When I did my chop I was lurking this web site well before I made the first cut. The thread on my own chop will hopefully help someone who is also attempting it for the first time. This was my FIRST chop, and I cant even begin to take all the credit. I had help from this website and most of all from my buddy Jake. I hope one picture on here can at least help somebody out there. Here are the first few. This is the car before it was chopped. I removed all the glass and the interior. We sprayed dye around the rear window opening and scribed a line around it a few inches from the opening. The chop is 4" in front and 5" in back. You can see where we marked the B pillar and the A as well. The A's must be measured on a vertical plane, not the rake of the pillar. We braced the inside with some scrap tubing and made the first cut on the door tops.
The sections that were cut out of the door frames are saved and will be used later on in the chop. We set the door tops aside. Before we did any further cutting we realized that we needed to brace the back window up so the glass would go back in. I read that many people leave the glass in and remove it all together but I had already removed the glass so it was braced. The B's were cut next at the tape line. The next thing was to remove the rear radius on the back side window surround. There was some bracing that was holding it on to the back but with a little patience they came off. Next was to cut along the line surrounding the rear window. Another cut was made along the rear belt line and then to a tape line 5" above that for the 4/5 chop.
The last thing holding it all together was the A's. The tops were cut and the roof was free. We removed the roof from the supports inside the car and set it outside. The last bit to be cut was the tops of the A's. This left the rear window surround attached to the car. We decided that instead of quartering the roof or even splitting it, we would move the whole roof foward and would angle all the posts. I know alot of guys do this but for my first chop I decided to keep it simple and just move it to the front. Here you can see the misalignment of the A's with the roof just resting on it.
This is gonna be fun to follow!!! Keep it up guys!! Good work!!! On the A pillar, one suggestion......Make a relief cut at the top and bottom, meet halfway......Better chances of your glass fitting much better!! That's all!!
Thats exactly what we did! good call. The A's were relief cut at the top and bottom, and brought in and out to meet up. The picture shows the A's getting aligned. The B's were next. We debated between slanting the posts and keeping it vertical but decided to do a parts shuffle. Here you can see the weld and cut seams where the b pillar was cut out and moved back. The length of material we removed was dictated by how far back the B needed to be moved to line up. The B was also relieved on the top and bottom to make them line up. The material around the side glass was relief cut and slightly worked down to line up where the magnet is.
The next step required making a filler piece at the top of the door jamb. Atthis point the entire rear window surround was trimmed away along the belt line. This left a large area to be filled which had me pissing in my pants. That is why my buddy Jake was crucial to this project. The man had total confidence in making it look right. The piece that was saved from the rear radius is now put into use. All the inner structure was trimmed away from the piece and the outside of the edge was stretched to make the radius tighter. You can see the stretcher marks in the piece. This ended up being much cleaner then a bunch of relief cuts. At this point the back glass was put back into the window surround and to determine how far up the window needed to go to look right. The inner structure along the package tray was rewelded and required a new piece to be fabbed in some sections. This at least located the glass.
Now here is where my abilities really drop off. Jake shaped the entire sail panel, and in doing so changed the sight line along the drip rail to flow more towards the back. I can't even pretend I could nail the look like he did. But I digress... Notice how the new sail panel actually overlaps the existing window surround. And how it doesnt line up with the existing roof at the top. This dip will be taken care of. The other sail panel was expertly wheeled and planished by jake, and was tack welded along the belt line. Once again Jake's expertise comes to the rescue. A new piece was wheeled to make the existing roof line up with the rear window. The piece was clekoed (is that how you spell it?) into place. Once the correct shape was determined, the roof was cut to fit the new panel in. Lastly a new catwalk was wheeled to fill the gap between the bottom of the window and the belt line.
Now here is where I dropped the ball on making this a complete thread on a chop. I forgot to take pictures of doing the door tops. This is one of the easier areas of doing the chop. The top of the door grows, and the pieces cut from the b pillar are used to stretch the shape of the door frame. This last pic shows the doors finished along witht he rest of the welding and grinding. The front glass was laid over the opening and the offending areas to be removed were marked. Tons of layers of duct tape over the area to be used protected the glass when the rest of the glass was sand blasted off. Hey, It worked and the glass fits great. I didn't do this on my own and I did about 2 solid months of lurking every picture of a chopped chevy I could. Jake helped me out big time, as did reading the Tex Smith book cover to cover multiple times. Take your time, plan out you cut lines, and if you have access to someone with talent, ask for their help.
Man, i gotta tell you, this is some REALLY nice clean well executed work .......First chop?? Stoked for you!!! It's really shows that you did some research and you did some thinkin' !!! This thread will definitely help others!!! RIGHT ON!!
I hope it will. The HAMB helped me out alot when planning this out so hopefully this will help someone else.
Very nice! Thanks for sharing all the details! How did you make the new sail panels? English wheel? Todd
hey todd if I drive my car from chicago to california will you chop my car???? hahahah nice work I cant wait untill I start hitting my head on the roof of my car when I get in. I will def refrence this thread when I start to chop my car!!
very nice turnout excellent lines and very well described procedure! Tanks for posting - have a 50 4 door waiting to be served in the barn.... Mario
Great thread buddy, I can use all the help I can get and I'm sure that I'm not the only one. Looks great!
Excellent thread, just found it and man am I glad I did. I have a 50 Sedan Deluxe and am looking to do the same thing. Thanks for posting this and all of the pics, very helpful! I'm gonna be trying my very own first chop as well soon and it is an intimidating concept for sure.
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