After buying the cab in sept 2006 I converted it to manual (still with Nissan 2.7 diesel) then about Dec 2006 I took it to a back garden in Romford where I stacked attacking it

I didnt bother to brace the body! as its on a seperate chassis and there is a lot of metal framework behind the drivers seat where the partition was. (doesnt really show in this photo)

I began by realigning the B and C pillars as they are both vertical.

Here you can see with the main part of the roof back on how the original rear window surround is left behind

These 2 pics show the problem of the misallignment of the rear pillar and how I cut the section out and moved it forward to realign it.

Finally its coming together. See what happens to a cheap gazebo on a windy day.

About march 2007 I think, back on the road again.

 

So now I had a cab with a roof chop, but no-one seemed to notice! I wanted it to sit lower but I'm surrounded by speed humps here so I decided to put airbags on. Spoke to Ray at Rayvern, he supplied me with 2 bags for front, and other bits which I fitted. WOW! front can now sink almost to the ground (at the time had original steels with low profile tyres which also helped)
BUT I only drove about 5 miles before there was an almighty BANG!! followed by a very slow and scraping drive home. My mistake: I had mounted the bags so that the weight of the vehicle pushed the centre out of the bag. More helpful conversations with Ray, bought another 2 bags, remade the mounts, back on the road, 3 miles and another loud BANG!! This time it was a bolt on the kingpin rubbing the bag and puncturing it. Looked ok static, but under driving conditions it came into contact. At this point I decided to give up and booked it in to Ray who fitted the fronts and also bags on the back. I was well pleased, Ray had done the work on my cab for a fixed price and said he wouldnt do another one, he had worked so hard to get it working ok.

The original exhaust system hung below the chassis, I got Paul Dickens to build a new exhaust which tucked right up into chassis. And its still there today.

 

Thats a cool chop

 

The plan originally was to keep the standard diesel engine, it was reliable and did 28 MPG, but one day coming down the M6 I blew up the gearbox. The thought of taking that box out, getting it repaired and putting it back in to just have the same old combo didnt appeal and I had a 3.5 Rover V8 in my back garden, so, with the cab parked on the street outside my house I pulled the old engine and box.

You can see here that I cut the footwell away to give clearance for the new engine

pics in wrong order heres the old lump coming out

...and here the old engine goes for a ride in my working cab (Metrocab) to someone whos buying it

footwell cut away

The main problem with fitting the V8 was a lack of room for exhaust manifolds. Nothing would fit, so I made up these unlikely looking things from box section. Worked ok though, and got me on the road, later I got Paul Dickens to make up new manifolds for me to replace my hideous attempts.

Here you can see that I kept the original taxi mounts, and spaced the Rover engine mounts away from the engine with a bit of box.

I used a LT77 5 speed box and had those guys at Barnehurst modify the prop.

So at this point I've digressed from the original plan but the V8 sound suited the vehicle and I loved it, and I guess I still do.

 

Not shown in the previous pics of the roof chop, the area where there had been a sunroof had been filled with steel but the roof had lost the correct profile, so to cure this, a good suggestion from Paul Burnham was to put another roof skin over the top. Heres how I brought it home from South Norwood...

To modify the boot lid I cut out the part where the number plate light used to be and shortened the recess to suit the plate I had bought from an ad in the back of Custom Car, C11DPT.

 

FX4 Taxis had nice chrome bumpers up to about 1983 when they went to horrible black plastic things. I Had an ok condition one for the front so I fitted it about 2" lower than stock to add to the low look. I then had to extend the bottom of the bonnet down to fill the gap.

The old chrome bumpers are now difficult to get hold of and go for big money so I tried to fit some random old yank bumper (after a very hasty narrowing job)

This was horrible as you can see so I eventually got a rear bumper which was straight but rusty

...and after having it rechromed i fitted it, again lower than stock and filled the gaps in.

 

Like this,more please.............

 

Taxi looks great.

Sure I saw your 32 roadster on another thread, was it purple with a young lad behind the wheel with a big smile on his face? thats what its all about.

Do a thread for that one too :tup:

 

Taxi looks great.

Sure I saw your 32 roadster on another thread, was it purple with a young lad behind the wheel with a big smile on his face? thats what its all about.

