It started as a 40 Ford Sedan Delivery

I finished my chopped 49 ford and I have been planning this one in my head for the last week so wanted to get it onto the operating table so I can plan my attack on the Ford kit.
I got 2 of these so I thought might as well cut the hell out of this one, not going to tell yous what's happening to it, just going to show photo's on the way.

This is the kit.



This about all the body parts I'm using out of the kit.



I cut the back bumper mounts of the back end of the chassis so the body sits over it, Now I need the green area gone so this is going to be my first job when I sit back at my table.

I hate suspense, I guess I'm gunna have to keep watching. Will it be a Van for Rob?

Shoey, I'm thinking of doing this one and other Van next so ill choose one for that build or use both.

I got into some dremel action today so this is how much I got done, hope it don't get boring, I got a few photo's.. lol..

First up I chopped the bottom off the body, real life scale is equal to about 5 1/2 inches gone. No going back now..



Now the interior tub is too big and sticks out the bottom.



And the body sits way to high on the chassis.



So the interior tub needed the floor removed and sides cut down the same as the body.



The chassis had all that horrid fake floor on it and I just wanted a skeleton frame so I attacked it with the dremel and removed it all.



The fuel tank and the rear diff cross member where in the way so they had to go as well.



The interior tub had to be tweaked to fit back on the chassis nice and flat, all good now.



The body back on the chassis, sitting perfect nothing hanging out the bottom.



Suspension mock up to see what's next to do to get the ride height how I want it, sitting too high still.



Have to use a secondhand diff as it is the only one I have wide enough to let the wheels clear the body, also good to see how far the floor will have to be raised to get clearance.



Maybe not this low but close, definitely like the rims and tyres though.



Sorry about some of the photo's being a bit dodgy, just using my old tired IPhone, Prob try to do some more chassis work tomorrow and take progress photo's. Cheers.

Nothing wrong with lots of pics mate, i do the same too, the more we show, the more people learn,
and that means more people chopping kits up to make something different...

That looks SICK!!!!!

  Ummm yeah, that's nuts 

Wow!! This looks great!

I got time do play with this one some more today seams its Saturday, cold and on the verge of raining all day.

I have been waiting to get my grill in the mail so I could work out how its going to sit in the chassis and also glued the engine halves together to see how much room its going to need under the floor.

This is my grill, looks pretty sweet, its a resin one from The Parts Box.



I taped the engine in the chassis and had a hunt through my pile of parts for the perfect floor pan to graft into the interior tub.



All cut and fitted into the tub, plenty of clearance for the engine and gearbox now, this was a bit of a pain to get right as the 40 ford has a weird ass shape firewall.



next up the rear of the chassis had to be changed to get the diff up into the body enough to get the thing to sit on its guts so these are the new chassis rails.



glued in and blended into the chassis, I put side plates and cross members on next but not in this pic.



I didn't like the diff I was going to use so I customized another new one, it had to be wider so I chopped off the axle parts and drill throught the centre and inserted a piece of steel axle to slide the new longer sections over.



New snections glued on, they were so long the didn't fit into the picture..lol..



new diff and chassis mocked up to see how much ground clearance I had, also had to remove the back half of the interior tub to make room for the chassis.



With the body on to check it out and see where the floor will have to go now, also set the ride height, just taped some scrap styrene to the diff to get it right.



The ride height looks sweet, the front suspension is sitting good and the grill is where it will sit, the front bumper brackets where chopped off the front of the chassis at this stage to, nothing special with the front suspension so I didn't take a photo.



Next up i made the new rear floor, just going to be flat seams its a panel van, not  going to be much head room in the back.



Not much work in the front seat just had to dremel it a bit to sit over the bigger transmission tunnel.



Last job for today was filling in the where the rear guard went, just cut some styrene for the holes, will just cut new holes to fit pefect over the diff.



should look slick with them bogged up and smoothed off.



Ok that's what I got done today, next up I have to build the rear suspension, cut the holes in the body for the diff then I can start building the engine and painting everything. Thinking of just using one of the engines in the kit, the custom one looks pretty cool.

Thanks for looking.. Morrie..

Unreal build Morrie. Fairly certain if I cut a kit  up like this it would end up as a pile of rubbish on the bench. Learning heaps, just need a brave pill!!

