(A Story On How I Came To Make A 2 Door Hardtop Stationwagon)
This story started back in July of last summer. My budding Mopar collector son, Grant, purchased all of Ed McCormick's(Boles Acres NM) 65 Coronets, engines, and misc. parts . A 426 street wedge 4spd Coronet 500(Ed's first car), another 2dr Hdtop Coronet, and a Coronet stationwagon along with 40 years of various collected parts all found their way back to Las Cruces. Grant wanted the "500" car to restore and sell off the extra 2door car to help offset his cost. I guess it looked like I had some interest in the Stationwagon, so he offered that up to me if I wanted to do something with it.
In Oct while in Fort Dodge Iowa for my 4th 10 year High School Reunion , my brother and I headed down to the famed "Cruise To The Woods" car show at the local fairgrounds- hundreds and hundreds of fine looking show cars- even a few Mopars! There sat local legend dragracer Murry McGuire with a fine looking Max Wedge 64 Plymouth Savoy clone that he campaigns around the midwest (Murry was famous for going fast when I was in high school). Come to find out, the car was originaly a 4 door sedan that he transformed into the 2 door post car racer, he shared some tips on the hows. I thought about that concept on the Stationwagon, but I couldnt figure out a practical way to do the change without actually having the 2 door sedan doors. Aw, I'll just do it the normal configuration with 4 doors and possibly use it as a tow vehicle. It would be cool, Ed had even collected NOS tailight bezels and lenses for it.
At the conclusion of the 09 racing season in November I decided to start work on the Stationwagon to occupy my spare time until March. A couple weeks later after stripping the car all down to begin the restoration process, I told Grant about Murry's 2door conversion on a 64 Savoy. Before we barely got the first beers down that evening he offered up the extra 2 door hard top shell he got from Ed to make this wagon into a 2 door hdtop wagon. I hesitated two weeks on this, I couldn't bring myself to chop up a straight, rust free 2 door hardtop...but where and when else would this opportunity ever come up again? The end product would be way too cool ... O.K. here we go!
After Grant and I replaced the entire rusted out floorpan with a new piece from AMD and replaced the tailgate with a rustfree one from a yard in Phoenix, the "free" car had cost me $1,600. The conversion process went like this;
1. Removed the center door posts from the SW
2. Removed doors, door jamb and inside quarter panel(where the rear window regulator lives) as one unit from each side of the donor car, leaving most of the
outside quarter skin in place on the donor car.
3. Installed the hardtop doors onto the SW and used this to measure where to weld in the door jamb/interior quarter unit for proper fit.
4. Gutted the rear SW doors so all I had was basically the ouside skin and then shortened the doors to offset the extra lenght of the front hardtop doors. I
then welded the cut down rear SW doors into place.
5. Lots of time was spent fashioning up templates for side glass; the rear SW glass would not fit and the 2 door donor has a different roofline making that glass unusable. The new glass was made and fits well, back out and the pieces are stored away.The upper window weatherstrip channel was going to be a real problem, as nothing from the donor car will fit! It looked like I would have to fab up the upper rear door frame somehow to hold the weatherstrip and blend it into the sawed off front half of the donors car stainless piece. I discovered that the channel off a 63-64 2 door hdtop B body has the same contour as a 65 4 door, fantastic! This project just got easier. Those 2 pieces came from Joe Suchy out of Georgia, Joe is also supplying all the weatherstip, seals and felt for the tailagte assembly and gaskets for the side cargo area glass.
An air chiesel, die grinder, and a cheap gasless welder were all that was needed to get this far. Ive done minor body prep and painted on 4 or 5 cars over the past 20 years, but nothing to this degree of cutting,sawing, and fabricating. I would really be remiss not to mention another tremendous source of knowledge and support, Pete Mazza. Pete stops by every so often to keep me on the right pathway. He does this kind of stuff in his sleep. He just slaps me on the back and asks "whats the problem?"
Plans so far are to use the 440 from Dorothy's old race car Grant bought awhile back. I will change the cam to a mild hydraulic grind, shoot for 3.23 gear and a good old 727 trans. Should make for some good cruising and hopefully will tow my open trailer and Duster to a few races. However, I still have a long long ways to go before this unit hits the streets. See ya down the road.
BE CAREFUL AT YOUR HIGH SCHOOL REUNION !
