TECH WEEK: Chopping a 1947 Ford Sedan Coupe

Lip? Do you mean drip rails? Or did you mean lid?

 

Great detail and input on this process, thanks for posting.

 

Thanks to all. Shannon kept getting annoyed everytime I made him stop what he was doing so I could take a picture I wanted to make easy for someone to print this out and take into the garage and start cutting.

 

I agree with the back window needing to be smaller, but great job on the chop. These cars are hard to get the proportions right after a chop and you nailed it!

 

LID!! Roof. Top.

Sorry ... I got a bit carried away on the key board.

PACO

 

HA HA! No problem. Just making sure we were clear on that.

 

Fantastic detail - thanks!

 

Great chop. The reinforcement in the A-pillar is probably the single most important tip in your entire piece. When you look at how the pillars are constructed, you realize it's impossible to fully weld every piece of factory metal back together. It's one part of chopping a top that's always scared the shit out of me from a safety standpoint.

Also, I love the HUGE quarter windows, it makes the whole car look leaner and meaner.

 

great work guys!

Ford made em a little too tall

 

Love the detail on the chop.
I learn't a few things here.

 

I bet it is, pictures never do stuff like this justice.

 

I notice a small resembelance so far....

http://public.fotki.com/Rikster/11_...ms_48_ford_coupe/_samfoose48ford5jackjpg.html

 

For those who think the rear window should have been chopped. These windows are curved and tempered.

 

THought so. It looked that way. I did not want to fool with that. Getting it replaced with flat glass would look VERY wrong. Not tryin to have a hack job on my hands.

 

Nice work ! Speaking from experience , not an easy car to chop I was gonna do a tech week post on my chop but didnt bother cause I spent too much time in the shop...which is good I guess lol! Again nice job!!

 

I have been keeping track of your build for some time now. I appreciate your input. Your build is definately not for the fainthearted.

 

Fantastic thread...well documented and great workmanship too! I have had one of these coupes sitting in the corner of my shop for years wishing I could find just the right "look" before cutting the top. I think you have accomplished that and then some. Your top chop is an inspiration.....kudos!

-Shifter

 

thank you kind sirs. Maybe this will help out a few kats. I would like to think so.

 

That is what I wanted! I hope you get to it. In reality, we did not put a timer on how long this process took us. We worked on it after Shannon is done with the his shop's customer cars and when I get off work in the evening. Add a couple of hours on the weekend. We started 1/13/11 and finished on 2/12/11 If I go by the timestamp on the pictures, we are sitting right at 35 hours to get to this point.

 

Info for the future. If you do another one a different way of doing the rear between the window and trunk lid would be to have a business cpe roof it has a larger area between there. Plus if you wanted to lay the window down more it would be easier. as it has slope built into it. By the way, excellent tech

 

well well well. Nice to know for next time. I just did not want the roof looking to big. Hope that makes sense?

 

Great job and a great job of documenting the slicing and dicing!

 

ok now put it back on !!!!

 

HA HA! That would be fun... how to unchop a 47 coupe! Damn. That would be alot of work actually.

 

Very nice work

 

Compare the two in the pics on post 15 of this thread. The blue one is a business/short door and the red is the club/long door. Someone questioned earlier about the interchangeability of the doors. The business cpe and the 4dr sedan doors interchange and the club cpe and 2dr sedan doors interchange. There's just over 10" difference between the long and short doors
Yes I understand what you meant about the roof possibly getting so that it looked too long.

 

I knew there was a name for the long door. Club Coupe. I could not remember it. Thanks!

 

do you have to change the thread title now?

 

Done.

 

Thats exactly right ,the doors I used on my conversion were from a 2 door sedan ...I contemplated keeping the 4 door ones and making a business coupe but it would have meant even more work lol.