I'll start off by giving a little background on myself. My earliest memories were sitting in the garage with my dad, and just about every memory after that. I have been around, and worked on cars my whole life, my dad and I had talked about building a hotrod for a long time when the big "ratrod" craze hit (please forgive me for the use of the word). So about two years ago my dad bought a handmade 29' Chevy truck cab and bed and we went to work. Long story short I fell in love and over this year's winter I set to work on my own. But the price of the four doors was so much more appealing than the big $$ that would have been paid for a two door, especially for an 18-year-old working part time. So I decided to make a two door. So here is what I started with, very solid, and really no pitting in the metal. So I took it down to the concrete out side of the basement which was the most level and flat place at the house, so that I could brace the body and have a base stable enough to move the body around when my parents needed it out of the way. Here I just used 1x1 and welded it to the most solid points I could find, I'm sure there are much better ways to do this but I had a slim budget and this is what I managed to come up with. The red marked sections are what was cut out of the body, I had to obviously remove the rear hinges and I don't remember exactly but probably around 5" out of the length of the door. after removing the length out of the door I welded it back together, BUT you will need to save what you cut out for later. So here you can see the length of the door has been cut out and the door has been welded back together. I tacked it back in where it was going to be and you can probably start to see where I am going to use the section that I cut out of the door. Here you can see where the hole was filled where the hinges used to be. The section that I cut out of the door was really handy here because it already had the body lines in it. At this point the hard part is over and all that was left to do is bring the gap in between the front door and where the door jamb would now be, you can see that in the photo above. I didn't take any pictures of this but I measured how much I needed to shorten the "roof" (really just two rails of sheet metal) to take the gap away in-between the door and body. There was a lot of lead that was used to seam the different pieces together from the factory and I cut that out the best I could for strength and weight. The discolored part of the roof is the lead, and that is what I removed. And here is the finished product, with a 5" chop.
Actually it looks pretty good although the side window area is a bit long. Just a observation,cut some cardboard and put it in the side windows to get a idea of how it would looks as a sedan delivery. HRP
JT, excellent introduction. (you should go to the intros page and do a proper one as well though). Welcome aboard. I see you're from the 'Take a huge bite and just chew like hell' school. Carving a 4-door apart and turning it into a tudor (or maybe a sedan delivery, as HRP suggested) is a big step, but it looks like you're well into it. Good luck and I hope you are happy with the results. Cheers.
Yeah I had noticed that it was a little long but if I would have taken much more out of the door I would have gotten into the radius of the wheel well, so maybe the extra length will be a conversation starter at shows about the history behind the car. I would really like to stick with the tudor style though.
I like it! If you raised the rear wheel wells up a few inches, channeled it over the frame and ran tall pie crust slicks it would be a winner.
BTW, you may already know this but that's a Briggs body ('28 through '31 were damn similar for the fordor and town sedans bodies built by Briggs)
If you stretched the front door out to the length of a 2door you'd have it. Though I dont dislike the look it has now. And I'll thow another vote in the sedan delivery pot.
This is similar to a '32 4dr project I've had on the back burner for awhile. My goal was to mate the front of a front door grafted to the rear portion of a rear door and shorten the body so the rear fender well would fit to the rear of the new door. then chop the top so it would look proportional. Visualize a Bantum coupe to get the feel of where I was going.
Great project! Not too many 18 year olds taking on projects like this, look forward to more progress photos. Welcome to the HAMB! Bob
That's what I plan to do, channel it 3 inches, over a 2x3 steel frame that I plan to start on in the next week or two. 16" wires with the traditional pie crust cheaters on the rear and I have been thinking about running like 19" wires up front. I haven't really seen anyone run larger wheels up front, I think it might look cool. Also I can get the tires to be the same overall diameter so it would not look disproportional.
I like the whole idea. 4drs are a hard find and at first i thought leave it a 4 door. But i like where your going.
I *LIKE* the proportions you have, and the LOOOOOOOOONG windows. I think it give it this "pancaked" look and adds character. I like it that you're figuring things out like not cutting into the wheel well, etc. The proportions make it nice and different. I dealt with the same things with my coupester. Some guy started turning it into one decades before I came along. 28/29 coupester proportions look kinda wack unless you mod the body. Since I didn't want to do a complete roadster conversion (in which case I'd just buy a Brookville, real Henry steel roadsters are TOO MUCH) I decided I'd try and do what proportion changes the car needed to make it look its best. This meant cutting 4.5" out of the door/body length with lengthened the hood. Made it easy to drop in the v8 and not do a recess in the firewall. A friend fabricated a decorative bead line around the back of the cab area to look similar to roadsters...and I dig it. It has a late 20s British roadster feel...shorter cab, longer hood. Stick to your guns man, I think it's looking RAD!
I like the long window quite a bit, too... though if it were mine, I'd think about a delivery rear door... maybe a wagon door... Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
I like the longer rear Windows. Once the car is painted I think it will look a little less off. Good luck.
I am following this on the iPod app and the only photo I can see is from the back. Is it this way for everyone? I am very interested to see this one ! Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
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