Another step towards being a 2-door

mrsbojigger

Hi Guys,
I made a little progress towards turning my 4-door sedan into a 2-door coupe today. These two post pieces were given to me by Jay Eldridge. It is sure making this transformation a lot easier. Thanks a million again Jay for your generosity.
Peace,
Chaz

[Deleted User]

No problem Chaz, glad they worked for you! Man, your ride sure is coming along beautifully. Very nice workmanship too. And thanks for your generosity in the beautiful gifts you sent Dima and I!

What are you doing about the quarter windows? I don't remember, though I'm sure you told me before.

Jay

P.S. You'll have to drive out this way when you've got her done and have some of Tanya's great cooking!

bent metal

Looks great! So is this going to have three windows down the side? Or are you going to make it like a brougham?

mrsbojigger

Hi Bent,
Probably neither! It will eventually evolve into either a 2-door hardtop or a 3-window coupe. If I go with the 2-door hardtop route, I already have a set of 1956 Chevy hardtop rear window control mechanisims I can use. I have the complete inner panels from the Chevy which can be welded directly in place in the Hudson which will save a lot of time and effort of mounting these mechanisims. If I go with the 3-window coupe style, then there will be no back side windows, just the long door glass in the doors. See Photoshopped pic below.
Just tossing around ideas since ideas are cheaper than cutting up real metal. Does all this make sense?
Peace,
Chaz

Ol racer

Chaz,



Either way you decide on the side windows your conversion from a Sdn is looking really neat. I would go with one long window theme for style & simplicity..

Unknown

Your 3 three window concept is really cool !!

faustmb

I like the 3 window concept as well. My wife got a kick out of seeing our car modified. I should send my dad a copy and and if he likes the mod? He would freak. lol



Someday I need to build somthing like that....



Matt

Browniepetersen

How about a chopped top?

bent metal

Wow, that's wild. So your planning on moving the back window forward and changing the deck lid to the longer coupe style. That would make it so you would have to either chop the front portion of the roof, or raise the rear portion to make the roof lines line up. This is a very involved project. Can't wait to see the progress.:)

mrsbojigger

It'll be chopped 3 1/4". 2 1/4 inches will be taken out of the A pillar vertically and the other 1" from the roof skin. The rear tulip panel will be extended to mate with the new roof line. Possibly turning the rear window upside down which will be similar to the '51 Mercury.
Peace,
Chaz

bent metal

Awesome! How long before you start on that part of the job? ...I'm anxious!:)

RL Chilton

bent metal wrote:

Awesome! How long before you start on that part of the job? ...I'm anxious!:)

LOL!! So is Mrs. Bojigger! . . .

mrsbojigger

Yes, nobody is more anxious about getting it finished than Mrs. Bojigger. She has been pestering me to let her take it out to the local drag strip and run it once it's finished. :eek:

As far as timelines, I don't know when all the will be finished. There are many factors involved such as MONEY, labor time, MONEY, my age (70), help by others and MONEY. To put this project in perspective, it took me 23 years to finish my '47 Ford so this one is going quite quickly. I'm making the mechanicals the top priority right now. There were 2 days of down time with the mechanicals so I had switched back to the sheet metal panels to cut down on lost time. I try to do at least one thing a day on the car even it it is just changing out a bolt and I follow this routine faithfully.

I will continue taking progress photos and posting them for you all.

Peace,
Chaz

esfoder

Wow quite the undertaking!!!Has anyone else done this with any success?



Great concept



Looking forward to following along on this one.



Dusty

[Deleted User]

I think someone in Australia did one and the pic was floating around here somewhere. It was beautifully done and Chaz is right on track to be just as nicely done. We all await anxiously Chaz's updates to this thread.

RL Chilton

jsrail wrote:

I think someone in Australia did one and the pic was floating around here somewhere. It was beautifully done and Chaz is right on track to be just as nicely done. We all await anxiously Chaz's updates to this thread.

think that's snazzy, you should see his Ford! Mods are out-STANDING!!

mrsbojigger

Progress today! Waiting on mechanical parts to come in so rather than have more down time I switched hats and started back to work on the sheet metal. The doors needed to be lengthened 4" for the correct "look" I envision so I started by shortening the rear fender panels 4". Once they are shortened, I will then lengthen the doors.
Peace,
Chaz

Unknown

That's some nice looking work Chaz. I wish I could do sheetmetal work that nice. That's way above my pay grade. Keep those pic's coming!

bent metal

Awesome! Keep the pictures coming, PLEASE!



Very interesting project.:)

mrsbojigger

I now have the door posts on both sides cut to their new size and welded in place and both rear panels mounted to them.
I'm now working on lengthening the doors. I've already cut one of them in half. That was quite scary seeing the door laying there in 2 pieces! It's head scratching time on how do I ever rejoin these pieces with a 4" filler in the middle and still keep everything straight. More later!
Peace,
Chaz

rambos_ride

mrsbojigger wrote:

I now have the door posts on both sides cut to their new size and welded in place and both rear panels mounted to them.
I'm now working on lengthening the doors. I've already cut one of them in half. That was quite scary seeing the door laying there in 2 pieces! It's head scratching time on how do I ever rejoin these pieces with a 4" filler in the middle and still keep everything straight. More later!
Peace,
Chaz

Great progress Chaz!

