Customs Chop top help please. 60s tbird

I have started to cut the roof off of a 62 Thunderbird and am running into a couple of issues I haven't thought of. The biggest one I foresee is the front windshield. I was planning on cutting the a pillars and leaning them in but would have to do it all the way back I believe and I want to leave the rear window together. Now I'm thinking it may be easjer (?) To widen the roof. The biggest concern there however is the front windshield won't work because of the new width. Any help would be greatly appreciated please.

 

Have you chopped a car before? that is gonna be a real tough one. that may require the roof to be cut into quarters and lengthened and widened. Regardless, you are not going to get away with not cutting the windshield.....

 

No I haven't. I understand the front qiwindshie being cut. I'm comfortable with all that and all the work. I'm just curious about how to go about the windshield if I have to widen the roof after hearing the problems with front windshields anyway. I have the original to cut. But you can't add to it.

 

Can you lower the entire windshield down into the cowl?
Remember, if the side windows are curved correct fitment may be a problem.

 

You also have a major problem with the side glass. It is curved and tempered. Can't be cut and Can't be simply changed to flat glass. Where could you source curved glass? Don't chop this car.

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I believe I could but that's not really the kssue. Let me draw a photo.

I think I'm saying it different than maybe I'm thinking.

The problem lies within the size of the window. If I cut the a pillars and fold them in then I can use the window and have it cut to match. I assume however that I have to lean the sides of the b pillars and everything in as well. And the side windows would have go roll in to match.

If I add a strip to the middle of the roof from front to back in the center to match the a pillars then the top of the windshield needs to be wider. I don't know how much of a pain it would be to have a new window made for the front.

I'm curious if others have been done this way. We're the pillers cut and tilted in or was the roof widened? How did the windows work to match with the narrower roof?

 

Drop your roof where you want it then cut and bend the A pillar to suit. Most likely if you go mega chop you will need a donor roof so you can ad some roof. But if you stay mild you should be able tto lean your A pillars to accommodate. Your windshield is not going to get narrower toward the bottom so any material removed will happen on the top and sides to fit the hole you have created.

 

Looking for something like this. It has been done. Agleast three times that I can find.

 

Porknbeaner-thanks for that. With that though wouldn't I have to lean everything else in as well including the wide b pillars and windows as well as cut the back window to match that lean?

Apologize for the picture of the grill. He's anithra chopped bird.

 

sounds like you jumped in the deep end without any swimming lessons - try a cardboard mock up, which will at least give you a better idea as to what needs to change to do what you are doing - also, search here for the big photo shop thread and ask for help in coming up with something that will be the goal that you are trying to reach - done a search here/online for chopped Bullet Birds tech?

 

On my '64 Riviera, we leaned the front posts in, and the glass had to be cut on three sides (pie cut on the sides). The back glass was laid down (like a Merc), and was never even taken out of the car. This was only two inches though. And, the side glass is flat.

 

Lots of master-choppers plan the curved glass before they cut the steel. I've heard of making a fiberglass copy of the glass that you can whittle away to see if the glass could also be cut later to match. It's easy to throw the fiberglass windshield in place and make the posts and top match up to it. Then when the time comes for the glass cutting the glass guy can trace the edges of the fiberglass pattern onto the real stuff as a beginning point for his work.

You can't bend glass, but you can bend steel.

 

It would be easier to pay the 45k for one that's done already

https://www.goodguysclassifieds.com/classified/354/1962_Ford_Thunderbird.html

 

Also, your dimensions are a trapezoid with the windshield. If chopping said top of trapezoid, to meet former middle-ish of said trapezoid, you'd have to increase the width of the top of the trapezoid, otherwise the top would fall into the trapezoid base.

Realistically the windshield would only lose its upper most horizontal top. You'd have to keep the basic shape of the opening regardless.

I don't know sh#t about chopping T-Birds. But the windshield is a mathematical shape, and its only metal.

Math I can do, metal better be you.

 

but the trapezoid is wrapped around the ends...so it's not really a trapezoid, it's a complex 3d shape

 

I would cut the windshield before I cut the steel. Your probably gonna have to quarter that roof.

 

@squirrel
Correct. But quartering the top, and filling the center with the missing middle ( donor T-Bird roof needed ) to maintain the curve of complex shape, is the only way to do it.

Here I go like a body expert, which I'm not .... but to me the windshield is the nuts of the job. Many a car gets scrapped because the curved windshield was an afterthought.

 

What adam401 said!^^^^^^^^ You have to cut the windshield before you weld up the roof. You get the chop near to size. Cut the windshield as close as you can to fit. Then you fit the roof to the windshield. You can change the metal. You can't reshape the glass.

 

Most of these thoughts are true. I had a plan and cut it off and then figured that I missed something. The plan was to cut three inches out, cut and pull in the a pillars, roll the back window forward without touching it like the rivi above, and then cut out and move the side window frames back making the b pillar shorter and filling that spot it hoping to use the original windows. The front is the one really eating my lunch though.

 

Thank you! Did you have to lean in the b post as well? Did the side windows just fall into place?

 

Don't necessarily need a t bird donor roof. The pieces you'll need to fill in the edge of the roof will be minimal. If you have some fab skill which hopefully you doo you can hammer those out. The center of the roof can be replaced with a whole skin from another vehicle with a shallow crown.
I've never chopped a t bird but I've chopped multiple truck cabs, early cars, a few vws and can tell you that the only way I see to make that roof work and have glass is to NOT lean the a and b pillar and sail panel in and to split the roof in 2 directions. There may be methods I'm unaware of I don't know.
This is one reason so many chopped cars are hard tops with no side glass.

 

Whatever you do post the results. Its good to see peoples different solutions to the these little obstacles. Sounds like you've got a pretty good handle in things just gotta keep plugging away. Good luck

 

Strangely enough, no. But, this was pretty mild. Did have to make up a gap across the top of about a half inch though. Did the side windows just fall into place? Hahahahahahaha! No. It took alot of playing to lean them in as much as I could, and even then they took some finagling to get them to seal when closed. They never did fit perfectly.

 

Plus all the stainless trim around the windshield will need to be cut spliced and welded back together , you picked a mofo for your first chop

 

x2

 

I had a 61 Caddie that I took the roof off.
It became a convertible 4 door.
Funny thing, the outside doors would open when in a turn, even locked.
That freaked em out.

 

The red one you showed is John D'Agostino's Firestar. It was chopped at Lucky 7. There was a brief write up about the chop in the March 1997 issue of Custom Rodder magazine. They lowered the roof 3 1/2" vertically in front and 4 1/2" in the back and did not widen the top. They just adjusted the A pillars. They did lengthen it 6". Sorry I don't have a working scanner at the moment but maybe these will help.

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This is not a typical Squirrel response.
Who are you and what have you done with Jim Forbes?

 

I appreciate that you have come here seeking wisdom and guidance. Unless one of us has actually chopped one of these vehicles all we can offer you is at best speculation. In one of your posts you mention this chop has been done successfully several times, why haven't you talked to the people that have actually done it?

 

I have worked on a 62 Tbird...not really my cup of tea, to work on.

I dig chops on 30s-50s cars, that need it. Not so much on the 60s cars that came from the factory almost as full customs.