Hot Rods 32 truck chop

hey guys, anybody have pics on how they lined up the window pillars after a top chop on a 1932 ford pick up?

 

I've had 4 deuce pickups with chopped tops and we have always used a spring spreader with wood blocks to align the posts. Doesn't take very much. I chopped the first one 2.5 inches the next one 4 and the last two 3. I like the 3 inch chop best.

 

How much of a chop?

 

Second this post. Photos or explaination would be greatly appreciated. 4" chop here.

 

2 & 1/4" chop on mine (was supposed to be 2" but I had to take a bit more out due to error on my part)

I wanted mine to look like it was stock to the untrained eye and was keen to reduce the size of the stock door window opening - which to me seams out of proportion with the rest of the body.

The way I worked it out was I actually chopped the doors first.

You will see the 30 coupe in the background - I figured if I made the door window height the same in the pickup as it was in the stock height coupe then if it looked ok in the coupe it would be ok in the pickup

The door window opening height (hole height in the door) is 13.5 inches so that is what I made it on the pickup.

Pretty sure I have read it on here somewhere that an easy way to chop the top of the windscreen posts is to unpic the header bar, chop the top above the top hinge (not in the middle of the posts) and then refit the header bar. This way you don't touch or disturb the hinges.

Also much easier to chop the doors above the hinge post and that keeps it all pretty simple.

For round the back of the cab I made it a bit harder for myself because I wanted to keep the stock height window. To do that I sliced some from below the window and also cut some from above the window. The bit above the window isn't so bad because you can just bend over another top edge.

 

Thanks for the response, look great!

For refitting / aligning the headerbar with the a pillars/ window pillars - what did you do there?

Thanks for you help

 

Simply put…slice and spread the top post and slice and compress the bottom post until they fit.

 

The original header bar is recessed into the pillars. So when you unpick the welds you are left with notches in the pillar. I made a rough template of the notches, did a straight cut to take the tops off the pillars and then cut duplicated the notches into the now shortened pillars and then recessed and welded the header panel back into the pillars just as they were originally.

 

Pictures really help make sense of it all.
Ok - so compress the bottom post by slicing down the side of it, therefore what the grinder wheel takes away - you are now about to compress it that distance. Thats helpful, thanks!

2nd Question:
To get the top of the window pillar to align with the header bar (where it was cut), do you also need to widen/ push out the window pillars? IF so, how do you go about doing that? And make sure both get pushed out evenly.

Thanks again