ClassicCar

there are some blokes in queensland that went to the effort of making a template for a chopped stepdown windscreen and have done a couple that came out looking good, one a sedan to coupe, you know the bronze 48, and also a sedan that stayed 4 door. aint cheap though

That one would be just crazy hard to do- its obviously the rear side window from a brougham. Grafting it to the rear door would be pretty easy- the hard part would be manufacturing the door edge and matching part in the roof. Guess you could use the pieces off the four door from the front part, but the back section around the tight curve would take some ingenuity. Sure looks great, though.

It's a little more difficult than a flat piece of safety glass, but for a glass man, it's not really that much more difficult and certainly very doable. I haven't cut any curved pieces myself, but have done hundreds of flat pieces.

bentmetal-



You're right in that you cannot cut tempered glass. Try it and it will break into a million tiny pieces. However, windshields aren't tempered, they are safety glass (two pieces of glass with a plastic liner between the panes, and can be cut to fit.

One old-time trick I've read about...

When you chop the top, you just recess the front windscreen into the cowl - with appropriate drainage of course...then you can still have a cut-down look in front using full-size, easily replacable glass.

That's a sharp looking car. I noticed the trim on the side of the car. I've lengthened and shortened stainless trim for people but I've never had to make a piece from scratch. Does anyone have any experience with doing something like that?

Nice cars, especially the first one but IMHO they look too much like every other Merc Lead sled. I'd rather see more of the Hudson styling kept.

half baked wrote:

i agree, the first one even has a merc grille shell worked into the front.....

Actually it's a ('54?) Desoto grille, but these were used so often on custom Mercs that many car guys think they belong there. Indeed, the '53 Desoto grille is so pouplar with customizers that you can even buy repop teeth for 'em. Once, when I spotted a bone stock '53 Desoto at a car show with the owner sitting nearby, I joked with him "That Mercury grille almost looks factory on that thing, huh?" He got a good chuckle. :cool:

Man these things look good chopped!!!

hud 50 wrote:

I have recently completed a chop of just under 3 inches and I welded an 'L' shaped lip around the entire inside of the screen opening so glass could be glued in, such as in use on modern cars. I made a template of the curve and started looking for a suitable windscreen to be as close as possible to the original curve. I found that very few late model cars had enough curve to suit but found that VW Kombi from the 1970s windscreens are pretty close. These are in abundant supply and cheap, use a new one not 2nd hand. I also raked the 'A' pilars when I did my chop so this would also change the profile required. I had 4 very good original screens but these are toughened and not able to be cut. Most good Auto Glass companies will have a guy who can cut laminated screens although it is not a perfect art and you will have to pay for broken screens. You can actually get both right and left from the one VW screen. The screens are then glued into the recess created by the 'L' shaped lip (a special windscreen adhesive, a type of SIKAFLEX, is used) and a small rubber mould is then fitted to the outside to finish it off. Its a very neat job and looks great. Hope this can help you.

Sounds interesting! Can you share pictures? New Hudson stepdown widshield panes are available stateside (in clear or tinted!) as well, if a guy wanted to go that route to have the glass cut.

I've found that by setting my 7 MP camera to 0.3 MP, I don't have to resize it very much. Usually cropping out what doesn't need to be there gets it down to where it needs to be.



Just have to remember to reset your camera to the right size before the next Hudson Meet!

hud 50 wrote:

I'm better with a welder than I am with a computer but I'll se what I can do.

Okay, guys;

With a bit of effort I've been able to get a whole series of shots showing how Rod Parnell of Tweed Heads, NSW (Australia) performed the top chop on his '50 Pacemaker sedan. I'll try to post this in chunks, letting Rod do his own explaining of how he accomplished this...



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Roof was given a straight chop, ie: Same amount taken out front and rear and ‘B’ pillars realigned. ‘A’ pillars were raked back to realign and rear panel made to fill behind rear window. This image shows rear window frame removed, centerline marked accurately down roof and onto panel between boot and rear window. Window frame had a brace welded across to hold in place before cutting out. Rear window frame was cut out with jigsaw.



