Extended doors on 50 pickup

[fredscarryall]

Anyone doing or done extended doors on a 47 to 54. I need more leg room with a 4 inch set back firewall. I don't want to do the extended cab with side window look.anyone with pics or advice. I want to extend mine about 8 to 10 inches. Like this rough drawing

[Advanced Design]

Interesting idea. There is a lot of curve front to rear in the door and the roof. Thinking to do it right, new door and roof skins with the correct curvature would need to be fabricated.

[mr48chev]

I'm extending my doors 9-1/4 inches to have the cab work with the standard short bed box on a long bed 1/2 ton frame (GMC frame).
Here is a cut and paste rendition of what it hopefully looks like. I used a photo of a truck that belongs to a guy about 100 miles from me as I didn't have a direct side shot of mine at the time and his has the same chop that mine does. This shows it chopped lengthened and sectioned though.



Another cut and paste using Cole Foster of the Salinas Boys old red truck.

[donandal]

I extended my 53 five window by 5 inches.

There are numerous sections to the door that needed to be extended,
including the area above the glass and the inner door panel.

I roll formed the upper door extension cross sections and then
added an extension to the door skin that I formed on my
english wheel. It has a compound curvature to match the original door skin.

The roof panel also required a compound curve panel to extend it.

The extension needs to be accurately executed to maintain the parallelism
of the window tracks also.

mine is just getting ready for paint this winter.

[mr48chev]

Nice work, I plan to use the front half of one cab and the back half of another both to avoid two seams and the simple fact that I have one cab with a great firewall that is the one I want to use and a bad back side and another cab with a near perfect back side but not so good. The left overs will get used to fix other cabs that I have. I've got a stack of doors and don't really even know how many I have so each door will be made of two cut to fit with one seam.

[donandal]

yeah,
that's probably the best way.

The cab also tapers wider as you move aft, so my back
panel of the cab was widened about an 7/8 inch.

the taper could probably handled a number of ways, but you will see
when the cab is split in half, and you need a longer section from
each donor cab to get the amount of extension you want, that you will see
about 7/8 inch taper for every 5 inches of cab stretch.

I just finished all my window track pieces and new glass patterns for the 5 inch extension, which also included extending the window roll up mechanism, and all new felt tracks and stainless exterior pieces.( which also needed to be extended). Also the inner door molding was extended.

but the legroom is awesome!

[donandal]

also,
the doors seemed a bit flimsy after extending them.
I added a pair of custom box beams welded to
the inner door panel to strengthen it, and added a
custom curved door skin reinforcement beam to the outer skin
as well.
the outer beam is bolted in place, with mat applied for sound
deadening between the skin and the beam.

[mr48chev]

That is some nice work.

[fredscarryall]

I agree with mr48chevy. Take. A good firewall front half and Good 5 window back and weld them together I think that would be easier because you can split the floors. Donaldal looks like you made the door extent easier then I was . I wiil have to use that idea

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by donandal

I extended my 53 five window by 5 inches.

There are numerous sections to the door that needed to be extended,
including the area above the glass and the inner door panel.

I roll formed the upper door extension cross sections and then
added an extension to the door skin that I formed on my
english wheel. It has a compound curvature to match the original door skin.

The roof panel also required a compound curve panel to extend it.

The extension needs to be accurately executed to maintain the parallelism
of the window tracks also.

mine is just getting ready for paint this winter.

That is all looking good but the one thing I would do different, and this is a biggie is to "Z" cut the roof and door. Instead of going through the middle of the roof where it's the most difficult to weld you bring it over to the back where it's much easier.

This is the roof on my truck when chopping the top.







The same thing was done on the rear of the cab, there is no weld going through the middle of the cab when I sectioned it.



And the cowl.





The same idea on the door when they were sectioned. I cut the framing off the skin, sectioned the framing then simply re-rolled the skin welding to the frame and trimming the 2.5 inches off the bottom of the skin.



So I would think about bringing the cut back to the rear of the door like this.








Brian

[_Ogre]

nice work... all of you


i thought of extending my cab thru the doors to give me some leg room
thought better of it after i had all the rust repairs done
way more work than i wanted to do

[Advanced Design]

Agreed, impressive work guys.

Any issues with matching the crown or curvature of the door or roof? I figured that would be a likely place for a flat spot or noticable curvature change.