Do a thread for that one too :tup:

Thanks Daddy, but to do a thread for my 32 i would have to scan lots of old pics, maybe I'll get round to it one day.

Thanks Reneanglia and Holtie, wasnt too sure whether to put this on.

 

Great thread! very cool taxi!

 

Excellent, keep it up, looking forward to reading this.

 

Thank you Zoompod.

One of the features of the Chopt is the area around the headlights, which looks similar to a 56 Chevy truck.

This came about because I liked the Hagan conversion which recesses the headlights with a neat chrome ring
but when i found out the price I looked for an alternative. Then at the swap meet one year someone was selling a 56 Chevy front wing, badly battered, for about £20 I think, so I grabbed it. I managed to get another wing for about £50 if I remember rightly so then I just had to cut and weld.

With the rusty green bits attached the cab took on a strange look. I liked it and kept it like this for a while, enjoying the fun of seeing the "What on earth is THAT" look on people faces as I drove about. I particularly remember glancing out of the window one day and seeing a little girl stroking the green wing parts with a sad look, as if it were a pet dog not feeling well!!!

But then I gave it a quick squirt of matt black.

 

Dan, that actually looks quite cool now. Love the Apache front wings on it. Very cool idea

 

Thanks, but er, who is Dan?

By the time I had chopped it, lowered it and done various other bits it got noticed by rodders and people in the cab trade, but Joe public just didnt notice it while it still had the original steel wheels, even if they were red with trim rings and different tyres.
Then I ordered some ARE torque thrust II wheels, took 3 months to arrive as they were a special order to get the specific PCD and offset.

Always nice to get new wheels and put them in living room!

The rear wheels were 20" and were a whole lot taller than the 16" taxi wheels

With the old wheels still on, the back wings were marked roughly to show where I was going to have to radius them up to

With the new radiused arches the wheels went on. Now where could I get a wheel arch to fit round the big new rims which would match the front arch?

From a front wing! By this time though, they had stopped producing front wings, and second hand ones were sought after to keep working cabs on the road. I drove the Chopt cab to lots of cab garages until someone took pity on me/ liked what I was doing enough to part with them

When it drove around with the new rims, suddenly it was transformed and Joe Public really started to notice it. I chose this style of wheel because not only do they look good, they are strongly associated with the hot rod world.

Downside was that the 20" rear/ 17" front combo pushed the back up in the air a bit. So after all that lowering, the back doesnt look low at all when the bags are in the driving position. Maybe I'll alter the back one day, I can drop it another 2" without too much trouble I think.

Proof if needed that you should really plan things from the start, with the intended wheels!
But this never was planned to end up like this, just changed and grew along the way, only been off the road for a couple of months for the roof chop, then another month or two when I put the V8 in.

 

Love it, it's unique and a bit tongue in cheek, but cool at the same time!
I saw it last year (old warden?) my kids even commented on it.
The tit who told you off in "gasser" magazine did you a big favour.
He probably doesn't own his own Hotrod, or it will be a clone identical to all the others which "individuals" own to be different.

Well done!

 

Thanks for the kind words, to be fair , he probably had a point too some extent, but his words stayed with me and spurred me on...

 

Great thread taxirod (Dan) :incheek:
I see your avatar pic of the cab on your other build thread so it's good to see the story behind it.
I know what you mean about how a negative response from the mygasser drove you on.
I had same thing from street machine and custom car many many years ago. It was pre-Internet and I wrote in with serious questions about a build problem, waited for months for it to get printed and when the long awaited day arrives I see they just took the piss for the whole world to see. I was gutted but then it made me so fucking mad for years and every time I hit a problem or something I couldn't do even if nothing to do with cars the thought of that mocking drove me to do stuff way beyond what I thought I could buts that's another story.
Never bought the mags after that. Have to thank em now though.
Keep it up.

 

Thanks Morris, similar thing when I was planning my 32 roadster on a taxi chassis, wrote to Street Machine for advice, they just came back with " its probably a non starter, we advise you to buy a (whatever the maker of bodies and chassis at the time was - Rodline I think)"

 

The radiused rear arches & big rims make it for me.

 

Thanks Mark. Sometime I get bored and think of changing back to arches like original which cover half the wheel. But I probably wont get round to it!

