So here we go. Got the interior gutted and semi cleaned up last weekend with the help of my youngest son. I think I'm ready to start laying out and get going on the 2 door conversion. I have been thinking about how to go about this for quite a while now, and I think I've got a pretty good plan of attack. I will post more pictures this weekend as things progress (hopefully). My over all plan for the car is to end up with a 2 door that has slightly longer doors than a factory 2 door, shaved handles, shaved exterior trim, 2" ish chop, rake the windshield back a touch, shave some of the trim items on the front, section the rear bumper (or find something a little cleaner) I am undecided on the front bumper/grill area, guess that will come in time. Like some guy on some car show I watched one time said, "I don't want to change much, but I want to change everything" -Side note, if anyone is interested in any parts that aren't going back on the car (seat frames, original glass, drive train, suspension) let me know. I don't have the heart to scrap the stuff, and I'm not really looking to make any money off of it.
Where in the original post does it say this as in post#4 where it does state "The H.A.M.B mobile app"?
Well I will follow along closely to your build man. Love to see what you will do. The HET guys would welcome any parts you have to flick off. https://forum.hetclub.org/discussions You mention the drive train and suspension will be going. What are you replacing it with? Take heaps of pics and vids man. Im ubber keen to see how you do it all. Especially the chop. For me I think they are one of the best looking four doors from factory but im a fan of chops.
When I did my Hudson we converted from 4 door to 2 door also. I got body panels from Vintage Coach then owned by Bill Albright,now deceased and the business is now operated by grandson or nephew. We got rear quarters and two door body doors and then moved pillar back to accommodate longer doors.
That was the Hudson on Phoenix craigslist a couple of weeks ago ? Looking forward to seeing the transformation. Kind of reminds me of this build. http://www.fullcustomgarage.com/portfolio/full-custom-garage-season-2-episode-1-custom-packard/
If you plan on extending the front doors using pieces of the rear doors it is very difficult but can be done. You’ll find out that the body lines do not match up and the line that runs front to back changes height as it goes. When I did mine the hardest part was finding parts for the front doors that match because the metal on the rear doors above the glass are different than the front doors Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I would suggest trying your best to find a set of doors from a two door but that was nearly impossible for me and I just ended up using what I had Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I'd suicide the rear doors, maybe invert the rear window. If I still wanted to "tinker", I'd section it. No chop, no 2-door conversion. Sectioned Hudson, "Night Train". Chopped Hudson.
Ohhh i like the idea of suicide rear doors. I might do that on my one. It will be off the rotisserie in a week or so (waiting on my wheels to be adjusted) and will take a look into this idea as soon as its off. Cheers
I appreciate all the feed back. Work got kind of busy for a while so I didn't get as much as I would've liked done on the car. I did get the passenger front door off and on the bench to start on bottom sill rust repair. It was a little worse off than I thought, so I spent last sunday making myself a sheetmetal brake out of scrap so I can start replicating some of the parts. I truly wish I could skip the rust repair, but I'm afraid if I start on the 2 door conversion without fixing it first, its going to be next to impossible to get everything to line up correctly. I did kick the suicide door thing around for a while, but my brain sees the modified 2 door every time I look at the car, so that's what I'm going with. JeffB2, yes its the one from craigslist. And that build is definitely part of what sparked some of my ideas. Ian Roussel is an amazing artist. KustomKreeps, I don't know how much I want to get into the drive train on here, as its not really going to be the traditional route... Got a 3 day weekend coming up, I'm hoping to get the rust repair on the doors out of the way and get the door handle, lock holes, and trim holes closed up. I guess we'll see how good that first beer is...
Re-creating these parts with nothing but hand tools has proven more challenging than I anticipated. All the new structure is 16 ga instead of 20 ga. That translates to a shit load of hammering. The first door came out good, but it took all weekend to make all the pieces, get it welded in and cleaned up and fix a few stress cracks in various parts of the door . Time to buy more/better tools... Need to get some 20 ga sheet this week so I can replace the bottom section of the door skin. I was really surprised to see how thin this steel is. I was definitely expecting heavier stuff to work with. I think now that I've got the first one out of the way, and the most of the parts made already, the dr side should go a little quicker. Before anyone beats me too it, the section left out of the bottom at the back of the door is intentional. The whole back end of the inner door structure is going to get cut and moved back when I stretch the door. One less cut to make later.
if you need other sheet metal parts and rather buy them than take all weekend fabing up something(what looks good by the way top job bro) then try the below. https://www.c2cfabrication.com/collections/all/hudson+hudson or https://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_ss....TRC2.A0.H0.XHUDSON.TRS1&_nkw=HUDSON&_sacat=0 he has a heap of stuff like doors, guards etc. just ask and he may have. or try the HET club I linked earlier.
Free time has not been very abundant here lately. These are from a few weeks ago when I actually got a sunday to get down on the car. Two door conversion is coming along, slowly. Making the fill in pieces for the stretched window frames has been quite a tedious process. I've been thinking about building a power hammer to make them right. What is done looks ok, and I'm sure with a little filler it will be fine, but looking at it and knowing its not quite right is driving me nuts. Had some house issues come up, and with the holidays and an upcoming hunting trip I don't see much more getting done before the end of the year.
dude thats starting to look cool. And for me personally I like the lines you are getting better than a stock coup. the larger rear window you have made by compining the the rear doors window to the rear vent window looks better than stock coup whilst making the whole roof line look lower more chopped and meaner. few more pics man. if you could draw the rear of the vent window out a bit more - elongating the opening two or three inches and making it more pointed than the rounded it currently is would be cool. kinda going with the flow of the drip rail. Make it look even more stream lined, chopped. Quick before/after of one of your images to give you an idea of what I mean.
Finally got some time this last weekend to work on the Hudson. Life has been crazy busy here lately. Anyway, here's the update. Passenger side 2 door conversion is mostly wrapped up. Still have a few little things inside the door to finish but the bulk of it is done. Also got the doors off of the drivers side, put in temporary roof brace and got the pillar cut out. Hoping to get a good chunk of the drivers side done next weekend. Also the gap at the back of the door at the pillar is intentional, it will be the opening of a side scoop that I'm going to try to make a functional vent for the back seat Kustomkreeps, I'm hoping that the back window will slim down like you're talking about when I do the chop. I'm planning on losing +/- 2" in the front and 3" in the back. Once the 2 door conversion is done, its chop time. I just wanted to get an idea of how everything was going to land before I cut the roof off and passed a point of no return.
Got a little bit done last weekend. Pretty happy with the way the pass side door jamb/pillar turned out. Just gotta figure out the scoop part. Started on the dr side, everything is cut apart and mostly tacked back together and mocked up where its going to go. I'm pretty well caught up on the honey-do's and house crap for a while, should be able to get a few good full weekends coming up to really get cracking on this thing.
I realize I'm reviving an ancient 4yr old thread, but I'm neck deep in a Hudson 2dr to 4dr conversion just like this...I was just wondering what the length of your front doors wound up being after you completed the 2dr conversion...I have no measurements or points of reference. Thanks!
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