Dodge A100 Fans Represent!

Spent this past weekend on the final stripping. Well all but the gas tank anyway. That still needs to come out.

Dash - It's welded in?





Air box, which apparently is welded in ?




Some Stuff I removed
 

Notice the nice shape of the cardboard glove box :lol:


This is the fuel filler hose. Think it leaked?


Where it came from


Nice Gas tank HUH?  It's customized



Sans doors


 

I was going to use windowed doors on the side to make it easier to do the chop and then fill the hole in afterward, but the doors fit like ***



Apparently the only way to adjust them is to bend everything till it fits.

At this point, I'm not sure which doors I will use, but I'm going to start thinking about custom doors and hinging.  

Look at how well these doors fit :lol:







 

Well, that's the whole story for now. Hopefully the chop will begin this weekend!  

Well, I got all the doors on the van now. Stripped out the wing windows on the front doors too last night. Aligning doors on an Early Dodge is a *** Finally figured out you need to heat the hinges and bend them to adjust them. That will need to be changed after the chop. Tonight's plans are to clean the van and remove the glass from the other doors. Then I will start marking my cuts.

Friday morning she will go under the knife!  

Well, I spent a few hours in the garage on Friday and some time on Saturday.

First I had to take the van outside to clean it. I couldn't write on 40 years of filth.

This is with the doors that will be on the van, unless of coarse I find even better doors. If not these will get repaired later on.









 

Getting Clean







 

Marking out the cut lines...











 

Drilling out spot welds in the jambs to remove the jamb so the sides can be folded in to meet the new roof edge. At first I had planned to remove only the portion above the cut line, but then decided to take out the whole jamb above the folding point to make it easier to fold without the risk of creasing the side panel.

John (Quiet1) Stopped by to drop off some Gullwings that I will be delivering to Thaw. He helped out for a while. Thanx again John!







Installing support bracing. I had planned to put in a lot more, but as I worked, I realized excessive bracing was not needed.



 

Rear corners removed





Drilled out interior rib and door jamb spot welds at the roof line.





Think they have enough spot weld here ?

 

Whenever doing custom work like this, you find that with the thousands of tools that you have, you still need more. I could not get the drill into some spots to get the spot welds cut out. I have three different drill extensions, and the spot weld cutter didn't fit in any of them. I searched the garage for an adapter to go from a hex bit to a square 1/4" socket bit, and couldn't find one. It's on the list now to buy. Anyway, instead of wasting an hour to go buy one I improvised. I looked in the toolbox and noticed I had two nut drivers. Heck, I only need one, so I cut the handle off one and made me a nifty new extension to put in the drill. Add a deep socket to fit the spot weld cutter and I was good to go.



After drilling all the spot welds on the ribs, I cut the bottoms with a cut off wheel and removed all the ribs...



 

Next removed all the door jambs by cutting them just below the belt line, where the sides will be folded in.









Next it was time to remove the side sheet metal wedge





May need to go on a diet before getting out the swim suit :lol:  

Piece of pie anyone?



Passenger side pie out



Deb came home and took some 'action' shots







 

Almost there...





Big piece of pie?



Drivers side out





That is where, I'm at for now. Spring Thaw next weekend, so it will prolly be 2 weeks till I make the last 4 cuts and put the roof down on the cut line.

Stay tuned!