I don't actually have any pictures for whatever reason of when i did the headlight frenching or the turn signals. The headlights were just the generic 54 merc steel ring that you trim to fit, and for the most part was very simple just sand the aluminum housing for the headlights down so they fit flush from the backside. Now i love "steel round-base weld nuts" from mcmaster-carr instead of using clips or incapacitated nuts that's my go-to because you never have to worry about them spinning or breaking. So welding some of those in and before actually welding the rings on I made sure to rig up a quick headlight harness so I could turn them on to set the lights themselves. Simply measure how high the center of the bulb is on the car vs how high the center of the light beam is on the shop wall with the lights off once its the same (distance/height) your good to go mounting the frenching rings. The turn signal housings are one of those unobtanium piece that I ended up just making myself and welding into the car instead of being removable. Next was working on the hood, filling all the trim holes, rounding the front corners and actually make it have nice gaps . I'd previously gotten the back of the hood trimmed and fitting nice but the only problem was the hood didn't fit very well everywhere else it was centered but it just had horrible gaps. After trying every means of possible adjustment which there wasn't much to begin with I knew I'd have to actually do some more welding to get this task done right. Using a paint stick as my guide i basically starting by marking where is started to not fit and then saying by how much. I needed to do this because I end up welding various size plate from simple .030 sheetmetal to 1/4 in the worst spots. It likely didn't fit because when it was louvered (142 if i remember correctly) but after my fix it fit lovely and i had my nice uniform paint stick gap. After that i finished welding all the front together setting the gap at the front bottom of the hood. Also around this time i finished filling and replacing metal to fix my front valance... and what a thin holey nightmare that was.
Next task was fixing the rusted door bottoms. Because both the doors and the rockers have some bow in them I made a slapping block so that i can hit the metal over to get the shape the same as the rockers (square tube , hit it against a tree till centripetal force takes over to bend it just the right amount). So skipping the many times the door went on then off then on to make sure all the gaps for the door bottom were right. In one of the photos the bottom of the doors on both sides have these 4 holes in the bottom , and i'll be honest i have no idea what they were for , its not really near where any sort of window mechanism or rail is... maybe a rubber stop or something? if anyone has a clue please chime in because id like to know. After getting the doors done I've probably spent the last month just working on all the gaps on the car, they don't make for great photos but at-least now I'm happy with all my gaps on the car. So next task will be working on the roof , to cut /no to cut / how much to cut
So got the car off the lift and on blocks to simulate the desired ride height. Now I was about 50/50 on if we just leave the roof stock or start cutting and I've made up my mind after seeing it on the ground. So I love the stance , the look of everything below the drip rails; above thou its always bugged me how bulbous the roof is above the drip rails. The problem I think is just how big the rear seat area looks where the rear window is . So how do you fix that well you need to lay it down about 2" to get an angle that looks nice. So lots of measuring and planning then the chop will begin , but its not going to be a chop I've seen done before the way Im planning (well atleast nothing I've known about); but it looks pretty nice in these early stages if I don't say so myself.
Nice work. Regarding the roofline. I went through the same thoughts as you as to the flow over the back half of the roof. I was not looking for anything extreme, just clean up the flow and proportions. Ended up with a two inch drop on the front and two and one half inch drop for the back. I like it. This is an old picture. The project has kinda stalled out but it is farther along then this. I can take a picture of it now if it helps any. Neal
That looks good I really like that you left the B pillar vertical its more work but i think it looks better than when they get slanted forward. So for the next couple updates ill be doing a couple photos at a time to try and explain what we're doing and why , and also what the result will be.
The Planning Stage So like I said before this wont be your normal chop, I'm using the word chop I but think in a classical sense this would be more of sectioning but the result looks like a chop. So before people go oh no what your planning to do will ruin the roof, one thing that needs to be considered is I'm not starting with a pristine perfect roof if I was I probably wouldn't do this plan because it does have some risk to it , but I've got nothing to lose because the roof started out looking like someone was practicing for dancing with the stars on the roof. My dad and I spend the last week just trying to work all the high and low spots out of the roof and we got it good. It would still require a good skim coat when it comes bodywork time but honestly the entire cars getting skimmed so not a big deal. So first thing first, need to brace the a,b,c pillars with 3/4 tubing so nothing moves as-well as bracing the rear window so it cant move around either. I set a center line on roof by measuring from drip-rail to drip-rail every foot and marking it so i can get a perfect center line. Now for how much to chop I measured multiple times at the rear window and the angle it was at verses the actual drip rail and to get them the same the rear window would have to lower ~2" at the center so thats basically the plan at the rear thou i think it ends up a little lower but it looks great. Now the front when you look at the front of the car in one of the photos you can see how the roof just looks MASSIVE verses the other proportions on the front it honestly looks like its probably 8-9" high. So the front is going to get cut down 1.5" that will help with how massive the front looks.
