chopping my 53 pilothouse

[buds truck]

So what is tougher, the cab or the doors? The more I look at doing this myself the more the doors scare me.

doors are a piece of cake compared to the roof. I finished the welding on the cab tonite and ground the welds down, tomorrow I finish the doors. here are a few pics of the rear welds done and some profile pics of the chop. Bud

[tinlizzy]

Bud that is about as super welding as I've seen. We have a certified welder at work and I have seen this guy do some outstanding things but what I see in these pics it don't get no better. congrads on super job. I'm jealous.

Lee

[carl b51]

Bud You did it , the chop turned out GREAT

[Dale Uhrich]

All I can say is YOU'RE THE MAN , good job

[buds truck]

ok guys, last 2 sets of pics of the chop, finished the doors today, posting 10 pics of the process, next thread will be putting a 49 plymouth dash in a 53 polithouse truck. wish me luck!!!!

[buds truck]

second set of pics

[Frank Elder]

Wunnerful, please tell us how U are going to do your glass.

Factory cut down to size, any tint like bronze or blue green?

Brand new custom glass? Will you have to order custom seals or just trim down new ones? One more, visor in your future? I feel excited like I'm about to see an exceptional custom, which is where you are headed:cool:!

[buds truck]

the glass will all be hand cut by louis auto glass in Mount vernon, it will be tinted green. seals will be universal seals that the shop provides for the front, the rears are all stock height so i can go with a good supplier for those. A visor is not out of the question, finding one for this truck might be either impossible or spendy though. thanks for the kind words, Bud

[tinlizzy]

Bud you oughta make yourself a CD to sell, maybe you could make enuff to build another project. Guys like me I'm sure would be interested. U sure made it look easy.

[pflaming]

The CD sounds great or make us an offer. We send you a cab, you chop it and send it back. Might be a nice way to "retire", but be sure to charge the Ford and Chevy guys enough so that we can afford you.

[buds truck]

thanks guys, but with the size of my shop, there is only room for one project at a time and they always seem to be mine. Maybe someday I can get a shop bigger than 20x20. As for a cd, I have a hard enough time with computers, making a cd...... Gawd...... Bud:confused:

[autoartistry]

New to this forum and looks to be a great place.Tinlizzy on the Custom Classic Truck forum posted you were building this truck.I am building a similar setup on my 49 Dodge pickup.(49 Project Dodge on the Custom Classic Trucks website forum).It will be neat to see these trucks progress.Work looks great.

Mike

[Bob_Koch]

for anyone interested auto artistry's forum page is here:

http://forums.customclassictrucks.com/70/6812162/truck-tech/1949-project-dodge/index.html

[Jim Gaspard]

While I'm heading down the stock-only resto road, I also enjoy stories about rodding our trucks.....another soul saved from the crusher. Here's a super rodded B2B where he at least kept everything Mopar. The only thing stock is the body.

http://www.hotrodhotline.com/feature/rrow/2008/08giglio0509/

Jim in Dallas

[tinlizzy]

Here is a thought "Has anyone chopped the top of a panel truck"? Then maybe added some corner windows to the rear area? Would that be wild or at least it would be different.

[bobaloo11]

Beautiful work! Amazing how you fit it all together. What are you using for body filler? The metal must be doing some distorting from the welds.

I'm proud of myself when I can pull out a dent with a toilet plunger!

[buds truck]

there is some distortion on the roof especially, I use Rage body filler as it sands extremely well and goes on well. Bud

[slicknapier]

Bud, what are you using for all your bodywork welding?

[buds truck]

Bud, what are you using for all your bodywork welding?

I use a mac tool (miller) mig wirefeed welder with .023 wire

[smallblockjunkie]

Looks good Bud. I would like to do that with my 49 but I am out voted on that one (one to one) and I lost. Ok to put corvette susp and a LS1 but no chop for me.