real nice-----had one way back in high school during the last ice age. how do you plan to lower it?? seriously, i can see this thing finished in my mind and it will be way cool. takes guts to chop a "door", lots of pillars. good job
Started the lead work along with some other stuff today. Can't wait to post it all. It's really coming along.
Dude... You need to hard top it. You went through all the trouble of removing the b pillar, just to put the window frames back on??? Doesn't make any sense. Why bother unless you're going to go all the way and make it a hardtop. You obviously go the skill to do it, considering what we've seen you do so far, now make it happen! (and I'm glad to hear you're going to put a bumper on it)
Okay, so I got some work done. First I patched the little holes still left over from slicing out the spears, then I cut out the rusty garbage tail pan and made a new one (nope it's not rolled. I also cleaned up all of this old rust while I was at it Here is the new pan: another view:
Then me and my pal Les did a bunch of leading on one of the c pillars: Here's how it turned out: Optically it looks really weird and wavy and snotty, but its actually quite smooth. We should be hitting it with some primer soon.
After I ran out of lead (2 lbs.) I cut out the other b pillar and opened the whole car up. No wrinkles or twists either! That's the old man standing in the background. I also was messing around with my front bumper and got it kind of into place (it's sitting on top of some blocks of wood and stuff) I think it looks real good, but I will have to narrow it at least 7" Probably closer to 10" And again: So there you go. I think it's coming right along.
Definetely different... I like it! You'll be able to run a team of midgets through those doors when they're opened... cool! You'll also find out very quickly that lead sticks go fast... My brother in law got some 1 lb. sticks from Amazon.com... for about 7 bucks a stick. I'd go that route if you're going to lead a lot. We got 10 lbs. and we're almost 5 sticks in... after doing the headlights!
Reinforce that floor, A and C pillars, and roof!!! It may not be twisting now, but going down the road you're sure to screw up all that hard work.
I'll have to take a picture of it next week. It's gonna be the stock back bumper, maybe flipped, maybe not, and I bought a 57 Cadillac license plate overrider. As for the reinforcing, the roof, the A and C pillars have been reinforced, I haven't reinforced the floor, but the frame is gusseted to the truck arm crossmember. Do you think I should also reinforce the floor as well?
Yes... the frame may not twist with the reinforcements but the body will in between all of the body mounts and may cause undue stress on them. I'd run some "stringers" just to be safe. Better to do it now than worry about it later.
It's all about peace of mind... i'd rather take a few hours to do something rather than try to fix it when it breaks. I do not like the words catastrophic failure haha
Dude, sweet work so far! I had talked myself out of chopping my moredoor 55 Olds, and now its looking like I should do it. I like your suicide rear doors, I plan on leaving the post in mine. I cant wait to see this thing as it progresses, Keep up the good work!
There was a car called a Facel Vega Excellence that was a pillarless fourdoor. Inspite of the fact that it was built on a very hefty frame, they had all kinds of problems getting the doors to open/close/stay closed. You couldn´t park it with one wheel on the curb and expect to be able to get out! They latched the doors onto the rocker. I think building in extra re-enforcement now would be a good plan. Looked damn cool though!
Great progress, lovin' every step of it....also lookin' forward to your pics of the rear bumper set up. / primerkid
sorry I went to mexico, I'll be working on it today but I won't have pics for a few more days. I did pick up a nice mexican blanket for the seats though.
geez its been busy around here!. The swap meet was crazy. I scored a toploader and some headlight rings though (actually just one headlight ring, still looking for the other one.) I got bumped to a different job so I can only work on the 51 once a week now. bummer. But I am still plugging along. I've been stripping paint and bondo and fixing rust spots and filling trim holes. Some of you asked about the rear bumper so here are some pics. Its the stock bumper with a 57 cadillac license plate surround, and I may or may not go with some bumper guards. I have some pretty cool ones (i don't know what they are from) or i might keep it simple like this, We also started doing the door tops. It seems pretty easy going so far. so there it is. sorry its been so long in updating. Things should normalize now though.
A couple people have told me that. I haven't picked one up yet. I was told it's from the LARS,last year.
The Jalopy Journal
