chopping 53 ford

I have searched around alot and have yet to find a how to on chopping a 53 ford car anyone Done it and point me in the right direction. Such as where to make the cuts. So far my own thinking and photoshoppin I have decided on cutting out the rear window frame and moving it forward and droppping it down to match the rest of the roof. but is this easiest? I also think slanted b pillars would be sweet looking how to you drop the rear window? Also Anyone know a good book or website to read up on choppin in general?

 

"How to Chop Tops" by Tex Smith is a good place to start. They do a '53 or '54 Ford top, too, but I don't like the way they did it. The best thing about the book is that you see several different ways to go about it.

 

i just bought the tex smith book. it covers many cars. and as stated it covers this car.

 

I have that book but man is it confusing sometimes and I dont like the way they chopped the 53 I like the chop they did on one of the 49-51 could i just copy that?

 

In the process of chopping a 54 ford 3.5 inches. Toughest part is figuring out what to do with the back window. I used a 53 chevy backlite. It's about 2.5 inches shorter than the 54 ford, has more rounded corners, easier to lean it forward. Didn't want to pinch the pillars so split the roof and added 1.5 inches in the middle. Pictures I have are too large to post. 54chop

 

I got this 53 out of one of my old 1958 mags. I guess you cold say it was the old way...

 

is it a sedan or coupe? I've NEVER seen a sedan chopped that looked good. Many of the coupes get ruined more times than not, but not always.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=66909

 

I did my '53 step by step out of Tex Smith's book when I was 15. Ten years later, it needs a makeover, and here are the things I learned while doing it, and those that I will change.

*I sank my rear window into the trunk. It's very difficult to make a gasket seal the trunk because you're trying to seal the sheetmetal up against the flat part of the gl***. It looked nice but it constantly leaked into the trunk. When I go thru it again I'm going to replace the back window with a '50 Ford unit.

*I did straight door pillars and at the time, I thought it looked great. But now when I see slanted pillar pictures, I like that a lot better. I don't know if I can change it at this point, but if I could do it over, I'd slant the pillars.

*My version eliminated the vent windows in the front to make one piece gl***. I like the way this looks and it saved a ****load of time trying to cobble the vent windows back together and make them work. Also, my window tracks needed replacing anyway so it wasn't a problem making one big track.

*I used an extra roof to make up the gap on the top. Instead of filling in the gap with a strip of the donor top, I used the whole front section of the donor roof on my car, cut extra long so it would cover the gap, resulting in only one welded seam instead of two. This worked really well, although at 15 I ****ed at measuring and I should have taken my time.

*My rain gutter area is starting to bubble out rust. If I could do it again, I would have sandblasted those areas clean and sealed them up nice while I had the roof off of the car.

*Brace EVERYTHING. As soon as you cut the top off of that car, it's gonna get out of shape. I should have welded braces between the windshield posts on my donor top and braces freakin' everywhere on the car I was working on to be absolutely sure none of the pillars was going to move after the cuts. Some of my pillars don't line up very well because I didn't know any better.

Here's a picture of the car. Even though it didn't come out perfect, it's held together good and looked the same for the past 10 years. When I go through it again, it won't be a problem to undo the mistakes I made in the past, and the experience was worth it. My second chop went a hell of a lot better, and my next one should be a breeze.

 

Yeah making one of those look good chopped is quite hard, have'nt really seen too many I like but heres one ...

 

If you need any extra pieces, I'm going to be parting out my 52 4dr, and cutting the roof off. Tell me what you need (window frame pieces and corners, etc.) I'll ship 'em to ya. I'll have a spare rear window too.

 

Man both the grey one and the blue w/ flames looks great.