Manky's Pop.

[Manky Monkey]

.....Success!!
We now had a cabriolet cab. Or a pile of interestingly shaped scrap metal.

[Manky Monkey]

The required 3 inches were sliced off the pillars.

[Manky Monkey]

And the roof was plonked back on.
We were stunned to discover it actually fitted pretty damn well. The front windscreen pillars line up beautifully, with all the moulding lines flowing almost perfectly. Nothing that can't be finished to perfection with a little time & patience.
Because the roof section's moved forward to line up the front pillars, the rears are about an inch too far forward. Sideways though, they're spot on. So we'll slice them off under the gutter line & slide them back to reattach in their original positions. With luck we won't even have to add any filler strips of steel into the rear of the roof panel as the cut line lines up with the bottom half of the pillars nicely.

[Manky Monkey]

.

[Manky Monkey]

Lunatic did a quick check of the symmetry of our cuts by making a cardboard template of one side of the windscreen, then flipping it over to check the fit on the other side. Spot on. Damn we're good! 

[Manky Monkey]

The front pillars are now virtually finish-welded with just a little fettling & smoothing off to do, while the rears are tacked in place for the time being to keep everything nicely aligned. Next time we'll slide the top of the rear pillars back & fully weld them too, before moving on to the doors.

[Manky Monkey]

Amazing what a difference 3 inches can make!  Much meaner looking now. Shaun was right, 4 would've been too much.

[Manky Monkey]

A bit more "Hmmmm" time -I'm having second thoughts about the green paint now! The black looks much more vintage &, much as I hate the very over-done satin black paint with red wheels combo, I like our red & cream logo against the black. Maybe get the body as straight as we can & go for high finish glossy black with the logo on each door & cream wheels to pick up on the cream in the logo? Perhaps with a simple red coachline along the swageline in the door panels, extending along the top of the pick up bed & the bonnet to tie it all in together?
Ahh well, time to roll it back inside for another night. All in all, a good day's work I think. Many thanks to Lunatic for his welding, (I'm not used to working thin sheet steel, as I mainly weld heavy gauge tube for trike frames). Also to PD for his able assistance. Thanks guys. 

[brock]

   very , very , impressed.

   thought about laying the B posts forward, quadrant cut lower front at the waist line and below the gutter at the back, sort of makes the lines flow a little smoother ( that'll be an opinion in case you didn't spot it  )

[VALLEYSBOY]

cracking work Gents..but then i said that already in shauns thread!!as mankies pop is over spilling in there too

[Manky Monkey]

"very , very , impressed".

-Really? That really means a lot. Thank you.  
Sloping the rear pillars above the waistline would take us back to the Aussie Ute shape again wouldn't it. I'm just not keen on that dome-headed look personally. I prefer the more traditional straight backed cab style.
Even just leaning into the cab over the cat's cradle of bracing poles, I can feel it's gonna be quite claustrophobic to drive. Spread your fingers as wide as you can then hold them up in front of your face -that's the height of the screen I've got to peer through. Stick a large diameter steering wheel in there, windscreen wipers, rearview mirror, tax disc etc & suddenly there's not an awful lot of glass left.
Shaun & I have both gone for 3 inch chops but it turns out my 3 inches is bigger than his! Team Panther measured theirs on the sloping front screen pillars while Team Manky went for the rear upright ones. So ours is a true 3 inches lower while theirs is something like 2 3/4. As Shaun said, it'll be interesting to compare them side by side.

[mouse]

thats looking very cool andy spot on m8

[Firery Fred]

Hi Andy,not really into 4 wheelers but must admit this looks great.There's a Chevy that looks like Ricks,well it does to me the amateur,riding around up here at the moment,sort of cream colour,but I can't catch the guy parked anywhere to get photo's or a chat,catch you later,Fred

[panthershaun]

Nice one Mr Manky. you guys went about the chop a completely different way to Grizz and me. Actually I was Grizz's helper as he is the expert and I am the novice but next time got some killer idea's in my head

[Manky Monkey]

Nab him when you get the chance Fred & send us in a write up & pics please!

Shauny, we certainly didn't have an expert on our team -none of us had tried anything like this before, though Lunatic, Postie_Dave & I are all hotrod fans & have read numerous roof chopping articles in magazines over the years. It's a different matter when you're stood looking at your car with a grinder in your hand though. Maybe it was beginner's luck, or just ignorance of the potential pitfalls mixed with blind optimism, but it seemed to go really well. Touch wood. Maybe there's so many chopped Pops around cos they're so easy to do. All the magazines mention cutting the roof into 4 or 6 sections, leaning pillars backwards or forwards etc -not just cutting it & plonking it back in place again. Of course, we only had half a roof to do.
-So how did you go about it then?