Customs Chopped the 49' Ford! Now what?

Well I woke up Saturday morning, went outside and looked at me heap and said "fuggit". Broke out the blue tape, sawzall, cut-off wheel, and other implements of destruction and went after it. This is my first chop and I'm pretty much on my own except for some muscle from a couple neighbors. I have studied chops on the HAMB for the past 6 months and want to thank all you guys that documented them so well. Gonna try and return the favor with my bumbling first attempt.

Saturday 9AM:





Chop chop:







Walla!










Now the hard part...putting it back together! Can anyone point me in the right direction as far as a solid plan of attack for this:



My plan is to make about 5 pie cuts across the top and massage the rear window frame starting at the top. I have access to a 4-door roof that's already cut off so I'm thinking of cutting the sail panels out of it and replacing the whole panels on this roof.

Any advice greatly appreciated! I'll keep updating until I finish or it kills me first!

 

Not sure if it is just my browser, but I can't see the pics

 

when i did mine, i left like only an 1 1/2 inch sheet metal at the bottom of the glass i cut a bit of the roof skin off the top above the window, moved the back window forward from stock location and added sheet metal between the decklid and back window and when i did that i didnt have to fabricate that much sheet metal to fill gaps on the c pillar.

 

No pics? Anyone else not seeing anything?

 

Good start while your cuttin & torchin why not take a nice 6 in slice right across
the beltline

 

The thought has crossed my mind. Call me crazy but every time I see one of those little Lexus coupes I see a resemblance to a chopped/sectioned shoebox "flow".

</fang>

 

I would slide the bottom of the window forward,so it flows into the roof better.

 

This isn't a '49, but doesn't it look nice sectioned?...

 

So the general order of things as I've seen them is:

A pillars
Rear Window Placement
Sail Panels
Rear 1/4 window frames
B pillars

In that order. Correct?

 

Killer.

 

Great start, I have never done a chop before either but after reading many post here it looks like you are in the right direction

 

Might be a good time to ditch the posts. It looks killer though.

 

Even though were talking about apples, here's an orange for comparison.

Car looks good. Nice harbor freight jack stands, on sale 18 bucks this week.

 

Looks good so far - I love chopped single spinners, I hope you leave the original grille!

Do yourself a favour and get Mad Fabricators 3 (I think?), Bob Bleed does a killer chop on a shoebox and really goes into the best way to handle the rear window treatment.

Good luck

nooch

 

some pictures of a roof i fixed on a 50

 

First thing I noticed is,NO BRACING INSIDE! Good luck trying to realign the B-pilars and such. Those things usually go all out of wack when you cut them and don't brace it to keep everything where it was. I don't know...maybe you'll get lucky!

 

I second what Bad Bob says, I braced mine but I'm still having to work out some details with alignment.Another thing I did is took out the rear glass(at least tape your up with a few layers of good tape),slid the frame up under the existing roof,to eleminate the "step" and added the filler panel in front of the trunk.I know there's a bunch of other ways, but this worked well for me.

 

make sure when you weld your front relief cuts that the glass flange is flat or you ll have a hell of a time with the glass. im not to fond of cutting them there. while the roof is off i would definately put some bracing in the car more than likely your gaps are off now. jockey the body around with a jack and get everything lined up

 

Thanks for the tips everyone. I tacked the doors shut and have a floor jack under it I've been using to keep the gaps ALMOST right.

Yes it's going to be a challenge and honestly I don't know wtf I didn't brace it to begin with. Livin & learnin'! Thanks for all the pics! Gonna bash on it some more tonight after work. Will update.

 

Exactly what my glass guy said. He lives across the street and has been cutting glass for 20+ years. He's a good buddy and is going to handle all the flat glass for me.

 

Seems like a good reason not to do it.

 

Shadetree mechanics meet shadetree chopper...gotta second, third, fourth, whatever...get some bracing in there and try to get your gaps close and definitely check out MadFab3 and see the Bleed chop/rear window treatment...good luck

cool tees: www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=236347

 

Hey! Yes! Very important and although it might be my eye off, it was the first thing I noticed. It looks as though you didnt raise the front windshield area of the roof when you welded it, and if that pinch welt area isnt flat, you will NEVER get glass in there without it cracking.

What I do...take a little piece of square tube cut down so that it sits flush against the pinch welt top to bottom (or angle, whatever you have that is true and straight) and move it around the windshiled opening. Make sure you dont see any gaps. If you are looking up from the cowl area and you see this \/ where you welded the roof at the top of the a pillar, cut the weld and redo it. I have used a 4x4 piece of wood and a floor jack on the cars floor to raise it back up.

Looks good so far! Keep on truckin.

 

Lemme ask this...I have a spare roof. Would it make more sense to cut out that entire area on both sides where I made the relief cuts and fill it with maybe 3" wide strips cut from the donor roof instead?

Like this:

 

looking good so far, good luck with it and please keep us posted

 

You could, but it really isnt necessary. Looks like you took around 4" out of the A pillar anyway, doesnt look too steep. Just cut it if the window channel isnt straight and push up/fiddle/push/punch it back straight, tack it and keep rechecking. Don't worry about a valley in there, it will happen, just try to get in behind it if you can and minimize it. But again, not the end of the world.

 

Right on man! Makes perfect sense. What a PITA is was to get them tacked up in the first place! Seems there is a LOT of stress in those areas when you go forcing them where they weren't meant to go.

 

Check out mad fabricators #3 Bob Bleeds step by step on chopping Jakes shoe box.

 

when you chop and section a shoebox... that much... it looks good from a couple sides... but following them it looks like a pancake.

Nobody likes pancakes that big...

i think the goal of chopping a car is to make it look better-

if I chopped that shoebox I would kant the pillars- so you give it some pepetual motion and balance out the size of the rear windows.

move the back window up like someone stated-
another thing that can hurt the look of a shoebox is laying the rear window down... the rear window has a curve to it and looks like a speedbump- along with making the back of the roof look squashed.

a lot of people fuck up shoeboxs doing what you did... there is a lot to think about before cutting up a car.

this is a car I'm chopping- its a clone of the chop on my 49... lots of time stepping back and trimming, moving, welding... and BRACING.

You can fix it...

 

I like this alot for your first chop! Way to go...just make sure you learn what you have done wrong or was inheritly harder than normal, and l do it differently next time.

I'll give you a nice image for the rear window.....I done one last year that when I chopped the top....I never could get the rear window the way I thought it should look. So I went back to the older Ford's....I loved the split rear from the late 30's coupe's and went with it. All said and done, I 3 inches out of the center of the glass, and 2 3/4 out of the middle, and put a split channel between them.......It turned out awesome, and it wasn't any harder than trying to graft what you have there back together.

Keep us posted....pics too!