Projects '51 Chevy build journal

Then the body needed to be braced. We used 7/8" unistrut to first bace the opening for the back window. Then we made a "X" in the car from front to back and three going side to side, one in front of the car, one in the middle at the B pillar and one at the back of the car at the C pillar. All about middle way up inside the car. They were welded in place and welded to each other, it was solid.

 

Better late than never Jason made it to the party with his favorite tool, "The Dremel"!!!! I think he sleeps with this thing!? Finally everyone is here, time to get to work! (as soon as I hide his Dremel!)

 

Time to start cutting!!!!! We started by cutting about 2" around the back window leaving it attached to the car at the belt line.

 

We then moved forward to the B pillar and wacked 3" out of it.

 

Just found this thread... Freakin awesome! Love 4 doors!

 

On to the A pillars. We transfered our lines from the B pillar using a level. At this point we went ahead and cut the door frames off to get them out of the way

 

sorry, didnt mean to offend... keep up the good work

 

I was just messing with ya, Im glad you like it enough to do that. As soon as I can figure out why it wont let me upload photos, I got some cool pics to show.

 

Your well on your way Rob . So far so good . I am stealing away some time today for the Buick as well . I will check back this evening to see your progress. I cant wait to do the Buicks chop .I have to keep telling myself Patience boy Patience LOL !!! Andy.

 

ok, you have my attention, wheres the rest of the pics?

 

We supported the roof with some more strut temporarily while we moved to the back to cut the C pillar. We cut it right above the belt line around to the window and slid the roof forward to the A pillars.

 

Thats gonna look good! Cant wait to see a side shot

 

Great work guys, love the stance in the last pic! Keep it up Rob!

 

Lookin good, I'm taking notes, I hope to cut mine this winter.

 

Had to cut a little slice in the corner of the front windshield to get the A pillers to line up. We tacked them into place to hold the roof and shored up the rear so we could start on the B pillar relocate. It had to be moved back to line back up, no leaning the B pillar on a four door. We welded two pieces of flat bar inside the b piller, drilled some holes in the side of it and plug welded it together. Trying to make this as strong as possible in this area. Then we cut the side of the roof off above the rear door and about 2 1/2-3" out of the C pillar so we could move this section of the roof back to line up with the opening on the rear of the back door. This is where it got a little tricky, but not to bad. Alot of measuring, double checking ourselves and taking time to stop and think out the next step really paid off. At this point it was 1:30 am Sat. morning, we had been at it for the last 6 hours (-1, we had to stop and eat) and we were exhausted and we called it a night.

 

Intresting cut from the C piller up to the B piller, Im guessing this is so you can rework the window frame. I'm a big fan of a straight B-piller on 2 door cars aswell, certin cars, do look better with a slanted B but not all.

Dont play dumb, you got skills, this Mod seperates the men from the boys, everything else is childs play.

MrC.

 

Rise and shine! Woke the guys up whith the smell of bacon, hooked them up with some breakfast tacos and some home made hot sauce that Jason's wife Missy made us. First order of business was to roll the car outside in the sun and get some good looks at the profile of the car. We needed to make sure everything was flowing good before we went any farther. There's Jason and that damn Dremel again! After a quick floor sweep and clean up it was time to get back to work as it was already 10:00 am. Quick close the garage door, your letting all the a/c out! That's right bitches, a/c!

 

Welded some flat bar into the roof section to try and strengthen where we had cut the B pillar out and started tack welding the strip above the rear door back in and then filled the gaps that were left in the drip rail area.

 

With all that tacked into place we laid the back window down and it just didnt flow with the curve of the back doors so we cut it out along with the belt line (that I am trying to keep) and slid it forward until it looked good. We moved it twice before we decided it was perfect, somewhere around 2 1/2" if I remember correctly. Then we cut reliefs in the catwalk before extending it to make it lay down the same angle as the trunk. Then we added the strip of metal to meet up with the bottom of the beltline. The rise in the trunk determined the bottom height of the window.

 

Next it was on to the door frames. Thanks to a Mickey Rutledge in Little Elm, Texas a pair of donor rear doors were located and purchased. These were used to fill in the gaps caused by relocating the curved part of the door frame. These took a little while to make sure they were straight, but the turned out great. It was now about 9:30 at night, we were whooped and hungry so we cleaned up the garage, took a couple of pics and tore up some pizza and cold beer, thank you Erica!

 

And last but not least we attacked the the C pillar about 10:00 Sun. morning. We cut some reliefs in the window surround and the sail panel and got everyone pointing in the right direction. A few filler pieces were all that was needed. I got a little carried away on the trimming of the metal on the right side of the car when we relocated the window so that side ended up with a little bigger piece.

 

thanks for the detailed pictures of the chop. great job

 

Finally about 4:30pm it was time to open the door and roll her outside to take a good look at everything.

 

Still alot of welding, grinding and hammer/dolly work to go, not to mention some more work inside the car and the garnish mouldings still need to be done, but the hard part is over. I am sooooo happy with how it turned out. We learned alot on our first chop, but I think the car flows pefectly and its not over chopped. I couldnt have done it without the help of Racrdad (Doug) and JMD82 (Jason). Thank you guys so much for all your hard work! And thanks to my wife Erica for watching our kids (and Doug's) so that the boys could play in the garage. Here are a couple more pics of us clowning around in the car. I am still smiling!

 

Chopper style....chop chop, he go chop chop!

 

Looks great with the chop Rob. Three inch chop sets the stance perfect.

 

Thanks Scott! We debated all week if we were going to do 3 or 4" and possibly take some out of the crown. But we decided sometimes less is more and I couldn't be happier with the outcome!

 

Thats the perfect proportions for sure! Love it

 

dude that looks great you made it look so easy...my 4 door is screaming for that look great job...johnny

 

Hey Rob have i ever told you how much I hate you?? The car looks fantastic and you are definately in good company there and I really need to relocate to get into the rotation!!!