks to use to weld it all back together again.... Perfect metallurgical match.! Look MA, no hands.
Following along here. Hoping to find a better way I'm no expert by any means. My limited success and many fails working with this stuff Warrants a comment.respecting cadmads post as I agree with his statements Random thoughts.... I found out the hard way that you need to remove all or most of the chrome from the piece Since the chrome holds the heat longer than the potmetal. I also would recommend an infrared temp meter to monitor your preheat Practice on a throwaway piece. Heating over 700 or 800 it turns to liquid. The weld area needs to be clean and freshly abraded as it starts to oxidize immediately Carefully support your piece to prevent warping, sand boxes are good for compound curved pieces I tried with limited success using propane and mapp but oxy acet is better. Also tried allumaweld from H.F worked but looked bad I'm considering getting some Muggy Weld for pot metal.Their website vids make it look easy. Has anyone ever tried it? I have melted out the potmetal and was left with a hollow chrome piece.
I have had stainless channel bent up at the local fab shop and made window frames out of it. I would think it could be done for wing windows as well. I have also chopped and reshaped wing windows but never pot metal ones.
I chopped my 55 Olds back in 83, it had pot metal vent windows, not simple ones, but lots of shape, that quickly became mismatched after removing 2 1/4 inches from the middle! I had a great local welder TIG it back together ( most body shops didn't even have MIGs at the time!), after I cut and marked it. He did a good job, but the plater still made a bit of a mess of it. I had it stripped of chrome when I repainted the car, and had a different plater do it, came out much better. He also told me of another way of doing the job. Cut it, then drill and pin the pieces to mate together where you want them. Have the pieces copper plated, them put them back together with the pins, and use some lead free solder to join them. Very strong, even strong enough to grind, or vixen file the pieces to get them to match in shape at the joint. Then back to the platers for chrome.
I always wanted to know how this was done. Recently I hosted a Gene Winfield two day class at my shop.He covered this a bit. What he showed us was using a piece of 3/8x1 flatbar,cold rolled for sharp edges,Heated and shaped the bar to what ever shape you were thinking of needing.Then we took a 16ga piece of steel bent in a channel 1/2x3/8x1/2 and champed it on the bar and bent and hammered the channel around and to the desired shape.You will have to figure in the flatbar size etc to get what you need and may have to splice in certain spots but you get the idea.Then weld and such,finish and get chromed. Maybe you could make the whole thing new and get it to the correct size and not have to deal with cleaning out the copper,welding pot metal etc.Easy to adjust and rework before finishing too.
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