Chopping Model A Coupe. Progress pics and questions.

Hey! Started chopping the doors 6 inches last night to match the already 6 inch chopped old hot rod body that I got a few years back. The best part of the project was that I did it with the help of my amazing girlfriend. I'm really blessed to have such a great girl in my life that participates in my car hobby. She was in there chopping with the cut off wheel, helping measure, and even offering up her garage for the operation!

I thought I would also post some pictures as to how I made the window pillars line up being that they are wider on the bottom than on the top once you hack out the 6 inches.

I cut the inside of the bottom of the window and pinched that in, and had to cut the outside of the door sides also both horizontally and virtically to get those to pinch in. Next is tacking them together and then cutting the cowl.

Now for my question: HINGES! the hinge halves on the cowl are different than the hinge halves on the coupe doors. I don't know what the cowl is from, but it's a 30/31 cowl, and 30/31 coupe doors. the doors receive a solid cylinder hinge, and the cowl has the multi piece hinge, similar to a door hanging in your home. it is apparent that I need to change out the cowl half of the hinges to match the coupe door half of the hinges.

A. how do I bust those screws loose on the cowl half of the hinge?
B. Is there a trick to removing hinge pins?
C. Anyone have the cowl half of the solid cylinder hinges?
D. Anyone want to just trade a similar cowl that already has the right hinge halves I need for this one having the hinge halves you need? (yeah. long shot)

and E. I like the look of no top hinge. Any advice against getting rid of it?

Thanks! Pics below!

 

Cool. Got some awsome help there.

 

Where are the pics of your girlfriend??

 

I have a coupe and mine are solid. I think the other type are roadster.

Post on the fordbarn.com.....I got alot of odd stock parts there.
Yea..... where is the girlfriend pics? : )

 

I did the same pinching to align my A sedan doors. I learned that making the pie cut down into the horizontal part of the window opening made for a straighter window track.

Here are some pics

 

Hey RattlecanRods.....

Did you re-locate the windshield swing arm posts? Any advice there?

Thanks for all the comments!

 

I have a '30-'31 coupe and I have the same kind of hinges as Myke. I've only seen the "sectional" style on the roadsters. That doesn't mean that they didn't come on the coupes in some cases. Just a thought, but perhaps that is a sport coupe cowl you have. Hope that is some help.

Woody

 

Great start on your coupe, that 6 inch cut looks bad ***!

 

it's about time.

 

Rolf has a great post and linkfor all that
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61640

 

Elrod,

Cool Chop! And even cooler girl! I agree it 's probably roadster hinges. My Coupes hinges are solid also. I'm also in the middle of chopping my 31 Coupe. I don't have a garage so I snuck my car into my Moms garage when she went on a Vegs trip. She totally tripped when she got back. I told her it wouldn't take long - it's been there for two months now and I'm not even close to being finished. She's been real cool about it so far. After geeting over the initial sight of my rusted heap inside and her brand new Integra outside. I only went for a 3" chop. I might have to rethink it your 6" chop is ***S. The photo's of your chop is a great help! Keep us updated! Good luck!!!!

rustfarmer

 

Man and all this time I loved going to my shop to get away from chicks

On my sedan I eliminated the top hinge and only used the lower two. No problems with it at all. Mine is also chopped 6", and it supports the little doors fine

 

Hinge removal on 30/31 style cowls....

Well, I'm probably an expert on removing the hinges from the 30/31 style cowls, so far I've owned 5 of these style bodies over the past 33 years.

And I still have one to remove the hinges on. I've done everything method-wise thru the years. I know what works and what doesn't work.

When I got my first A ( a 1930/31 coupe in 73), my dad helped me by soaking the screws with penetrating oil. Liquid wrench. And grinding a good screwdriver to fit the heads of the screws. All I can say is that it worked on a few of them. Not all of them. There are three special flathead 5/16" - 24 UNF screws per hinge. And three hinges per side, for a total of 18 hard to remove screws. We then tried drilling them out. the problem is that the screws are longer, and even if you drill thru the head, there is a longer part behind, and you just can't remove it. Period. Several of the hinges were left behind on the cowl, as I was able to remove the hinge pins. (Which is another story!), to remove the doors from that coupe body that I bought for parts to restore the first one.