Really good work Morrie, loving this chop up

Love the look & were it's goin so far

Looking real cool mate..

I got most of the construction finished during the week between work and getting my Moto ready for re-rego.

Got a 4 link in the rear, I used parts from my parts box, didn't really want to scratch build it and the parts I found were perfect.



Also got a the chassis finished with a couple more neater cross members.



I'm using one of the front ends from the kit, but needed to remove the dodgy looking brakes and had to make it so I could put the wheels on so I didn't have to use the steel axle that runs right across the front, added a few little details too.





Next I got a some wheel backs with the detail drum look in them, trimmed the edges so they will look like a proper drum brake.



I then glued the front end into place and made up some shock mounts, might use these for headlight mounts too, not sure yet.



Had to do some more work to the body like fill in the bonnet hinge holes, I just used some styrene.



Also thought I would make the rear door 2 piece, the floor almost comes up to the top of the bottom of the door. also had to fill in the door handle hole, just used some styrene rod and filed it flat after I glued it in.



The door needed to be mounted so I put stips of thin styrene on the back edge, If I just glued it in I might have lost to much of the gap around the tailgate, also cut the bottom of the door off to match it up with the body.





I didn't like how the high seat was sitting so I chopped the bottom off to lower it to the floor.



this was as low as it would go before the trans tunnel was coming through the seat, definitely sitting on the floor.



Finally got the body into primer and the chassis finished and painted, I will do some more paint detail on the chassis but most going to be black.





Ok the body has been painted but not sure if I will post that process until its almost finished and ready for the showroom section, unless you guys want to see the steps I took the paint it, give you a hint, It Ain't Shinny.

A lot of great custom work there again Morrie, looks like you had a busy weekend mate.
That rear end looks sweet too, nice work, now get on to that paint job now you have mentioned it.....

Guys... humor me here. Ok I know cars look great when lowered, but in this case these things are that low, I've gotta ask... why even bother with wheels? and secondly, how the heck are these things gonna get over speed bumps etc.?.
Surely these cars can't be driven normally?... No I'm not having a "grizzle", it's just I can't get my head around these machines that are less than 5cm off the ground.
I'm open to all those who would like to explain this type of custom car to me. Please do not be offended if I choose not to listen... er sorry  read!

A lot of them have airbag suspension, lift it up to drive it around, drop it down when it's sitting still. I don't think any of them would be daily drivers more of an occational thing and car shows.

And this this one is made of plastic so I don't think it would run real good. Lol.

Morrie wrote:A lot of them have airbag suspension, lift it up to drive it around, drop it down when it's sitting still. I don't think any of them would be daily drivers more of an occational thing and car shows.

And this this one is made of plastic so I don't think it would run real good. Lol.

Thanks Morrie... I guess it's just the "Ol' fart" in me here not coming to grips with the "new style" of rods.
guess I'm used to lookin' under a car or rod and seeing someone's ankles (bobby socks or shoes).

'Spose that's why I'm "Ol' 55"...

ok got it all finished so I will show how I did the paint job, probably nothing new  but will show it anyway.

so I started with a black base, this is Tamiya flat black.



Next step was to spray down the rust colour base over the black, didn't make to a solid colour over the rust colour as I wanted it to look uneven with some darker patches, I used life colour rust tones.





Next I put the lighter shade rust colour over the base, I just done random little bits every where and sprayed some patches through a thin scourer pad to get blotches. id don't stand out to much in the photo's.





Next up was to wet the parts I wanted the rust to show through, I didn't want to do the full rust holes and rusted out look, I just wanted it to look like surface rust where the paint had wore off, I just used a paint brush to do small sections, then sprinkled salt onto the water, really pile it on where I didn't want any of the next colour to come through.



then layed on the bottom colour, only sprayed half way up as its going to be 2 toned. this is Tamiya flat white.



I cleaned the salt off with a tooth brush then Taped up the bottom and did the salt on the top half of the shell. then sprayed the blue colour over the salt.



wasn't happy with the bottom so taped it up and had another go.



I used these to do the top coat, just Tamiya acrylics.



I didn't get a photo of the top colour but I cleaned all the salt off with a tooth brush then gave the shell a quick wash under the tap to clean the rest of the salt off, I used blue for the top half, made to blue up to the colour I liked, nothing to bright.





All finished now, thanks for checking out my progress,,