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Pic 1 Shows another angle of rear window frame removed, note that the bottom of the frame has to have the spot welds drilled out to remove; this is the rusty area you see below the bottom of the window frame opening.



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Pic 2 Once you have braced the pillars and marked where you need to make the cuts the pillars can be cut with a normal hacksaw you may be surprised to see how little holds the roof up! I have marked the distance from the gutter to each cut in millimeters. Cut the top ones first, then the bottom cuts. All pillars should be cut at right angles to ensure they will realign.



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Pic 3 Top cuts completed and roof off, the area around the back of the roof above the boot lid is cut with jigsaw. The rear of the rear quarter window needs to be marked so that it will align top and bottom when the roof is lowered back on, the same point above and below the original curve of the window. You can see in this Pic that the top of the cut and the line marked for the bottom cut are directly above and below each other.



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Pic 4 Rear of rear quarter window bottom cut has now been made and the curved section has been removed. The remaining lip does not need to be removed yet as we will used some of this to blend the body line out between the rear window and boot lid.

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Pic 10 Inside of ‘B’ pillars have been pie cut slightly to allow them to bend in to meet roof pillars. Note misalignment of ‘C’ pillars. This is something you don’t have to worry about with a two door but takes some work to fix on the four door.



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Pic 11 ‘C’ pillar misalignment is about 14mm (9/16”) each side and you can see this carries back to the back of the quarter window.



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Pic 12 To fix the realignment I cut the roof from rear to just where the roof rolls down to the screens, this allowed me to realign the ‘B’ and ‘C’ pillars



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Pic 13 I propped up the centre of the roof and lined up the pillars. I then welded steel fence posts (three star pickets) from ‘B’ pillar to ‘B’ pillar and ‘C’ pillar to ‘C’ pillar to hold the roof at the correct width.



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Pic 14 At this point in time it is most important the realign the ‘C’ pillars as these form external bodywork. The ‘B’ pillars can be sliced vertically and thinned to realign as these are inside the closed doors.

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Pic 20 I chose to leave the roof slightly low in the middle to allow for some body filler, this also enables you to take some of the crown out of the roof as these can look ‘top heavy’ particularly if a severe chop is carried out. The roof looks crooked but it’s the camera angle. When you have tacked the roof in place on the ‘C’ and ‘B’ pillars measure the height from the perimeter chassis top to the under side of the door opening and diagonally from top of ‘B’ pillar on one side to bottom of ‘B’ pillar on the other side. This will show you if the roof is on straight, the original cars were not perfect. Mine is within 1 mm top to bottom and 3 mm diagonally. Now is the time to change it if it’s wrong.



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Pic 21 Underside of roof shows the small stitches of weld on the filler strip and the thinning of the ‘B’ pillar bottom section to realign with the top.



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Pic 22 ‘A’ pillars were completely removed and re cut to fit back with new raked angle. These are only welded on the outside at the moment as reinforcing is required.



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Pic 23 Another angle. Fence posts have been removed.



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Pic 24 Despite my blurred picture you can see that the inside of the ‘A’ pillar has been cut away to leave a ‘U’ shaped section remaining. This enables a piece of heavy walled 1” steel box tube to be inserted and welded into the inside of the ‘A’ pillar. In most vehicles the ‘A’ pillar is the weakest point of the roof and reinforcing this area gives some peace of mind.

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Pic 30 Rear doors are done in the same manner.



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Pic 31 The original window frame tops should be able to be used albeit shortened. The rear window frames should line up and by cutting the front window frames after the quarter vent post you can still use the original front and rear side windows. You will have to have front and rear quarter windows made but this is not expensive as they are flat.



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Pic 32 Make sure you align the body lines before you fit the top window frames as these will determine just how much you need to remove.



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Pic 33 Doors should still close correctly and you can see the ‘B’ pillar reinforcement in this shot.



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Pic 34 Rear window frame was refitted but moved up the roof approx 3”. New panel was welded in between boot lid and rear window. As I intended to remove the original body line below the rear window this worked out quite well. I used 3 pieces here as the curve is easier to get right with smaller pieces. I don’t have any special bodywork tools so simple is easier for me. Note the cuts beside the window frame which allow the original curve to be ‘opened up’ and align with new rear window placement.