(And so it sat for 32 years in my garage, every so often I'd shoot some WD 40 or some Kroil on the screws....I did use some Kano Kroil to remove the screws on another coupe cowl...and spent a long time repeatedly applying Kroil and some heat from the oxy-acetylene torch.) I literally fought with it every morning for a few hours after I got out of work. For over a week. But I got them out. Not one of my favorite things to do.

A few weeks ago, I think I found the best method to date. I TIG welded a small "***" on the center of the screws, (remember, dad and I drilled the heads off several of the screws...and couldn't remove them from the cowl)

Just enough to give me something to grab onto with a nice new set of Vise Grips. I grabbed it when it was red hot, and worked it back and forth to break it loose. It turned right out.. It seems that the heat from welding expanded the screw enough to break the rust bond, and when I grabbed the *** that was welded onto it, it cooled off, evidently it caused enough shrinkage to allow it to move.

The first time in 75 years...

The following week I did the same thing to remove the torched off hinges from a 30 Coupe that I bought back in 97. No problems, all 18 of the screws came right out.

I have another 31 Sedan cowl that I will have to do the same to. I won't do it any other way.

Now on hinge pin removal. When the hinge pins are installed, the bottom of it is "set" with a hammer blow to expand the bottom of the hinge pin so it won't back off. You have to eliminate this swedging, to get the pin out of the door hinge.

Grind or file this bottom of the hinge pin so it is even with the bottom of the hinge part on the door.

Apply penetrating oil, heat with a torch and apply beeswax...use any of the usual methods to remove a rusted part....

Try using a pin punch and a good hammer to drive the pin upwards....if it moves a bit, use some more penetrating oil and drive it back down, keep working on it, back and forth until it comes out.

I even made up a small press with a hardened set screw to press the pin up. It didn't work very well.

You can drill out the pin from the bottom. you don't have to go all the way thru, just enough to go thru the door part of the hinge.. This is hard to keep it centered, but it does work to relieve the pressure. I've also ground off the head of the pin, and then used a 1/4" drill to remove the serrated section in the door hinge, then used a smaller drill to remove the section of the pin in the door hinge. New oversized pins are available, the stockers are smaller than 1/4"...the OS pin is 1/4". You can use even use a 1/4" round headed rivet to replace the hinge pins. Or get them from Snyder's in OH or Brattons or any of the Model A dealers in parts.

If you drill from top and from the bottom you can usually remove the door hinge from the door, then get it into the milling machine vise and then get a nice shot at removing the pin by drilling.

Nothing wrong with elimination of the top hinge. Personally I think it looks better with all three hinges. I even know of one guy who eliminated the middle hinge on his chopped Tudor. to each his own...

(My coupe I chopped 2" to be able to save the doors. They were bashed in the door frame area and I figured that if I did a minimal 2" chop then I could save the doors by cutting and reworking the bashed in parts. Rust was a large problem too. This car should have gone to the crusher, it was that bad condition-wise. I got parts for the body from 16 different Model A coupes.)

I did a lot of research before I did my top chop. I had grafted on both sides of the tops to the body to replace damaged parts of the top turret. I fought with myself over how much to chop it, as I'm pretty tall at 5' 11"....I grew up thinkiing that a 4" chop was perfect. Reallistically, in a Coupe a 3" top chop is pretty severe. I'm wondering how hard it will be to drive your car with a 6" chop.

Just my 2 cent's worth. Hope this helps.

Good Luck

Mark aka Abonecoupe31

 

THANKS Mark / abonecoupe31! Tons of great stuff there. Would welding a nut to the tops of the screw heads with a MIG welder work as well as your TIG method? Also, thanks on the tip for the pins. I was trying to drive them out by pounding downward (the pin in my door doesn't have a top) makes sense to file off the bottom and move upward.

I've driven a coupe that was chopped 6 inches before and it was a unique experience! Being just under 6'4" tall, I was still comfortable in there. I'm going with the 6 inch chop because the body I found was already chopped that way from it's past life of some kind of hot rod body. I'm determined to bring it back to life.

Dodgerodder: Thanks for the advice from your own experience of removing the top hinge. With the windows being so small, I think I would like them out of the way.

Scott: Thanks for the link! I've seen that site before in the past. Great time to revisit it!

Rustfarmer: Ha! Yeah. I know how projects can drag on. Your 3 inch chop may be better for overall enjoyment. 6 inches is pretty severe, but I think it is going to look great hi-boy'd on the 32 rails. In my opinion, those rails give the body the height it needs to pull off a chop like this.

