Project Finally!! '30 Model A Coupe

after what seemed like forever of searching a nice guy from another forum told me about this car for sale..went and looked at it loved it and bought it today..and the guy who I bought it from was one of the nicest guys I've ever met..hes an old hot rodder, he gave me 70+ rat rod/hot rod magazines for ideas which was awesome and was even willing to put the body in his truck drive the hour and 20 mins and drop it off at my buddys house which helped us out a lot

so here it is..he chopped it 4.5'' but it will soon be chopped more to have a total of a 7'' chop...body work started 10 mins after it was loaded off the truck and into the garage..it was really rough if some spots

so far spent $105 in supplies like sand paper, marglass, bondo and other things like that so now time for picts!

the guy in the picts is my buddy who's helping with this build so we can get it done as soon as possible if possible we want it on the road by Halloween..you know what that means...many long nights! we will have 3-4 friends periodcally helping as well when they can..the more guys the quicker/easier it'll be hopefully

Man that 4.5" chop looks just right. IMO 7" will be WAY too much. It will look cartoonish and out of proportion, not to mention really uncomfortable to be in. Do what you want, but think about it long and hard first. Do lots of research. Early Fords don't just grow on trees anymore as you have found out from your search. Looks like a decent start though..

Wow, that 4 1/2" chop looks perrrrrfect! Like Blue Eyed Devil said, think long and hard before you cut that one up. At least get it as a roller and sit in it for awhile before you do any roof whackin'.

Just my opinion of course...worth what ya paid for it

thats a great start. A model a 5 window is high on my list of cars i want to have in my life. i think 5 windows with 5 or 6 inch chop look great. its low but not too low. but it all depends on how tall you are, where you are mounting your seat, how much of a channel your doing, ext... cant wait to see what you end up doing!

I want it really low..if I do a 7'' chop and I'm 6'0 tall how much should I channell he said its already chanelled 4''

it does look really could at the 4.5'' and we contiplated all day yesterday leaving it or not but after looking at tons of magazines and picts online we decided we wanted to go with an extreme chop...we could always go back with some new steel right? or is that not possible...the amount of work is no biggie..we love this stuff haha

Put a seat in it and see how you fit and can see out of it. You then know how much more you will want to chop and channel it.

Cool ride C.C.I.!!

I think DMW said it best. Now's the time to do some simple sitting in it with a seat. Your so tall you sure don't want it too low! I'm 6' 2" so I know. It's one of things you just have to adjust by the seat of your pants!! You'll know when it feels right.

Looks good, thats gonna be nice.

Hi...looks like a good start to your build. I concur with putting the chop on hold. My .02¢ would be to get the car driving...or do chassis work.
Thats where I'm at right now...Hope to see more progress !

Man that looks great! xcellent find. Ya I wouldnt want to add metal later way too much work and im sure you will have structural issues with it. Its your car though do what you want with it ya know. Just have fun doing it.

Yeah I'm tall too (or too tall) so unfortunately for me, I really can't stand any more than an inch or two chop, with the 4" channel I'm going with (model a Tudor). I was planning on 4-5" chop until I sat in it...no way. Of course I could leave the top open and stick my head out like a giraffe but....

we decided to hold off on the top..and think about it more

worked on the car for 6 hours today..unforentally broke our grinder and then ran out of wire in the welder so now we will have to make a trip tomorrow morning to get some stuff...the supply list is really adding up on cost I'm up to about $230 just in supplies for body work thats including gas to keep making trips to the parts store

anyways heres the few picts we did take today..I'm the skinny guy with the long hair who needs a hair cut haha...we got quite a bit of body work done today..got rid of almost all the dents and straighted things out and most of the body is now down to bare metal

I'm wearing the dust mask and gloves because we were sanding the bondo and dust was all over and I have asthma so safety first..but my buddy said he's to much of a "bada*s" to wear the mask but he did end up putting gloves on later

cart in front of the horse ???

My apologies up front if I am wrong but, Have you considered the fact that you dont have the doors on and your gas tank sheet metal is out and the fact that the only material that you have holding the body structure from moving is the 1x1 square tubing in a single plane? my concern is that when you go to reinstall said pieces and bolt the body to the frame that the plastic filler might crack and or make yor fitting process a huge pain in the butt. These bodies move around alot when not properly aligned and strengthened. Just dont want to see ya do all that work and have problems down the road.
Clipper

PS do you want to hear the story of how I learned this lesson (over 26 years ago) Old bull to the young bull "walk down the hill and 'have' all the cows If youve ever heard the joke you'll know what Im talking about.

what would you suggest to do? I'm new to all this, we just took those parts off because we figured it'd be lighter to lift that way..the body is only staying at his place until sunday then it's going to another friends house where he is going to help build the frame..but yeah I defiantly dont want to have any problems, so any help or advice would be great

For what its worth.....

I guess it could be summed up this way. start with a good foundation (frame)
and build from there. get the body up on the frame with all the parts on. Get
the motor and trans and the rest of the driveline components together. Mock up-mock-up mock-up. Measure "5" times before cutting. Dont assume its going to fit, it usually doesn't.
Your radical chop/channel brings radical obstacles,
In my opinion the thing that makes or breaks a build is the porportion of the vehicle. If you can place the car in the shop that your working on it sideways
do this so that you can step back and see what it looks like, this will prevent you from rolling it outside for the the first time and having a big dissapointment. Study as many pictures of the type of car/modification that you can. Build it using the "kiss" method,(keep it simple stupid) If I can be of any more help just give me a shout.
Clipper

I have a 1935 that I have really thought hard about co
Choping about 4" and
about 3" channel but I have never done anything like that so any help would be grate I'm just one of those guys that won't let just any monkey touch his ride specialy one with all my time wraped up in it

Chipper is right classic crime. I would square that body up bu mounting it to a chassis if possible and fab some floors or a subframe before I went too far with the body work. You guys are going after it though. I like to see that.