Jerry's 50 Ford Chop

In the process learning how to chop a 50 Ford Sedan with Sonny Matthew ( Matthewsgarage). Sonny has done several hundred chop jobs and has done some of the best looking chops around my area over the years. He is nice enough to be walking me through this one. I've been learning so much every day.

I got the car a couple of weeks ago and decided that I wanted to take out 4 inches. Here are some pics...not done yet..but we've got a nice flow happening. Rear window is the next thing to do. Plans are to french the head lights and tail lights...48 Olds grill..lincoln push ****ons on the doors.. wide whites.

Here are some pics

Before





Here's what we've been up to..some in progress shots

 

pretty nice flow...









what we have so far..lots of work still to do

 

Good start. Just the right amount in my opinion. Looking forward to seeing more...

 

LOOKS GREAT so far! It is a lot of work and can be overwhelming at times.
I did my own,1950 Merc chop, by myself with pictoriol and verbal help from sldnnmatt over the HAMB internet chat... I have 1 more door top to fit up. Took about month.

 

Wow-looking great-need pic from side showing how rear section of roof looks now

 

Got the p***enger side posts slanted and door top fitted and welded on today. Tomorrow I'll weld the posts solid

 

boy, you sure ain't wasting any time! always good to see another custom. looks good so far.

 

Less is more, Very nice.

 

nice chop - but please tell me you are not welding in flip flops!



.

 

nah..not me


Did more welding on the A pillers and side posts today ..got everything welded up solid. Went out and got some sheet metal in preparation for laying the rear window down and making filler pieces tomorrow

 

good lookin chop. very tasteful, not too much. ah.. id love to chop my car but alas, it seems to be too late.

 

Got the rear window fitted and layed in today. Made the filler pieces under the rear window and and filler pieces for the sides. Everything is tacked in. Tomorrow I'll weld some more on it. Really starting to take shape.




filler piece..made wider then I trimmed it down so it snuck behind the package shelf

 

Looks great!

 

Need to hammer and dolly then weld the relief cuts on the roof which is why the profile isn't perfect yet. It's sticking up a little at the back crown because of the non yet welded metal slits ....but not bad at all so far

 

Thats looking real nice my better half Jo is half way through building her '50


with a lot of help from the club.
looking forward to seeing how your comes on.

 

Wow, that's not an easy chop, for sure. Very nice job, Jerry. I dub you the "Flipflopper Chopper." As usual, keep up the good work!

 

This came out really nice. I like that you moved the rear window forward.

 

Got everything on the outside all welded up today and ground down. About 4 hours of off and on welding so nothing would warp. Need to weld up the inside of the B pillers and make some small pieces where pie cuts were taken out.

 

not bad for a music teacher , lol !

 

hahah

 

spent the past couple days doing some welding on the inside of the A pillars, door frame, and side posts. Lots of small filler pieces to make where the pie cuts were taken out inside. Everything on the driver side is done...also rounded the door corner. Used a 4 and a half inch cut off wheel as the template for the shape. Cut the corner off and welded it to the B pillar area. A light swipe of plastic should be all it needs.

 

Your making real good progress keep it up. we had 2 welders working non stop working on oposite sides of the car and 3 of us tackin things together for them an that was 3 days. at this rate your be p***ing our build, mind you might be able to nick some of your ideas.

 

always wonder how a chop was done on a 50s car. looks great, i like the look.. keep up the good work.
guitar solo
chris.

 

Pasenger side inner posts all welded up and door corner rounded this afternoon. Everything is all welded up now.




Started tearing the wing window ***emblies apart..going to cut them next..

 

Damn man your flying on this. At this rate she well be in paint next month lol. Seriously great job man keep it up

 

FRONT WING WINDOWS

Started the vent windows today. I've read some pretty half *** tech articles in the magazines about doing these so I'm going to go into detail about how I'm doing them so maybe the info could help someone else. This is what Sonny told me to do and how he does em.

The first thing I did was remove the vent window itself from the rest of the ***embly. A couple of screws at the top on the vent window frame and it will slide out of the upper pivot. After I got the top loose I unscrewed the nut, spring, and retaining washers on the lower pivot and tapped on the lower pivot pin with a hammer and it popped right out from the ***embly. I put the wing windows aside until tomorrow and began fitting the lower ***embly to the door frame.

First thing I did was drill out the spot rivets to separate the lower wing frame from the vertical stainless strip.

Next I took the lower wing frame and bent it in a little to match the profile of the door. I made three very small pie cuts at the top so the frame would bend and match the upper contour. After test fitting it I tacked it.






Next I took the long vertical piece of stainless and took 4 inches off of the bottom. You need to take some meat off of the bottom because the gl*** now has a new inner travel angle from the posts coming inward a little. If you don't shorten this piece the bottom will hit your door skin and wont go in correctly.



I then bolted the lower frame into the door and slid the stainless window channel that I just cut into the door. I took a straight edge and found the point at the top where the stainless met the wing window ***embly and made a mark with a Sharpie. About a 1/2 needed to be taken off the top of the wing window so the tab on it would slide right into the stainless channel at the top. I trimmed it..slid it back into the stainless channel and welded it on top.







After I got this far I slid it back again into the door to check squareness and to make sure the mounting holes lined up too..That little orange C clamp was great for holding it solid and sliding down into the door. After checking it again I took off the clamp and welded it on the bottom, where the clamp was holding it together


Next I located and drilled an upper mounting hole. The top of the frame ***embly has a nut welded from the factory inside with a screw that goes it from the outside of the door frame. A new hole in the door frame was needed to hold the top in. I just took a small ice pick punch, stuck it through the hole in the vent frame from the inside, smacked it...took the frame ***embly out again and drilled my hole. Everything lined up..



Once everything was fitted and secured on top I modified the lower tab that was on the bottom of the vertical stainless window channel. This piece bolts to the inside of the door and holds the bottom of the channel solid.



Because the gl*** now has a new inner travel angle..this piece needs to be widened..or a new one made to compensate for the angle and the larger distance between the bottom of the stainless channel and where it mounted to originally on the door.

I split it in half..made a filler piece...welded it up...welded it to the bottom of the stainless channel and bolted it.





not the best pic...but you can see the gap that has be made up.




main ***emblies all done... ready for the wings now...back at it tomorrow

 

wings...continued....got them finished up....


First I heated the stainless frames up a little to get the contour of the wing frame.





When bending the frames inward you'll want to put the flame of your torch on the crown and a little on the sides. The heat will allow the crown to stretch. Get it hot ..right when it turns orange give it a little bend. It's really easy to overheat so be careful...maybe practice on the extra piece from the top that you just cut off.





When the shape was pretty good I took a straight edge and marked off the excess meat from the top..after bending. The top should be in line with the bottom. Next I cut the excess off and made the little factory notch on the end of the top part.








At this point I reinstalled the bottom of the wing window back into the frame ***embly..out of the car. I repositioned the upper pivot marked the top of the frame for new holes...drilled them out..and reinstalled the factory little self tappers into the frame ***embly.



Everything was looking pretty decent and functioning good..so I put the whole works back into the car.



I've got some sanding and file work ahead of me to get them looking really sharp..but I am happy with the results.


The other half of the side gl*** channel on the back door jamb area is held on with a top and bottom screw. The top screw remains in place..the bottom screw is taken out allowing the channel to pivot outward toward the door skin. A new bottom hole has to be redrilled when the channel is in the right spot and a new, longer screw put in.