Dose it stiil have the Std, engine in it ??

Bob..

 

Always thought these old cabs would look cool as a rod. Love the rims and the stance of your chopped one. :tup:

 

i see the C 11 DPT taxi quite often coming of the a12 to leyton

 

Thanks for the nice comments. The Chopt cab runs a Rover V8, the truck I'm building will have a Chevy 400 with 6-71 blower. I just sold the old diesel engine last night - thanks for taking it Neil, and all the best with fitting it into your Model A. I now have a vacant space at the front like so.

Oh well cant add photos now, managed it earlier, dont know how to put them in from "reply to thread".

 

Oh well cant add photos now, managed it earlier, dont know how to put them in from "reply to thread".

scroll to bottom of page ian. on the right it says 'go advanced' click on it and you can add more pics. neil.

 

And, meanwhile, in our living room, next to the telly...

 

What kind of bed you putting on there

 

To get the b pillars to realign I cut the top of the pillar away from the roof and repositioned it

Sorry the photos are poor quality, but you get the idea.
Notice the naff welding here, this was when I was welding with the mig on "no gas", since I've got an Adams bottle and my welding has improved a lot. So its still not great, but I get by and by the time I've ground it down and filled it you wont notice. Hopefully.

To fill the dirty great hole behind the b pillars I had a bit of a plan, well to be honest, I wasnt quite sure, but this is what I did in the end. First, I used a taxi back door, mounted in the middle, with the window area chopped by 8"

The curved bit above the door is part of the original roof (the bit that used to be above the rear window) but reprofiled. That sounds posh, but actually i just drilled a small hole in the centre, threaded an old bit of throttle cable through it so the nipple
pulled on the roof and clamped the other end inside the cab to pull the metal down to the curve that i required.
Using the door at the back meant i could have opening back window.

Compared to many of the other build threads, you can see I'm a bit of a "make do, make it up as you go along" merchant. Like the bits of wood holding it all in position prior to welding!!

To bridge the gap between the door in the middle of the back and the b pillars, I cut up some more back doors, welding parts to the b pillar to line up with front doors, then I had some steel rolled up to connect with more bits of back door, which welded to the back door in the middle. Wow, can you follow that?

The idea is to end up with a nicely rounded cab back, sort of mimicking a 50's pick up truck.

Here's a couple of pictures which inspired this build...

Mine wont look much like either of these, but it gave me the idea to try and acheive something vaguely similar from a humble London Taxi.

 

Pick up Bed will end up looking something like the one one on FTW2 in last picture.

 

To cover up that awful mess at the back of the cab, I had a piece of steel, 4' by 2' with a slight rolled edge at the top. This was welded on

Back tracking now, when I first got the cab it had a sunroof, so I removed it and welded it up before any other cutting. Guess where I got the metal from to weld up the hole?

Also I cut out the dimple in the front of the roof where the "for Hire" sign used to be.

 

Just love the look of the chopped Taxi, awesome. Great job on the pick-up, I really like the use of the door for the rear of the cab and keeping the stepped body line gives it a unique look, very clever. Can't wait to see this coming along. All the best Mark.

 

The door tops had begun to be rounded at the top corners, but the gutter just ends suddenly. (although its difficult to notice it in the picture)

I looked at some hotrod pick ups at the shows for ideas of how it ought to look

Oh well thats just ideas at the moment, I'll have to sort that later.

Next I cut the floor out, this was cos I wanted to channel it by 4and a quarter inches, also to move body back on chassis by 16".

My goal is that this will eventually be unrecognizable as a taxi, with the for hire sign gone, the chop, channel and moving the body back on the rails will give it a "wheels out the front" hot rod look.

 

I'm watching this thread with great intrest cos i know where there is an old taxi cab that might be bought at right money!

 

love it:tup:

 

This is great. Keep up the good work.Will keep an eye on this.

 

and who said taxi's are ugly? greatwork, the chopped cab looks spot on, the pick up will be nice car. i love thinking out of the box.

 

looks like its gonna be a cool pick up when its done , like the idea of the rear window on the cab . keep those pics coming :tup:

 

Like the look of this and will be keeping an eye on this thread with interest.:tup:

 

This, and Streetfighters rebody ,show what IS possible to achieve , within the rules, with some different thinking. Getting back to roddings roots in my book.

 

i wana see more, great job than man :tup:

 

Thank you Mygasser, Discododge, Capp, Sjb, Fugman, Dutchrod, Smurf, Speedepop, Kapri, V8moggy, Nojive55, Bigfoot, Hurtz,
your interest and comments are really encouraging, I tend to think of myself as "not quite a real hot rodder" as I'm messing with old taxi bits.

Initially I thought I could use the boot lid, welded to the surrounding metal, to form the lower part of the back of the cab.
So I cut out the number plate light area and the number plate recess and plated it roughly. But when I offered it up it was just going to be too complicated to get all the curves to blend in. Its now going rusty in my back yard, but dont worry, i dont waste much, I'll cut it up and use the metal for something. For example, I needed a battery box cos I was moving the battery to the back, so I made one up using old bits of taxi bodywork. Its not pretty but it will do the job, it wont be seen in the finished truck, and it cost £0 !!

Didnt realise how bad that photo. Sorry. My garage is very small and its difficult to get in the right position for a decent picture.

 

Love your approach to this and the "nothing goes to waste" philosophy. Admire the amount of cutting and welding you're into as well, at this point I'd be sat head in hands surrounded by oddshaped bits of sharp metal with holes burnt through them. Get the proportions right and you'll have a cracking truck there, but where are the fares gonna sit?

 

I also like the back window/door treatment. I thought from one of the pics you were going for a 3 piece back window, but i suppose it would be tricky to get the curved glass.

 

like it lots, back to our roots. :tup:

cheers chris.

 

what a great build..... did ya see the taxi in "ol skool rodz" a bit back?????

 

Yup, it works for me too...!!!