Modified Murray: Cutting begins... PICS!

Busy weekend for the Murray project... right hand man Tredboy and I finally got the body closer to the final dimensions... at least in length. Lots of cutting and fitting and STILL not welded anything. But here's what went down...

Starting here...


First... get the build table leveled out and bolt the front half of the body to it so it doesn't move...


Get the rear doors off of there!!


Now cut the roof off for refitting later...


More to come... hold on....

 

Now... cut the middle out



Here's what we end up with...



Still some alignment problems that will have to be worked out from top to bottom as well as the door gap and the rain gutter. Will probably cut part of the rain gutter off and reuse part of what was cut out so the lines flow better...


More.... keep your pants on ...

 

Cool!!!

 

Next step is to finish fitting the passenger side front to back and top to bottom and then do the exact same on the drivers side. A vertical section will be removed from the center rear of the body to narrow it and allow the beltlines to line up.

Here's a semi-mock up showing sorta' how the rear wheel will look. Cardboard of course


It's hard to see, but here's sorta how the stance will be (with a front cardboard wheel )...


Long way to go, but it's taking shape...

Can't wait to do the chop!!!

BTW... here's the link to the original concept for the car for reference...
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=110340&&showall=1

 

Couldn't help myself...

 

now that is what the HAMB is about - nice work -

tell me what you did - not what you are going to do.

That thing is going to be kewl for sure.

 

am I blind? what did you do???

 

YES! Still considering it actually. I'm going to do the chop first and see how the head room and length related to where the axle will sit.

someone feel free to do the chop too if you want. The black horizontal lines mark a 4" chop. Would like to see what it looks like.

 

Ok, it is a real quickie, but you'll get the idea...

 

Sure thing. Sorry! I should have been more descriptive...

First off... Tredboy rules for giving me a full work day to help cut up this car! What we did though.

First thing was to get the car level so it made things easier to check angles, squareness, plumb whatever. My little body table thing worked great for that. We bolted the front half (from B pillar forward) right to the table. That kept it solid as a rock and the doors hung perfectly and open and closed flawlessly the whole time! In order to get it flat on the table we had to cut the middle floor pan out (where the back seat foot area would be).

The first real cut was to take out the top sections above the doors and rain gutters. They will be replaced last and will section and pie cut them as needed to get the roof line to flow right again with the new geometry.

Second cut was to remove the doors and hinges. The bolts were rusted solid and they were too much to drill out, so it seemed faster and easier to just cut around the hinge and remove the whole deal for each hinge location.

Third cut was to remove the arched door headers and rain gutters where the rear doors were removed.

Forth big cut was the front of the wheel wells straight down from the rear door jamb. The whole wheel well will be cut out AFTER the front and rear have been welded together. The rear floor and wheel wells are providing ALOT of rigidity for the mean time and will be retained until the very last cut is made. Maybe even until it's channeled and a new sub-frame is built to support the body.

The rest of the cuts were all aimed at getting the right side body lines to flow. Still more trimming to be done and I'm NOT satisfied on the door gap yet. I HATE big door gaps that don't need to be there! Now's the time to fix it!! That will be tricky, but I've got something up my sleeve to fix that now.

Taking my time with this build. There's no rush and I'm going to be SUPER anal about getting lines to flow and things to line up... including base lines, belt lines, rain gutters and of course door gaps. I want it to look like Ford intended there to be such a body style.

 

Yeah! There we go! Looks like the mental picture I have.

Can someone do the same chop on the UN-shortened version for comparison?

 

ah - I didn't mean tell me what you did like that!! I just meant it was good to see some actual work occur instead of people just bench building or talking about drama. You are putting your plan in action and it is great to see.

But on the other hand - thanks for the detailed description of what you did - it really looks great - I like the photo shop work of the chop too. That is going to RULE

 

looks great! I've always wanted to take a murry and do almost the same thing. I wanted to cut it in the middle or front of the rear door so that the wheel arch in the rear door was still there. run the rear end in the wheel arch with the body push way back on the frame with a lincoln 12 or some other large/long engine up front. a very dragster looking setup.

kinda like a bantam coupe

 

nice work. Keep us posted. The chop "photoshop" is right on!

 

Here's my horrible and quick attempt at chopping with MS Paint on the un-shortened version. Feel freel to redo it... in fact PLEASE someone redo it!

Thanks for the kind words guys! Hope to get some more cutting and some welding done over the next few weeks.

I wish I could some how project the images I have in my head of every little corner, nook and cranny of this build for all to see! It's sort of a contraversial build, but I think it will be something a little different. Especially being a Murray slant window... Oh well, I like it and that's all that matters anyway!

 

DOH! Yeah, I reread that... sorry!

 

no need to apologize to tudor. I never listen to hime either. I've been following your posts for quite a while. It's good to see people talking AND doing. car looks great so far.

 

Good for you man! Didn't know there would be such an amount of misalignment in the door and rear clip,....well, you're the ginny-pig son!...better you than me! HA!!

Looks good,....very good!
Jason

 

Thanks bro! It's not too bad. Nothing that some careful/creative cutting can't take care off. It's pretty much down hill from here in my opinion. Hard work but FUN work!!
Scooter

 

sorry, i've been very busy saving the lives of stereo's, couldn't log on here recently.
(scooter, think about that joke...)


so what do you have up your sleeve for the door gaps? what am i in for?
inquiring minds want to know.

 

HWA HWA HWA!! You'll never know until it's too late!

No, actually, it's pretty easy... Use these picture for reference for a minute...


Okay. I circled the gap that I want to go away in blue in this picture...

The gap (door gap) is about 1/2" or more right now. In order to get that to between 1/8" and 3/16" material will have to be removed from the rear door jamb and welded back together. There's nothing left to take out of the other jamb since just the face is left... OR... we could cut away the rear JAMB face and weld the other jamb face that was widdled to almost nothing, right to that and then box it in as planned before. Probably the way to go.

Everyone cornfused now?

 

huh??.....(just had to throw that in,...)

yeah I think i see what you're getting at....??

you're right,....doesn't look to bad,...

Jason

 

The other thing that needs to be fit is the top to bottom fitment. If the belt lines are lined up you can see the rear quarter leans out further than the door by about a degree or so. Real noticable at the rain gutter height...


I think a real slight pie cut on the back side of what is now the B pillar (in front of the quarter window) will tak care of that. May have to message some other things too, but I think that will set things in motion anyway.

 

It looks like an extended coupe with no trunk. What will be behind the back window? Is this an extended cab pickup?

 

Here. Check this out:
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=110340&&showall=1
Spun aluminum gas tank behind and just below the window and 90% of the suspension completely exposed. The 3-D sketch is just a quick one to get the point across of the build.

 

The project looks great! I sent ya a PM.

 

Yeah, or maybe a truck cab ?? Creative work !

 

Looks great! Inspirational for me, too!

.

 

Nice work! ...can't wait to see the end result. Good Luck!

 

Damn Scooter..........

Your Murray looking awesome! I've been off line for a little while, so this is the first time I'm seeing this.

Hope your real proud of yourself!