When I was at Gene Winfields place last year, he specifically said "don't cut the roof is at all possible." We'll, here I am. The absolute best option I'm looking at, is to make 2 roofs into 1 roof. Im Making my '50 4 door buick into a 2 door jet back. My doner car has a **** front half of roof, (rust, holes, thin, junk) but solid jetback. My 4 door roof is near perfect. My question is, has anyone cut a roof in half and welded a new section in, and what advice do you have so I can avoid bad problems? I'm more than willing to learn from your experience. My thought right now is to bend a piece of 16 gauge to the exact roof shape, (on both cars) tack it on the roof and cut about 1/4" behind. Also will tack angle in 4 spots, below the 16 gauge, from the floor to the roof before cutting. My hope is this method holds shape. Thoughts? Or better way? I'm all ears before I start cutting. Thanks!
Make sure that everything is well braced before you make a cut. The roof is part of the structure. Some guys stack a piece of sheet metal under the roof where the ends **** up. Some guys will say that is a novice deal, but it helps. Something else that you need to be sure of is your dedication before you ever make a cut. Things are gonna go goofy on ya, or maybe they won't. You got to be dedicated to the project enough to tackle whatever comes along and finish it.
The problem is distortion caused by weld shrinkage. On a big relatively flat roof panel, you will get distortion. Less if you can gas or TIG weld it. I guess you know, or was mentioned in the Winfield cl***, you will need to do some weld m***aging after welding to help get back to original shape. That's where the softer gas or TIG weld is better.
I'm seeing what Gene was saying, use the whole roof rather than cutting it in two. Still one does what one has to do even if it makes for a lot more work. I'm using the front half of one top and the back half of the other when I stretch the cab for my 48. I figure to cut the roofs so the sheet metal on tops overlaps each other by a bit and then do as a buddy showed me years ago cut through both pieces and but weld the cuts a spot weld at a time until I get one seam across the roof. Still mating the more door body with the Jetback roof (damn it says that right here 1950 Buick 56S Super Jetback Sedanet VIN# 56693865 Auction | Huisman Auctions ) may be a bit of the challange as the two roofs may not have the same contour across the top from side to side. I'm thinking the moor door roof has more hump in it. I'd suggest making a contour gauge on one or the other and comparing the two before I went very far.
Thats a good idea. There's a 4 door in a junk yard by me. I can get a piece from them and fix the doner. If I screw it up too bad, my car isn't taken apart
I've done it a couple times. I chopped this cab three inches if I remember correctly, about 10 years ago. As Porkn****** stated, you had better be dedicated. I didn't like the way things lined up once the top was initially fit in place, and I didn't want to cut the doors and slant the tops in, cause I didn't think the windows would go up and down properly. Regardless, this is what I did. I quartered the roof and put in a strip each direction about an inch and a bit wide. Doubles the miles of welding to be done. Once cut apart, things sure as hell went goofy on me all right. The sheet metal caved in from every direction. I cut a bunch of hardwood strips a couple inches wide, and a couple feet long each about an eighth of an inch thick. I clamped them profusely all around where the new metal had to be in an effort to get it all up into the proper plane so to speak. Once it all sort of looked good, I started fitting and tacking. It took a **** ton of time to complete. There isn't an ounce of filler anywhere in this roof. I sprayed some primer on the roof just so it wouldn't start rusting immediately only to find out the owner would rather have left it bare. The underside of the roof shows all the welding that was done. The cab still looks exactly like that it's still driven regularly and races occasionally with a huge diesel engine, so I can't show any finished pics. (Rodent with a metal finished roof). I tell everyone I don't do rat.
As I stated above, it can be done, but it's a ton of work, and you'd best be fussy in your workmanship so you can contain any carnage that you create. Good luck.
Is the inner structure of the fastback roof OK? If I were going to tackle this, I'd probably do the complete fastback roof/doors swapover first, and get everything fitting properly, as if the fastback roof were still 100% good. And when I had the roof and doors swapped and all the pieces fit up, then I'd cut the old sedan roof apart and weld in the sections that were needed to fix the fastback roof. I would not try to tie the two roofs together in one huge operation, getting the cut lines lined up is going to be way too difficult.
I have been pulled into more than 1 difficult body job over my career. My best advice is if you want a 2 door and have one for a doner parts car use it! converting a 4 to 2 door is no small undertaking. With the questions you're asking you are already doubting your skill level. Replacing a rusty front section and a Body Swap is way less work than a 4 to 2 door conversion. Welding skills and metal finish skills aside a Body repair and swap is way easier.
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