It goes without saying that...
It goes without saying that you should remove anything from the vehicle that might catch on fire or get damaged while you are welding, such as the dash, carpet, headliner, seats, and so on.
When someone mentions body modifications nowadays, you might think of shaving a door handle or even a body drop. Those modifications are the evolution from an earlier time when the three main body mods were sectioning, channeling, and a chop-top. Sectioning was used to thin out the side of a vehicle by removing an inch or two all of the way around the body. Channeling, which has morphed into the modern-day body drop, was used to lower the body over the frame, allowing the vehicle to sit lower. The third in the list and the one we think started it all was the chop-top. This modification was used to lower the roof down closer to the body by cutting out a few inches from all of the pillars. Back in the day, when cars had flat glass, chopping wasn't as hard as it is now. The flat glass could be cut and reinstalled fairly easy, but with newer vehicles featuring curved safety glass, it's not so easy.
Because things go full circle, we are starting to see trucks with lower roof lines at the shows. These trucks sparked our interest, and now we are curious to know the right way to do it. To find that information out, we contacted John Meyer, the head cheese at Clean Cut Creations in St. Louis, Missouri. He has done some tech for us in the past. When we called him to talk about it, he said, "I have a first-generation S-10 sitting here I could chop."
Without hesitation, we said, "Yes, please, but we have one request: Chop it without having to get custom glass."
He assured us it would be no problem because he has done it before, and here is the story to prove it. We are not going to go into detail on how to do the bodywork or how to fit the interior trim panels. This article will demonstrate strictly how to do the sheetmetal part of it. So, sit back in your favorite chair and check out how Clean Cut Creations chopped an S-10 and retained all of the factory glass.