After cruising it for a summer, we were enjoying the car but a traditional hot rod needs a hair cut, so as soon as the weather turned to rain, we started mapping out the chop. Deciding on the amount to chop was the hardest part. A Tudor sedan has a roof line that is 1" higher than a coupe. A coupe looks great with a 3" chop but with the longer roof lines of the sedan, I wasn't sure. After siting in a friends 31 Sedan with a 3" chop I made my decision. So with out any delay, the interior got gutted and braced so that when the roof was removed it didn't collapse into itself. A week of careful measurements and re-measuring and triple checking and it was time to take the saw to it. Check it out.
Here you can see some of the bracing to hold the body in place when the roof is removed.
Measure twice- Cut once!
All ready to start cutting
It looks a little different with the roof clean off. We cut the top line first and completely removed the roof. Them we cut the second line and placed the roof back on the car. A few pie cuts here and there and by the end of the night, we had the roof and doors tacked back together and all in place.
Then came the pain stacking hours of spot welding the entire thing back together. You have to take your time here and do one spot weld and then move to another spot on the car or you can get the metal to hot and warp it, which means more body work, and I don't like body work.
Here my friend Shane is teaching my son how to hammer and dolly the body after it was all welded and ground down. Then it was time for body work and paint and my friends body shop.
We only painted the top part of the car that had been chopped. His color match turned out darn near perfect. From one picture to the next it looks easy but there were two full weekends of body work, primering and painting to get it to this point.
Here is all together the first time it was back on the road again. There was a lot of work that I am not showing that was very time consuming, like chopping the windshield frame and installing all new wood inside the car. All the windows had to be remade smaller and I had them made in safety glass as the original windows were still plate glass, scary it you get in an accident.
As far as chops go, the model A is one of the easiest to accomplish as it is so square, but it was still a lot of work. The next time I chop one, I would like to try and wedge it.
