My beaten-up old "jalopy" '32 five-window needed a lot of bodywork when I got it, much of which has already been done at this point. Erik Hansson at Scandinavian Street Rods has helped me with most of it, and he is the one doing the work this time too. About all that is left at this point is to repair the cowl and some cranks in the body and fill the top. When Bobby Walden did our doorskins, he also did the piece for the top, which makes it easier to fill the roof.
A lot of traditional hot rod builders today are leaving their top unfilled and just using the stock insert material and the wood. Another option that looks almost identical but will result in a stiffer body is to fill the top with sheetmetal and then the insert material can be installed on top of it (like R&C showed in the July '05 issue, "Special Topping") with a stock-type rubber bead. I'll be filling mine with a smooth piece of sheetmetal and painting it.
Even once the body was in shape, I still had some work to do. I still needed to complete my set of garnish moldings. I had the rear and the quarter-window moldings, which were reproductions made by two brothers in Sweden. Don't count them as a source as these are the only ones they made. So I started talking to all my friends in the business and checked online for possible pieces. A few turned up, but one at the time, and nothing perfect.
Then, like lightning from a blue sky, I got word that somebody in the San Diego area was making replica moldings sets for the five-window! After some research, I found out that the guy I was looking for was Dave Iversen at Iversen Originals in El Cajon.
A quick phone call to Dave, and he told me to bring the doors down and have the window moldings done. He had the pieces for the moldings ready to be cut to length. It's a good idea to have the moldings done on the doors you're going to use, especially if the top is chopped. Dave says he can do tell customers how to get the right measurements and then he can go from there.