Evel: You're a goob.


Another Question
When chopping the cowl.... Should I cut 6 inches off the top to not mess with welding anything, or cut in the middle and pie cut like I did on the doors?

 

I have those same safety goggles! Dead ***y!!!

 

I reworked my A-posts with a big piecut on the upper post section so that the front edge of the top post was aligned with the bottom, not angled. I have yet to fit up the windshield, but I plan on fabricating new mounts as the previous owner f'd up the OEM units.

I will snap some pics of the posts when I get home from work.

 

That is one sweet looking chop! Some might think 6" is aggressive. I personally think it looks great. Your plans of high boying it on '32 rails will really pull it all together. Btw, your g/f sounds rad.

 

I cut my "A" pillars on the cowl on the bottom..Took out 2" for the top chop, then rewelded it...on the inside of the cowl...then made a small pie cut with a small cut off wheel in the die grinder.....(pie cut and opened it up to fit the bottom)..I didn't have to do anything to the hinge part...I moved it into the right position by moving it on the Windshield frame...(I used an aluminum repop that I got from Snyder's in OH..)

Hope this helps...

Mark aka Abonecoupe31

 

Very Cool, Elrod - and thanks to all for the good info. I think I've decided on 4 inches out of my 28. The 6 looks very cool but I agree I think it could keep things 'interesting.'

 

i am half tempted to put the roof back on my 29 and chop it.

 

As far as taking screw out of the door pillar, here is the cat's a$$ ---

Basically it is an adaptor for your air hammer...
yea, they usually come with a chizel, a sheet metal cutter and a punch... and bein's that I buy the cheap ones at Kragen, I usually have an extra chizel or two lyin' around...
So, I hacked the end off of a bit... ground the chrome off a Tiawan 1/4" socket... welded that to the end of the old chizel and then welded an arm made out of 3/8" rod onto the side.
To use this wonder tool... all you do it install it in your air hammer, put a tip in the end of it and then lightly apply pressure to the trigger... now you don't have to go to town on it and put full line pressure to the hammer... just a dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-dat rhythm will do. once you give it a dozen hits or so, begin applying pressure to the handle and the screw will come out... guaranteed you will NEVER have to drill another screw out again. [/SIZE]

Do a search on "Tech Tip 309... Rusty Screw Removal Made Easy "

I know SamIYam gets my thanks for this idea. IT WORKS. Went over the screws on my coupe doors with a torch and gave them a warm up then treated them to some Liquid Wrench. Every one came out easy. Only one had a bit of damage to the Robertson Head (Canadian car). Other screws came out easy without the heat.

The only critique to SamIYam's design is the leverage arm doesn't have to be that long, it is just needed to turn the screw, not lever it out and I found it worked better with my hammer with about 40 psi of air pressure, not as violent.

Thanks again SamIYam this is a great tool.

PS if you have more money than time, it is available from Eastwood, I think around $40.

Canuck

 

I've got a 28-29 coupe body that was chopped when I got it. Can someone tell me what the dimensions are stock so I can figure out how much it's been chopped??

Thanks for any help guys.

Matt

 

My "29 coupe was chopped 3". I just measured the door window at the A pillar, it measured 11 1/2", so 14 1/2" unchopped. I also measured the windshield and the gl*** is 10 1/4" at the A pillar.

 

We have a sedan, not a coupe. But the original window height was 14 1/2, same as the coupe. We went to a custom show and measured the ones we liked. Ended up at 4 1/4.

 

your cowl is probably a briggs fordoor they have those style hinges.

 

Thanks for the heads up on the cowl type.

Still gotta break those screws loose! Thanks for the tips!!

 

lot's of good info here. thanks guys.

 

i also have a sedan and its chopped 5 inchs . i removed the top hinge also and it works jus fine

 

nice work on the door frames but make sure you cut the lower window track and weld it back in to match the angle the upper window track is now in. If you dont your windows will have a chance of breaking or a sticky spot rolling them up and down.


also my 30 pick up had the house style hinges.

 

The top hinge stops the door dropping, I moved the slide pin on the A pillar so i could use standard sliders and also had to pie cut the A pillar to allow the taper to flow and that was with a 3 3/4 chop.





Hope it helps. I also have sedan cowl hinges but will turn up some spacers.