Well I finally got around to choppin the '51 after I finished the suicide doors. I think it looks pretty good so far. The Old man and I have welded in the strip to fill the roof and have been bangin' out around the back window. This is how she looks so far. http://i775.photobucket.com/albums/yy34/sixguncaden/51pics160.jpg http://i775.photobucket.com/albums/yy34/sixguncaden/51pics154.jpg
SIXGUN...man that ford is going to be out of seight! REALY, and suicide doors too. that baby will be the talk of h.a.m.b.ville. you simple'y must take all the pics. you can and post your progress. i can see this badboy in mags. and i'am not kidding brother. you are building something VERY SPECIAL!!! man i love it...POP.
no we aren't gonna section this car. We are trying to take this one or two giant leaps at a time. This was our first chop and we don't have fancy stuff like english wheels and sheetmetal tools. Plus we are gonna delete the taillight spears and get a smooth slab-like side. I do love a good sectioned shoebox though. I could definitely see a section job in or future but probably on something crazy like a Nash metropolitan or maybe my '59. We took 4" out of the A-pillar and just let the roof go where it wanted to from there. I think in the end we took out between 4.5 and 5 inches out of the c-pillar. When we are done the b-pillar will be attached to the rear door and we will do top and bottom van-style latches to open the back doors. That way when I open both doors on one side the whole side of the car will be open. I think that will be sweet.
Thats pretty much the same route I took, though my chop is a bit different.I need to take updated pictures, I have the back doors made now so it looks a lot better.
Way cool Sixgun. I have a 51 mor dor also. Do you have any pics or info on your sucide rear doors? I want to do mine real bad. Keep coming with the photos of your build, I'll be watching intently. The Rock
Yeah I'll be working on the 51 today so I'll take some pics of the hinges. The doors are still welded shut for chopping purposes. It was really tricky to work with the dogleg. There is only about a foot to a foot and a half of usable space to work with so we used beefy hinges. We took hinges from a jeep wagoneer then we cut off one of the tabs and welded them together as a unit. It ended up working out quite nicely, but we did have to preload the doors to prevent sag, which I think will have to be redone once we add the weight of the b-pillar to the doors.
Sixgun, very nice. Glad to see another 4 door custom being suicided and chopped. I have a mordoor '53 Buick that I suicided and is currently getting a haircut. Keep up the good work, love to see as many pics as possible. Here is mine so far: Here is a pic of the Suicided doors, have the dogleg in the rear because of the wheel well as well. PITA. Never mind the seat, it gotten a new interior since these pics were taken
Yeah it's the stock back window. We cut all the way around it but left about 4 inches connected on the bottom in the middle. Then we just tipped it forward and met the roof once we'd cut the roof in half. I want to thank everybody for the great response. It's good to see feedback from Sverige my morfar was svensk. I took a bunch of pictures today while I was working on it and i will post them when I get back to portland tomorrow.
By the way your Buick is super sweet. It looks like your chop is coming along very well. Your rear door swings way open. My door doesn't open quite that wide, but it still opens fairly wide.
Well we got some work done yesterday. First off we filled the gap in the roof. Then we worked on the bottoms of the c-pillars (cut, hammer, weld, grind, repeat) sorry for the blurry photo. Then we filled the fuel door: We took the original fuel door and flattened the finger notch, then we fit it up into place and tacked it. Then we just filled in the gaps and ground it down. Any rough spots will be filled in later with lead. We also cut open the front doors, racked the windshield opening to get it just right and reinforced the a-pillars. All in all I would say it was a pretty good day's work. Here's what she looks like now
Sixgun, looks real good. What did you do to lower it? I love the stance. Also, what are the plans for the tailights? I see that area looks heavily modified in the drawing.
In the front I flipped the spindle uprights which dropped it almost three inches, and right now its sitting with no springs so its floored. Eventually it will be bagged but that will have to come as the money does. Out back I am using truck arm suspension from a 65 chevy pickup which is kind of a two link sort of setup, and it too will be bagged. I c-notched the frame heavily to get the 9" up where it belongs. The car can actually go a touch lower, but at the moment it is resting on the cross member that the truck arms attach to. It hangs down a couple inches from the frame, so I am gonna notch it slightly. As to the taillights I am gonna use those ultra slim 94-99 Cadillac taillights and french them right in to the "fins" But I am gonna wire them in such a way that they will light up the same through all three segments, cause I think the way that they have the middle light up for the brakes, the bottom for the runners and the top for the blinkers defeats the purpose of having long slim taillights in the first place.
Yeah that is the old man's 53 M38-a1. Right now we have all the miscellaneous parts from the '51 piled in it, but its better than piling them in the old man's '57 t-bird.
Yuck! Say it ait so. Ford made that car so simple and beautiful and that tail light treatment sounds exactly the opposite. I would reconsider. Also make sure the rear hinges are totally fool proof in opperation before you invest more money and time into that four door. Brick
looks bitchin man. maybe instead of the pre made caddys think about forming your own plastics....i think there are a couple articles on here. it would give it a more cool early custom look. either way its bitchin'.
Yeah That might be the thing to do. I picked those caddy lights up for a song and wanted them cause they are the longest, slimmest tail lights I could find. Like brickster said I want to make is super minimalist and not muck it up with a shape that defines the rearend, but one that accents it. I want the taillights to end up like the ones in the drawing. I'll have to look into forming my own plastic, but I was thinking of just shaping the fenched opening the way I want it and having the caddy lens assembly back it up, like this: My two chief concerns with the caddy lights are: A. they don't seem to be long enough at only around 15" versus the 51's fin which is over two feet tall. and B. I don't want it to end up looking like some late nineties streetrod monstrosity (you know the kind the digital gauges and pastel "splash" paint jobs. That is actually why I was going to go with the caddy lights instead of LED strips or something like that.
I took some pictures of the hinge assembly inside the car, but the rear doors are still welded shut so the pics are of the doors closed. Also there are some of the braces from the chop in the way. I'll get you some more picture next time I work on her. I should be opening the back doors then and I'll get some good pics.
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