Technical Top chop advice

First chop , doing 4.5 “ on my 31 model a coupe . Should I take out the wood around windows and door posts first before cut , after cut , or not worry about it . Thinking of heat when I weld it back together . Will be tig welding it . Thanks .

Regards
Mike

 

I have done a bunch with out taking the wood out, just frame it best as you can afterwards. just my opinion but 4.5 on a 31 is a bit extreme.
Mark of the 4.5 inches across the windshield and take a look at your vision through it. I found a 3.5 inch cut is real decent. 4.5 on a 28 or 29 is perfect

 

I know on 28-9 the door post wood has screws that are hidden behind the outer skin. Hard to remove that stuff. Is 30-31 the same?

For sure remove the quarter window and rear window wood. Then cut those down with overlapping joints. Much easier to screw the overlapping joints together than it is to weld the wood pieces back together.

 

Take the wood out around the 1/4 windows and back window, then cut the out side skin and remove the upper part of the roof ,
Do not cut the front post or the door latch posts yet,
figure how much you want to chop and then cut the B post off at the top and weld on 2 tabs were the wood bolts to
then take the outside skin off the windshield posts, , cut and weld the inner windshield post and then fit and trim the outside shin of the windshield post and weld back on
Reinstall or replace the top wood , and then reskin the upper part of the roof

Later kb