Making a convertible?

I am wondering if I chop a 1953 Chevy 210 into a convertible if I need to worry about the stability of the chassis? I am almost sure that the 53 does not have a unibody chassis. But I wanted to see if anyone had any insight. thanks

 

So you're saying you want to cut the roof off of a '53 Chevy? The car is body-on-frame, but the frame isn't designed to support the car without a roof, that's why factory convertibles had an extra X member in the chassis. If you just cut the roof off without any frame reinforcements, your door gaps will go to hell after a while and they won't open and close properly.

There are two ways to do this and make it work well. The best way is to use a convertible donor car, swap in the frame reinforcement and swap the doors and quarters and top frame onto your car. It's very involved, and finding a donor can be tough/expensive, but it is do-able.

The other way would be to reinforce your frame to make it more rigid, then take your roof off and build a lift-off style Carson top. This could work too and there are tech articles on the HAMB showing some being built.

If your plan is just to cut the roof off of the car and drive it around like that, with no top and without doing anything to the frame, you will ruin the car.

 

Are you converting in to a convertible or just a full time roadster? Either way you are gonna need to beef up the body, the roof gives the body a lot of support. With the roof gone the body is going to want to bend down in the rear at the door openings creating a huge problem. The only one I watched being done, the owner before he cut the top off he welded 2x4 square steel tube the length of the rockers, this according to the owner, gave the body the strength it needed so it would not bend in half.

 

^ Saved me a lot of typing, pay particular attention to the last sentence.

 

The bolded sentence is your clue you shouldn't be planning any major modifications to a car without A LOT more research.

 

that jumped out at me too.

 

That last sentence is spot on!!
I've seen a couple situations where just chopping at top without bracing the body resulted in the body sagging just enough to screw up door gaps. And that was without the car even moving.
The convertibles, as was said, have a different frame to make up for the lack of the roof. On a coupe or sedan, the roof is an integral part of the structure of the car.
So either modification will need to be done to the original frame, or a rag top frame should be found.

 

taka a 2 liter soda bottle or pop bottle depending on where you live. Fill it up with water and try taking a drink with one hand. Now cut the top off and try the same. Its a crude comparison but you"ll get the point when the bottle caves in and dumps all over you because it no longer has anything to stiffen it up and support that weight.

 

You could do this, but it will suck.

Also, post an introduction.

 

If you do a search on here for chopping tops or look at the Tex Smith's how to chop tops at the bookstore the first thing mentioned most of the time is to get the door gaps right and then brace the body before cutting the top off. That is because most cars or trucks for that matter flex a bunch when the top is cut loose. If you cut the top off and tried to drive it the door gaps would be constantly changing and the doors would probably bind if you parked the car where it had a twist to it. Unless you reinforce the frame before doing any cutting I'd leave it alone.
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I chopped the top off my 51 Plymouth. I built and "X" in my frame kind of like a convertible...Alot more work to do still, but I'm on my way!

 

if you have ever seen a real convertible or even a Hardtop without any interior in it you will see that there is also a bunch of extra bracing inside the body to keep the quarters from moving.

if your goal is to turn it to junk you will succeed. cutting the roof off doen't make it a convertible. it usually makes it a turd.

 

Please do not ruin a good car!

 

49fink nailed it...I wanted to hrdtp one of mine years ago cause i couldn find one at the time & the key was reinforcing the inner structure..Just behind the door jam down to the floor & across to the driveshaft tunnel...Is the key!

 

Hardtops and verts also have extra braces on the under side of the floors.

 

Lots of good advise here. I did it with a 47 Ford, but I had an excellent coupe and a parts car convertible that had everything I needed to complete the job including a good solid open car frame. As far as your Chevy goes, I have a friend that's done a number of these and he won't use a post car. He says the only way to go is to start with a hardtop. Liek I say - he's done quite a few so I hope you can find a good hardtop and not ruin a little post car. Good luck.