 

haven't you had the rear suspension redone to work better with the airbags ian? :tup:

 

Dont worry Neil, I havent forgotten, I'm getting to that bit

 

Having changed engine, gearbox and wheel size (kept Taxi axle though) the stock taxi speedo was still there, I connected it up somehow and it worked inaccurately. Rather than pay out to get this recalibrated (didnt really like it so why spend money on it?) I simply worked out the correct speed with the help of sat nav, then painted over the old numbers and stuck new ones on!!

Taxis only have a drivers seat, no front passenger seat. At the time of the roof chop I bought a pair of electric leather seats out of a Rover Sterling. I liked the pleated look, like many a hot rod interior. Then I had the rear seat covered to match these.

There was an article in Custom Car about covering your own steering wheel. My wheel was made by using the centre and spokes from a Moris minor wheel (fits taxi column) and a sierra outer, the centre bit is made from 2 stainless Ikea storage jar lids.
But covering a steering wheel with leather is not easy, I tried and used it as it came out first time. Looks good from afar, but far from good!

One of the things I'm not happy with is the dashboard, it functions fine, but looks very 1980's, not in keeping. Ideally I would like to transplant an old dash into it, 105e Anglia, or anything old and more interesting. But I doubt I'll ever get round to it now. I just drive it.

 

to get the leather to look right you need to sew down the 2 lengths about 10mm in on a machine then run a stitch line in between each stitch by hand also soak the leather in warm water for a couple of hours or if using leatherette use a heat gun or hair dryer it will stretch easier ill add a photo later

 

Hmm, sounds like you know what you are doing.... I didnt! But I learnt along the way, sometimes the thing learnt is that "thats a job to leave to the professional in future!!

 

https://www.rodsnsods.co.uk/imagehosting/495752b45a20bef7e.jpg

Is that rear bench not a bit wide?
Looks really comfy though.....

 

:rofl: :rofl: Ha! ha! Rene you beat me to it.

Taxirod. I'm liking the build so far. Those rear arches look cool with the big wheels.

Keep it up. :tup:

Jon

 

Love it!!..........if ya ever fancy selling it??

 

Many times people have said they wanted to buy it, the money they were offering barely would buy them one of the wheels!! When I explain that, they usually change their mind and go away. My wife says I shouldnt get rid of it cos its unique and gets attention wherever we go. I doubt anyone would offer me more than the bits would be worth if I broke it. But, go ahead, make me an offer.

 

http://www.rodsnsods.co.uk/forum/#
Here is the pic hope this helps it off a boat handrail i did today but its done the same way

 

 

looks very professional. Cant remember if thats what I did or not, I do remember following instructions in CC article though. I dont think I'd try to do another one.

 

At wheels day, couple of years ago, next to standard taxi

One day I went to Chelsea cruise and a card was left under the wiper. To my great surprise, someone wanted to feature it in a Magazine!

It was a good day, some of the photos were taken driving through the Limehouse Link with the photographer leaning out of another vehicle. They wanted a picture of the cab doing a burnout with a whole load of taxis in the background, I tried to explain that without a line lock, it was never going to just sit there smoking the tyres. But they insisted, so we went to the cab drivers place in Great Suffolk St SE1, got permission from someone, then I revved it up and dumped the clutch. There was the smallest of tyre screeches followed by the cab shooting rapidly forward. Fortunately I managed not to smash into anything, but as I went to reverse there was a loud clonking from the back Axle! The guys from the magazine were most apologetic as I limped and clonked the cab home.
I had a spare axle so fitted it and cured the problem. This is the only time I've had any problem with one of these axles, it's basically the same as the Westminster axle, popular with drag racers in the 60's and
70's.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2C4ZEHLcKM‎

I had been told that googling "chopped london taxi" brought up pics of mine, thats how I found the above clip. No idea who filmed it and put it on you tube.

 

Love that cab ,very good.

 

Thanks Commer van

 

Very nice , I'm liking this a lot , so how many people have tried getting in for a lift home .

 

Ah, well, no one has got in, but it's often been hailed by someone looking for a cab. Only a couple of weeks ago I had a job to convince a foreign guy that it wasn't a working taxi. Most people realize by the sound or the fact that my wife is sitting next to me in the front. Nowadays this shape of taxi has all but disappeared from London, thanks to the 15 year rule, so it will look more "old" by comparison with the taxis people are used to seeing.