A buddy and me are looking at a chevy 49 fleet... we want to sled it and we got to talking... if we were to cut the top off would the door posts be stable enough or would there have to be major structural fab work to do? Has anybody ever ruined a fleetline by cutting the roof off? We just wan to be different instead of a chop and the car is cheap and runs...
Weld the doors shut after cuttin' the top off. It'll hold but you'll have to Bo Duke it to get into it! Cool idea.
I can't remember but someone posted 8 months or so back about making a roadster. If your cutting up a 4 door you could add a "firewall" behind the front seats connecting the two B-pillars together. That would make the body stronger...
I agree, find yourself a two door sedan to cut the roof off of. If your car is rusty, you'll probably need to brace up the frame to keep the doors from pinching shut. If it's real solid and nice, you probably won't have that problem. Thing is, with a fastback Fleetline, the trunk area is going to look goofy with no roof. The trunklid is going to raise up into nothing. Where with a two door post car, the trunklid looks more like a real convertible and the cut lines will be obvious. Don't wreck a good Fleetline.
It would look like your rockerbilly inebriated pea brain decided it would be cool to chop the top on the hardest car to chop there is one afternoon after drinking too much breakfast, and you fucked up the wet dream, and now you'er trying to save some part of pile from the dump. At least it was a worth less four door... Weld up and fill ALL the doors, mold in where the door windows were too, along with welding in the trunk lid, all for strength. "Hoopdie" cut the section of the trunk that's sticking up behind the rear seat so it's more open and "phaeton looking" and level with the doors, getting rid of the "package tray" and maybe making it a third jump seat/open trunk. Lower it enough to be able to do the Duke Brother's climb-over without splittin your drawers... Round up a windshield with some chrome A pillars off a convertible or make same so it doesn't look like a fucked up Fleetline anymore. Take off all Fleetline badges and quit calling it one, and it just might actually be ok.
I third that! Oh, and you'll hafta not only fab braces for the body, but the frame, too. On the 49-52 Chevys, the factory convertibles & hardtops had different frames than the regular sedans and fleetlines and coupes, etc. It's your car, and you can certainly do what you want (as long as it won't cause you or others to wreck), but... Please don't change a car for the sake of change, or to just "be different". Change it to IMPROVE it.
Someone did that to a twodoor Fleetline and had it on eBay for $25K, dumbest looking thing I'd seen.The roof and trunk lid is what makes them look so good, cutting it off will cause a lot of structural problems.
Do it! I need the door tops! Aesthetics aside, the doors and rear quarter area behind the front seat WILL move around after you cut the roof off. You will be able to grab them and wiggle them back and forth a couple of inches. They will move around while you're driving, and you WILL have trouble with the doors pinching. If you're cool with that, then chop away. Seriously, if you do it within the next week, I'll buy the door tops.
Well it`s your car & you can do anything you want to it. That being said, have you considered that chopping a roof off on a car like that only makes it look like a car with the roof chopped off. There are cars [ and great craftsman ] out there that can pull off a roadster look without being too noticeable, but there are far & few between.
yeah, I think we'll leave her as is... for someone else to purchase and make her cool. thanks to all who replied...
I'm no expert and I didn't stay at a holiday inn last night, but I don't really know what's the big deal with fleetlines, yeah they are cool, better looking than styleline (i guess) but they ain't an original 32 5 window or something. Shit I've seen plenty rusting away in pictures here. Besides, if you got all these guys fired up about NOT cutting it, then maybe that is exactly what you should do. It's cool to lead not follow, and if you have to ask if it's cool, then it's not. "Cool is what cool does" to quote forrest...
That's usually why I dothings in the first place... I didn't ask if it was cool.. I asked if it was structurally sound and if it wasn't, how to make it so... I still got the wheels turning in my head...
Well, I'd buy the left side vent window if you cut it up. But uh yeah, it would look better to cut a Styline than a Fleetline. I thought you wanted to shorten it and drop the roof down so it was like a little roadster, not just whack the roof away. Heck I'd be tempted to buy the roof tin, mine is loaded with little dents from the kids with rocks before I got it. Probably too far away though. I can find them in junkyards here, usually rotty. The side body mounts like to rot out, if you cut the top, the body is liable to sag bad in the middle.
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