<VV> 2-Door Wagon

[wblanning at comcast.net]

<In a message dated 4/6/2009 7:55:02 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
jvhroberts at aol.com writes:

Wow,  a Lakeside pickup! How cool! BTW, been looking around, anyone ever  
SUCCESSFULLY make a 2 door Lakewood? I mean, a NICE conversion.>  


Reply: Years ago a person in CCE built a 2-door wagon using coupe doors.  I think his name was Ray Johnson, but I could be wrong.  I talked to him about the conversion and here are the things he had to address.

- Relocate door posts back several inches.
- Fill in rear door areas.
- Rear side glass frame rework.  In his case he made longer side glass to go from the back edge of the relocated door post to the tailgate pillar (D-pillar??).
- Since the wagon roof is about 1-3/4" taller than the coupe, the door window frame had to be raised and reworked to make the top level because the top frame slopes down toward the back on a coupe.
- Make new door glass.  Since glass is flat, a glass shop can cut a new piece.
- Window lift mechanism.  The coupe mechanism will not raise the glass high enough OR will not lower the glass below the door edge.  A possible solution to this is to use an after market electric lift system.
- Construct a new inner upholstery panel base.

I had a very good auto body metal fabricator look at doing this conversion to my wagon and he estimated a minimum of 80 hours labor to do the basic metal work, not including finish paint, upholstery, glass, etc.

If someone wants to get more elaborate, another option to go along with the 2-door conversion would be to chop the top down to the height of the coupe door frame, in which case a coupe windshield could be used.  This would require the roof to be widened or window frames tilted in because the side glass area is sloped inward, so as the roof is lowered the window frames will not line up.  Then there is the matter of the tailgate and its glass.

Wade