[mr48chev]

Martinsr, I'm saving those photos to be able to show a buddy exactly what I have been talking about on the roof of my truck. Thanks.

I'll save the batch for reference. I had planned to do the doors the same way on the section too.

Advanced Design I've been pondering the difference in width of the cab when I stretch it 9-1/4 inches. I figure I'll have to do a bit of adjustment to get it all to match perfectly.

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by mr48chev

Martinsr, I'm saving those photos to be able to show a buddy exactly what I have been talking about on the roof of my truck. Thanks.

I'll save the batch for reference. I had planned to do the doors the same way on the section too.

Advanced Design I've been pondering the difference in width of the cab when I stretch it 9-1/4 inches. I figure I'll have to do a bit of adjustment to get it all to match perfectly.

Here's a build thread on it if you want more. http://www.hotrodders.com/forum/1948...ar-233753.html

Brian

[donandal]

yeah,
Martinsr has a point about the roof weld in the middle.

It is a bit tricky.
I actually made a roof support beam for the contour
of the roof ( with my shrinker/stretcher ) before I welded
the main roof skin back in.

It was held in with clecos then removed for final welding.

It held the curve so well that i kept it and installed mat
between it and the roof and bolted it on just above the
door headers for a permanent support.

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by donandal

yeah,
Martinsr has a point about the roof weld in the middle.

It is a bit tricky.
I actually made a roof support beam for the contour
of the roof ( with my shrinker/stretcher ) before I welded
the main roof skin back in.

It was held in with clecos then removed for final welding.

It held the curve so well that i kept it and installed mat
between it and the roof and bolted it on just above the
door headers for a permanent support.

I want to be clear, I am not saying what you did was wrong, you did an OUTSTANDING job on that project.

I have just found that moving the cut over to a better place pays off some big dividends. I certainly didn't mean to say anything negative.

Brian

[donandal]

Originally Posted by MARTINSR

I want to be clear, I am not saying what you did was wrong, you did an OUTSTANDING job on that project.

I have just found that moving the cut over to a better place pays off some big dividends. I certainly didn't mean to say anything negative.

Brian

Hey Brian,
I didn't take any offense.
I actually like your way better.

I don't have a lot of experience on this type of cab stretch.

It worked out ok, but you are right, that long weld across the top
really took a lot of time, a lot of patience, and a very deliberate process
to keep the whole top from warping.

probably the toughest part!

thanks

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by donandal

Hey Brian,
I didn't take any offense.
I actually like your way better.

I don't have a lot of experience on this type of cab stretch.

It worked out ok, but you are right, that long weld across the top
really took a lot of time, a lot of patience, and a very deliberate process
to keep the whole top from warping.

probably the toughest part!

thanks

The first time I chopped the top on this truck I was 16. (This is another cab I replaced the old one)

The top needs to be lengthened when you chop it (or rake the posts) I welded it across the center and warped it all to hell! I put 2 gallons of bondo on that roof before I touched it with sand paper, NO KIDDING! LOLOL I actually Z cut it but not far enough. Plus of course I didn't know how to weld so I welded and cooled the welds BIG MISTAKE.



Brian

[donandal]

that's the patina I like.

not the truck itself, but those old photos.

too cool

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by donandal

that's the patina I like.

not the truck itself, but those old photos.

too cool

I was a rat rodder when rat rodding wasn't cool.

High school parking lot 1977.



Brian

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by donandal

that's the patina I like.

not the truck itself, but those old photos.

too cool

Notice the white Pinto fender where I cut the metal from to lengthen the roof. And the Black&Decker electric 1/4" drill with the grinder adapter on it.

Brian

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by fredscarryall

Anyone doing or done extended doors on a 47 to 54. I need more leg room with a 4 inch set back firewall. I don't want to do the extended cab with side window look.anyone with pics or advice. I want to extend mine about 8 to 10 inches. Like this rough drawing

Sorry for the hijack.

Brian

[_Ogre]

all relevant to this thread martinsr
and very cool

[mr48chev]

It's good info for both guys who are wanting to chop a truck and for guys who might want to stretch the cab for more leg room. As I said earlier I saved several of those photos for reference Referring to and studying good build tips helps all of us build a better truck. On sectioning the truck cab the photos show drilling out the spot welds and slipping the top back down over the firewall and cowl sides may save untold hours for me over just cutting through the middle of the cowl and firewall and welding it back.