I'd look to weld up an adjustable "jig" or internal/exo-skeleton to temporarily hold the pieces semi-rigid and actually mount hinges and the door to get your alignment correct, then tack weld the structure so it's rigid.

Then you can remove the door as a single piece and template your new filler piece knowing the jig will hold everything in place as you weld it up.

mrsbojigger

Dan,
WHAT?
Boy that was a mouth full in just a couple of sentences. I had to re-read it 3 times before I understood. Yes, that's exactly what I will do. I'll make some sort of jig to keep everything in aligment as per your input.
Peace,
Chaz

rambos_ride

mrsbojigger wrote:

Dan,
WHAT?
Boy that was a mouth full in just a couple of sentences. I had to re-read it 3 times before I understood. Yes, that's exactly what I will do. I'll make some sort of jig to keep everything in aligment as per your input.
Peace,
Chaz

I was trying to describe my thoughts without a picture!More like WTF, eh?

The door shell without windows and regulators, weight-wise is easy to work with.

My thinking was to make a box frame with a sliding component that lets you adjust the width of the door pieces while it's mounted to the car.

Then once you get the door opening and closing with the correct gaps - tighten or tack weld the adjustment on the box frame - then pop the door off to build/weld-in the filler pieces.

At least you're not also doing a chop/section - then you'd have to adjust the door both directions!

mrsbojigger

Right on Dan, You're the Man!
I did understand what you meant. It just took a little time for it to sink in. You have to remember I'm over 70 now and everything seems to be whizzing by at a faster rate these days.
Your suggestion is the way to go. That's what I am doing and it is working. I found out it was stilll 1/4" too long so some "adjusting" is in order. I'll work on it more tomorrow if the temperatures are a little more tolerable. It's been in the 100+ range everyday for a while. I go out to the porch (where the car is being built) and work about 5-10 minutes at a time so I don't over do it.
Peace,
Chaz

mrsbojigger

Now here's where this stretching the doors gets a little weird. I'm very particular with measurements since my background is being a mapping draftsman for many years. I don't like anything over a 64th off. I had already stretched the left door and it is working fine. When I went to the right side of the car to stretch the door something was off and I couldn't figure what it was. The door was in the correct location bolted to the cowl, the newly created B-posts were the exact same measurements back from the cowl on both sides. What was wrong? I measured and re-measured and spent half the day working on the problem. I even made a template of the curves on the front of the right door and compared it to the left side. It matched!
Then the AHAA! light bulb went off in my head and I solved the problem. I measured the lengths of the front fenders. The right front fender is 1/4" longer than the left fender and pressing back into the door causing it not to shut properly. The car has never been in a wreck and these are the original fenders from the factory. Go figure!
Peace,
Chaz

bent metal

haha, I'm not surprised. I've had similar experiences. On one 47 pick-up I did, I had to move the "B" pillar forward 5/16" from it's original position just so I could make everything look right.

My advise (not that you need any), don't get too hung up on measurements. They had a little "give and take" and "that's good enough", when they made these things in production. Which I'm sure you know.:)

Your car looks great! Keep the pictures coming.:)

rambos_ride

bent metal wrote:

haha, I'm not surprised. I've had similar experiences. On one 47 pick-up I did, I had to move the "B" pillar forward 5/16" from it's original position just so I could make everything look right.
My advise (not that you need any), don't get too hung up on measurements. They had a little "give and take" and "that's good enough", when they made these things in production. Which I'm sure you know.:)
Your car looks great! Keep the pictures coming.:)

Unlike the AMC Pacer , they probably kept the tolerances larger for fitting because many parts where still hand formed?

That would be my guess, unless the presses of the time didn't keep good tolerances after use which would also predicate a larger margin of error in fitting.

mrsbojigger

Well more than likely I'll use the OEM method of dealing with it. After studying it for a while it looks as if I could just insert a shim behind the door hinges so the door moves back enough to give a nice gap since there was NO gap at all. That would sure beat major surgery on the fender. Sounds as if I'm getting a little weary of making corrections doesn't it?
Peace,
Chaz

mrsbojigger

Yep! The right fender IS longer by 1/4". I measured it again just make certain but the whole front end sheet metal fits together OK.
I think the shim on the door hinge should get everything back into homeostatis. I tested it and it works. A little odd but it works.
Peace,
Chaz

RL Chilton

I've been thinking a lot about this the last few days. I think y'all have pretty much nailed it, with the "it's still working, don't mess with it" theory. I was pondering the "why" the difference happened in the first place.



Try this on for size:



Dies, especially the very large ones like the ones used to stamp out fenders, hoods, quarters, doors, etc. have a finite life expectancy. As the dies go through hundreds and thousands of stampings, they tend to soften, stretch and change over heavy use. Usually it makes the parts that come out of the dies somewhat "spread out". No reason to think that there was an interim time when one front fender die got replaced, and started stamping fenders and got matched up with a fender that was stamped from an older set of dies, hence the difference in lengths. Custom applications, limited runs, hand-built cars would never do such a thing, but mass production requires an entirely different set of rules to follow, hence, the "If it's still working, don't change it" theory I think is spot-on.

mrsbojigger

Hudson308,
I always appreciate constructive ideas and information.
Peace,
Chaz