'46-8 Ford chop rescue

[FATnLOW]

  Steve...How  many  inches  do you think the top  chop will have???   the original was 7 inches....  you plan on raking the front a little bit?....and if that was your good hand I would hate  to the bad one.....be careful man....

[vette59jdwl]

Sammons  that looks nasty  (the hand i mean) OOUCH  vette59jdwl

[ghost28]

OUCH!  That hand looks pretty sore,  Take it easy on it for awhile. I think taking it all off and starting over is a good choice for that old ford, Not you hand. 

[sammons]

A little out of alignment, it's got a we bit of a pull to the right.

Ed, he wants to keep the 7 inch chop, so....I'm just going to bump up  just a hair.  Gonna try to keep the factory line on the top of the doors, so no rake. I don't think a rake would look good on this body style.

I got the cowl back up and got some bracing in it. Now the doors don't rub on the running boards and the body line is back up.

Ghost I have to get the thinking chair out to figure where to slpice in the front pillar structure.

[ghost28]

Dang it looks cleaner already Are you gonna try to lean the a pillars back a bit to get it to line up with the top, or move the top forward and down to line it up?

[chopper526]

Looks better already, Sammons. I wouldn't know where to start, that's what separates the "mes" from the "yous".

[sammons]

Ghost, I'll probably do more top forward and down, of coarse pillars are gonna have to move a bit. Windshield is 1" wider at the bottom.

Man, I went over to get some more measurments, Shane had the donor car cut down to get the floor pan. I got to looking, heck it was an old hot rod. '56 Pontiac Strato Streak motor and 3sp manual trans, Ford 9", homemade traction bars, chrome rear nurfs, really old bucket seats. They look like bomber seat type but not. Big round holes and wrap around on the steel back rest.It might have scooted back in the day.

[Kiwijeff]

Wow, I'd seen this on the main page, but just found the rest here.
I hope your buddy's looking after you, you should be well compensated for the work, and the damage to your hands.
I'm getting arthritis in mine, so I'm expecting problems in the coming years.

[sammons]

Jeff, I sure hope you aren't getting RA.     Osteo Arthrtis (OA) is bad enough, but Rhumitoid (which I got) attacks all your joints and then some. See your Doc early with that stuff, sometimes they can slow it down.

I'm gonna have to pick on something a little easier on the 'ol hands next time.     Still plugging along, the posts are a real pain. I welded on an inner flange to help support (and to Cleco to) the outer post sheet metal. I had to slice the inner and outer to get everything in alignment. I pushed the lower inside edge in and the upper outside edge out. I believe all the lines are in alignment now.

Don't know about you guy's, but I always slide a piece of tubing up inside the pillar post and plug weld them in.  Dad said it was good practice on chop top or cut top replacements. This one I had split apart, so I bent up some 5/8"  x 1/8" wall round tube, and burnt it in well.

[chopper526]

Sammons, you have a talent!!

[vette59jdwl]

Sammons  I was just thinking You have this all figured out in the back of your mind before you even started now did you not  nice work....vette59jdwl

[TFoch]

Wow, major progress!  You've got it under control!
Tom

[FATnLOW]

Looking good, looks like you're making progress...Take it easy.....

[ghost28]

Nice Job.

[sixball]

Sammons, You are amazing. You are going to save this thing and 10 years from now no one who sees it will know what a mess it was. MAGIC!