TECH: How to make a 4 door cool! OR...Shoebox Ford 2 Door Conversion!

Holy Crap , just went through this thread start to finish...That is some serious sheet metal surgery... You seem to have an eye for the ol' cut and paste method... This is just amazing.... can't wait to see the finished product.... If you can make to Louisville in the spring for Beatersville or the Pre-Beatersville BBQ.. would love to see the car in person..

 

Rolled the Shoebox outside and gave it a good walk around at various distances to make sure nothing looked to out of place.





Then it was time to start on the a-pillars.

Step one is to make sure the roof is centered. I measured off the trunk hinge bolt holes to find the center at the rear of the car.



I eyeballed the center line in the front with the peak in the cowl and double checked with a measurement from the wiper holes.



Then dropped a plumb bob off the peak in the center of the roof.



Relief cuts made, top and bottom of pillar lined up and tacked. Don't forget to check the roof is centered before AND after tacking, heat can really move it around.




Just like doing the roof, piece of TIG wire to check the contour, then weld and finish






Same for the pillar...





And the same again for the upper relief cut.





I didn't want to weld that large a gap shut so I cut some little filler pieces and TIG'd them in.



It can get a little annoying trying to get all the low spots raised. I managed to sneak a big center punch through the sun visor hole.




Here it is mostly done. Not perfect, but it's really really close








Pass. side mostly done, still gotta finish the inside.




Made a template of the completed side to make sure the other side matches.




Yup, gonna take a little work...

 

wow great work, ive never seen somebody make a template for one side like that. thats a GREAT idea.

 

Sounds good. I'll burn a disc with all my chop party pics for you and Dave as well. I better make it password protected in case it ever falls in to the wrong hands though

It doesn't get any better than good friends who know how to have a good time together AND do good work

Hope it points you in the right direction to get going on yours!

If BBQ and car shows are still around when this thing hits the road you can count me in. The tunnel is long and dark on this project!

 

AWwww you've been having fun without us !!

 

Gotta add my x2 to that. Or at least a very minimal slant, to make people wonder if you did it at all.

 

Gotta agree with James D on this one. Here's a 1" to 2" slant for perspective. Had to lower the car a little too.

 

That little bit of slant shows off the curvature of the panels below it. Did that make sense?

 

That little bit of slant looks really good!!

 

Holy crap! My wife's shoebox needs the bottom of the fenders patched and the rockers replaced.....I think I can do it!

 

The slight lean and lowered=awesome

 

Straight pillars break up the flow in my opinion. With the exception of the vent window there are no vertical lines, everything else is leaned, sloped, slanted, round, etc.

Every day I walk in to the shop and see it with no b-pillars, it looks cooler and cooler....I wonder how hard it would be to hardtop it

 

holy hell nice work man! keep them pillars straight!!!!

 

Yeah, it definitelyneeds to be lower. I've pretty much decided to try and stick with 1955 (at the latest) for the build...so I guess airbags are out

Yup, totally

I'm gonna have to have a poll

Just be careful it doesn't snowball! This all started out as an engine swap

Low.....ride......er

 

And it had 2 more doors and the roof was 3" higher


Probably not, you all get up to early for me. I'm gonna have to start a late lunch meet with Bud

 

Thanks Flop, I really appreciate it!! All your metalworking post and pics are what keep me trying to do better. When I grow up, I wanna be like Flop

 

wow!
nuf said.
Frank

 

You sir, are a badass. Looks killer, you made it look easy. Love all the thought and prep work that went into this. I hafta go with slanted B pillars...

 

This slight slant looks really good ! IMHO

 

Awesome metal finishing. The chop turned out fuckin badass. Also slant the pillers there is a reason people slant them. I agree with every other part of the car is slanted and curved. The straight pillers look out of place.

 

You have some amazing skills! I'm a novice at metal working and definately with a TIG. I just got a TIG and have been fooling around with it. I was wondering what size filler rod and amperage you are using for that gauge metal of the roof? It looks so smooth! When you tack are you using any filler?

 

I did a little mockup with the pillars straight and slanted. I wanna do a little photoshop cleanup and then we'll have a vote

 

Thanks LG! I'm using .030 wire from my MIG machine. Start saving the piece of wire you pull out of the MIG when you change the roll, free TIG filler rod

I've got it set to 90 amps but no idea what's actually getting used since I'm controling it with the foot pedal. When the panels are butted up super tight you can tack it with no filler, you can actually run beads with no filler and a little practice. I've always got the filler rod in hand though in case I come up on a spot with some gap.

 

Here's a quickie photoshop with straight pillars.





and with slanted pillars...

 

Man it's looking great!

 

I would have never guessed to use the the wire out of my MIG. That is absolutely genius! You are a great fabricator. Looking foward to more updates.

 

Anybody got ideas for side trim?

Cut up '54 Ford side trim is about the best I can come up with.

 

Slant that shit!

 

straight

 

I guess it's straight on one side and slanted on the other