I have a chance to aquire a 56 4 door chevy wagon and I would like to convert it to a delivery to be used as a shop car for my bike shop. Has any member performed this conversion before and what advice could you offer. How much longer are the front doors? Thank you Dan.
You're pretty much looking at a 4dr to 2dr conversion like any other except the C-post is vertical and should be a little easier to fit up. And, of course, making the filler tin for the side gl***.
that sounds like alot of work, when I painted my 4 door wagon 20 years ago, the first thing that I did was shave off the rear door handles. this cleaned the car up enough that its been mistaken for a tudor many times over the years. the rear doors still work and open fine from the inside. I'd consider this before the very involved plans that you have. besides, other than the door lengths, the rear quarter windows are different lengths, unless of course your covering them up. You can see mine in one of 5 photo albums on my profile. Good luck.
So would you try and find a new set of doors or take a few inches out of the back ones and splice it in to the front? Making the sheet metal to cover the back gl*** should be the easy part. I have the tools to do this job with out to much trouble.
I am doing the same thing to a '55 Merc 4 door Wagon. The pillars were spot welded in, so moving them back is easy. I bought soem 2-door dood. They are 5" wider. I'll usethe stheet metak from the rear door skins to fill the hole from the pillar back. I lucked out and was able to obtain a very rough Sedan Delivery rear door as well. Good luck and show us some pictures!
I converted a nice 57 Chevy 4 door sedan into 2 door sedan using a rotten 2 door donor car. The turrets are the same. I hung the doors from the rotten car on the 4 dr and then lined up the donor B pilar. This sounds pretty similar and it should't be a big deal. The problem for you will be moving the existing B pilar back.
What a beautiful wagon it is that you have. would you consider sending it overseas to me? Seriously though, mabey you could just cover the rear and window gl*** with sheetmetal, or find a sedan delivery somewhere else. good luck.
As far as the doors go, using 2dr sedan doors would save you some work, but ultimately it depends on how easy it is to find them in Australia. I would also look at how much trouble you're going to have putting it on the road when you're done, there was a Hudson converted to a 2-door over there using US donor parts and it had to be inspected to the motor vehicle equivalent of a colon exam even though there really were Hudson 2dr sedans.
Most guys that make pseudo-deliveries, make them out of 2 door, or "Handyman" wagons. I may be unpopular here, but please, don't do that to your wagon. Make your wagon look like a 60's/70's Junior Stocker. The rear side doors will be handy for your delivery business. See my handle, again please don't do it. That's a nice looking 4 door wagon that can be made a lot nicer. Butch/56sedandelivery.
If you get 2 door sedan doors to use, and if you re-use the 4 door wagon door pillar, you will need to cut out the door jamb section of sheetmetal from the 4 door front door and weld it into the 2 door sedan door to get it to close on the original pillar. Check out this tech, it should explain what I mean. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=228873 To splice a piece of the rear door into the front would be a ton of work and probably not worth the effort. 2 door sedan doors are available new so if you can get shipping on them you have a source. You could also splice two 4 door front doors together to get the extra length, would mean one seam down the center and would save you the work of the door jamb splice but personally I'd want the 2 door sedan doors to start with. It's do-able, but I don't know if I would want to cut up such a nice car. There's no shame in that green wagon as-is, it would be different if it was a rough or incomplete project car. And I'm usually the first one to suggest a 2 door conversion on a 4 door car.
If you're really going to use for hauling, those rear doors come in mighty handy sometimes, they make loading and unloading much easier.
Now here is a shop truck/van that would be cool, affordable,easy to put a shop logo on, and you could probably even haul motorcycles in it,and it would save that 56 for weekend cruisin http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=360985&highlight=econoline I like 4 door wagons better than deliveries, the tri five delivery with the shop logo just seems like a 80s thing to me anymore. A 60s van would be cooler for this purpose to me but thats just my .02
Yeah, too bad you're half a planet away. I have been looking for a decent wagon and I got this for trade bait.
man talk about making me think I'm doing something very wrong here. Well the truth is I just dont like the look of 4 doors. I have always loved the handyman and delivery's. Plus it is a prospective trade for a bike build and I am not laying down hard cash on it so i feel less like it's such a big deal to chop the doors. Also I have wanted to do a 2 door conversion for my own experiance. I'm sorry to those who love the look of a wagon. Feel free to show me some cool wagon pics to change my mined though. Thanks for the tech file link. Very clear now on what needs to be done.
ANOTHER 56 with a 55 front end, but a nicely done one. Any idea what the colors were? Butch/56sedandelivery.
keep the wagon as it is and go find a delivery it would be easier and cheaper just put a surf board on top of it and your good to go
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