Customs Chop top help please. 60s tbird

Looks good. I tend to be a bit negative at times.

 

I don't think anyone else has mentioned it but the first thing you should always do before chopping or sectioning is to weld in braces to keep the body from moving around. The second most overlooked step is to rebuild or replace door hinges as needed, then align the doors to the body. I shouldn't have to mention you should do any needed repairs to floors, rockers and body mounts before doing anything else.
If you want to do this right you're gonna need a donor top for the windshield header, the roof skin, and chrome pieces. Do not under any circumstance "quarter" the top unless you want to end up with a convertible. What you want to do is cut your top into left and right side window sections, a windshield header and a top skin. Look inside the car to see how far the side window rails extend up into the top skin and add an inch or so to that so you have access to weld the top skin back together. Transfer that measurement to the outside, mark and cut. Do the same thing with the windshield header and the back-glass header. Now, find out where the visors bolt to the windshield header, measure an inch or so inside that, (towards the center of the car), measure, mark and cut out the windshield header. Now you are left with just the left and right side window sections still attached to the car. (Yes, you jumped the gun). Make any necessary cuts in the B and C pillar, sail panel and inner structure to separate the sail panels from the back glass structure, then cut the A pillar.

 

If you go to picture 19 posted by K13 in post #50 and look at the back edge of the vent window frame it looks like Oz went to flat side glass.

 

The biggest reason to separate the side window sections from the rest of the roof is it makes it easier (OK, it makes it possible) to make needed changes to the side window opening. If you look at the picture of your car, as you chopped the A pillar the roof had to move forward several inches, almost eliminating the quarter window opening. To fix this you have two choices; you can continue to move the "C" pillar forward, eliminating the quarter glass entirely, or make the opening bigger, which will require side window sections from a donor top. The first choice, move the "C" pillar forward, means you'll have to cut the corners from the side glasses, which you can't do because they're tempered. Unfortunately you've also created an additional problem by chopping the car 2" in front, 3" in the rear so now the side window opening isn't "square" anymore which means the side glasses or quarter windows won't fit no matter what you do.

The other reason to separate the side window sections from the rest of the roof is so you don't have to "lean" the "A" pillars in towards each other, which creates fitment problems with chrome trim and interior garnish moldings. You also don't have to "tilt" the "B" and "C" pillars to match the "A" pillar or mess with the back window opening.

Anyway, once the amount of chop is taken out of the "A" , "B", and "C" pillars, the side window sections are welded back on the car. Next, the windshield header from the donor roof is trimmed to fit between the side window sections and welded in place Then the back glass opening is welded into place, then the top skin from the donor top is trimmed as needed and welded into place.

From my perspective the only (cost effective) way to make this work is to convert the side glasses to flat glass, that means sourcing vent window mechanisms and window channels from another Ford product of that vintage that came with flat glass, like the Galaxie or the Falcon hard-top. Good luck with your project.

 

Junkman, that's a lot to process. Especially after a couple of good beers. Pacific NW here. I'll have to go back to some of it later but wanted to touch on the stretching of the top. I think the t-bird has a good length to it. Adding would make it to long perhaps. The goal is to cut the window channeling in the roof and move if back, then fill in the missing spot. I think this would facilitate using the side windows and not changing their size. Tipping the back window in word and doing that I believe would just make the sail panel not as wide. Let me know what you think

 

I never said anything about making the top longer, I said you might need to make the side window openings longer to fit the glass. This is why you need to cut the top as I directed, it gives you side window panels that can be easily adjusted in length or shape, a wider windshield header so you don't have to lean the "A" pillars, and the ability to take loft out of the roof skin if needed.
To pull this chop off properly, you need a donor top for material, and you also need to convert the side glass to straight glass.