So once the cutting started no going back then. We first cut the passenger side off then simply slide it down 1.5" in the front and 2" on the sides. Its hard to see with the potato photos but this gives it a nice lower profile from front to rear and will allow the rear window to drop down which is fundamentally what we all want when we chop a top on a mercury getting that rear window area to flow better.
So before we cut anymore metal we made some T pieces with the 3/4 tubing and welded them to the support structure inside. We did this so it would hold the inside of the roof at the desired height because until we make and wield in a filler piece for the middle it could just flop around and you wouldn't be able to get a good idea of how everything is looking. So finally just cutting out the rear window and the driver side half and laying them down the same way as before. We get what I honestly don't think photos do justice, but It looks even better in person. It looks every bit like it should have come that way from the factory.
That profile is really, really nice! What a great improvement while remaining subtle enough, that when finished, it will require some study to figure out why it is different. Congratulations! Ray
I agree, I think when its done it'll be very hard to tell if its stock or if its chopped unless you know what to look for. One of my single favorite aspects of cutting the top this way .... i don't have to cut the doors, and moldings and stainless.... all i need to do is modify the headliner bows .
im not much of a chop guy but i like what you are doing here taking the bow out of the top makes it look very nice. great work
After getting the all the sections of the roof deburred , and a little trimming of the rear window so it would properly lay down and have weldable gap (aka none). Made some aluminum plates so the bottom rear window would stay in place. Then because the roof has a changing curve the original angle of the roof above the drip rail didn't match the new roof angle at that spot after being moved down 2". So a little hammer and dolly and a few cuts to relieve the metal was require for the two piece to be right ( shockingly not as much as I thought, I was thinking it would be alot of work , really wasn't) so it would bend and then lots of cleco's. So one side is cleco'd together , hopefully sometime this week ill get the other-side done , then start making filler panels. it should be noted once everything fits with cleco's ill then remove everything then joggle the overlap so it welds flush.
Just keeps getting better and better........ If this doesn't inspire a few more like it, I'll be surprised........ Ray
What a contrast from what I did. You are achieving what I was looking for but did not know it. I will be continuing to follow along. Neal
Looks great! So you're "decrowning" the roof vs. chopping the roof. I have to wonder how darn good the roof might look if it was chopped 3" after the roof decrowning is complete? Perhaps a photoshop is in order?
I honestly don't think the roof would need to be chopped ... sure it could be done if someone realllly wanted a lower roof ; but when you stand back and look at the proportions. It looks like it honestly should have been made like that from the factory.
Yes full size pictures. So easy. After you upload all the files just hit "make all full size" and hey presto.
OK i didn't know there was any difference i think i can accommodate that request. So basically all that's been done is getting the other side cleco'd together and about to start sanding some paint down so i can start getting everything tacked together.
Or from other supply houses https://www.rivetsonline.com/cleco-fasteners-temporary-rivets-cl-215/cl-215
We get them from Aircraft spruce simply because if we order rivets or anything aslong as its ordered before 5pm we get it next day. Also thats like 1/3 of the clecos we have....we have allllot
I built an aluminum wing aircraft 12 years ago and needed tons of clecos. We bought the majority of the clecos at Brown Aviation Tool Supply as they had the best price. A quick look now has Brown's 1/8 "clecos at 40 cents while Aircraft Spruce list at 64 cents. That's a savings of $24/100 that helps when buying them in the 100's. We borrowed some Aircraft Spruce clecos from a friend and they are exactly the same cleco as the Brown. The savings was enough that Brown Tool is still a memory. Brown have the good cobalt drill bits that will a drill forever. https://www.browntool.com/Listview/tabid/344/CategoryID/84/Level/a/Default.aspx I am looking over your shoulder enjoying your build. Nice work.
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