<VV> 2-Door Wagon

[tkalp at cox.net]

I would be interested in contacting Ray? if anyone has his address.

My own attempt at an EM 2-door wagon with coupe doors is here:
http://members.cox.net/tkalp2/lakewood.htm

I approached it a bit differently.  Basically took the side off of an EM 
2 door split at the pinchweld in the rockers under the door opening. 
Used the Coupe sheetmetal behind the door to fill in the gap where the 
rear door of the wagon was. Married the top half of the wagon B pillar 
to the bottom half of the coupe rear door post, removed the window 
"trim" from both the wagon door and coupe door.  Lenghtened the wagon 
window "trim" 9" and reinstalled it on the coupe door.  Haven't messed 
with the door glass or winder yet have to wait and see what happens, 
neither have I decided whether to use the wagon or coupe vent wing. 
Getting the interior trim to look factory is almost as difficult a task 
as all the exterior bodywork.

As you can see from the photos the car looks long even with the stock 
height top . . . MHO is that chopping the to would add a lot to the 
complexity of the project and add little or none to the appearance of 
the wagon.

With one side pretty much done, I neeed to commit to how to handle the 
rear side window area.  A buddy of mine did a 2-door treatment on a '54 
Chevy wagon and said the window was too long for  common two layer 
safety glass.  He had tempered glass windows made for his project for 
about $100 each. Another option would be to split the back window area 
with a post like the 55-57 Chevy 2-door wagons. The last option was to 
make it a sedan delivery and use metal panels, I have a pair of panels 
from a Vega Delivery, but they are several inches too short.  I also 
have the "toolbox" area from the Vega Delivery which I may use instead 
of a rear seat.

There are also some people playing around with a PhotoShop type program 
on Corvair Center and came up with this concept for an EM wagon.
http://corvaircenter.com/phorum/read.php?1,196172,page=6

Most likely much easier done in pixels rather than metal.

BTW Seth, I have heard rumors of a LM 4-door wagon under construction . 
. . it won't get done quickly, but it will look great when it is done.

Terry Kalp



On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 8:42 PM , wblanning at comcast.net wrote:

> <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
>  _______________________________________________
> This message was sent by the VirtualVairs mailing list, all copyrights 
> are the property
> of the writer, please attribute properly. For help, 
> mailto:vv-help at corvair.org
> This list sponsored by the Corvair Society of America, 
> http://www.corvair.org/
> Post messages to: VirtualVairs at corvair.org
> Change your options: 
> http://www.vv.corvair.org/mailman/options/virtualvairs 
> _______________________________________________