60's style Gasser Willys build

[langy]

Originally i had thought of not using the beltline stainless trim as at $400 plus shipping it was an expensive extra i could do without but i kept looking at the old girl and thought something was missing from the overall look.
I realised that Willys just don't look right with out the trim so a quick call to Mike at Willys parts and they were on the way. I received them on saturday and was itching to see what it looked like with them on the car, well she who must be obeyed don't like me working on cars on sundays so i managed to find a bit of time tonight
The fit & finish on the trims is top notch and they fit the body a treat without any tweaking at all which also tells me the body is correct also.

Anyways heres a couple of pics with the trims just taped in place until i find time to fit them with all the various clips.

I think it transforms the car ???

:thanks:


Been concentrating on the doors as I need to get the skins bonded on and then painted so that I can give them to the Bigbossman to wave his magic brush and do the door logos, this is a fun project so the logos will be a bit humourus :yes:
I had the door frames powder coated and made up some door cards and made up a finisher to cover up the door lock, hopefully bond the skins on tomorrow.

Here are the 2 pics missing from my last update

 

[langy]

Well we have been blessed with quite a few lovely evenings so i got on with the doors, the skins were bonded on with bonding paste and the edges made good.

The top of the drivers door was a little on the shy side by about 1/4", The stock Willys were no better and i did think of leaving it as it was to look authentic but eventually i had to add 5/16" of glass, looks better in my opinion.

Next job was to gap the doors, I always think tight door gaps look out of place on old cars so the gap on these doors is set at 1/4", will probably close slightly when painted but should still look like the should do.
A quick squirt of primer for a visual check and its ready for epoxy priming.

Also managed to drill all the holes for the beltline trim and get it bolted on for a fitment check, all was spot on.

Another decision made was the trim on my door cards, they will be diamond tufted like my seat covers, Probably with a 2" plain border around the outside.

Not much progress recently unless you class block sanding GRP

Had a break from it last 2 nights and decided to sort out the blower hole in the hood, most people seem to just form a lip around the hole and leave it at that but i wanted something a little different

I decided to make a stainless finisher that would also add some rigidity to the hood, first job was to decide on a design and make a template in 1/4" plywood.

Next the template was cut into sections as i was using 1/4" stainless offcuts from the scrap bin.

The shapes were cut out of the stainless with a thin cutting wheel in an angle grinder and smoothed to shape with a flap disc in the angle grinder, then the 4 pieces were tacked together for a trial fit.

Once i was happy with the fit it was finished welded and radius's were sanded into the outer and inner edges and everything sanded smooth.

Next 5/16" holes were marked and drilled at 1" spacings to give some asthetics, and another trial fit

The backside was drilled and tapped for 5mm grub screws and holes drilled in the hood, Last job was to give it a quick polish and it was job done

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[langy]

Had to take a break from block sanding the GRP as my arms were hanging off !!! so while i was on the trunklid i remembered I needed a licence plate bracket.

All made from 3/16" stainless plate.

Started by making a foot plate to bolt to the trunk but it looked a bit boring so decided to make a trim for it that matched up with one around the blower scoop opening.

Got a nice surprise off the postman this morning, my new seat covers had arrived and a box of Aeromotive fuel system parts
I had the old covers remade but with a diamond pleated design, I'm actually now selling GRP versions of the Empi seats and can supply covers in either design.
I think they look much better.

The fuel system parts were a Aeromotive A1000 fuel pump, post & pre filters and a Bypass regulator, On reading the pump instructions i found out that the pump should not be run for longer than 30 minutes without a speed controller which is another $200 I wonder why this isn't put on their website
Also in the instructions i found that this pump has to have a sump on the tank.

Anyway in between interruptions where i had to stop and make some brackets for Mick Harles new electric fan and do a quick fix on Sues 29A for the MOT this morning I finally got around to making the sump up.
There was a drain plug where the rear of the sump needed to be so that was removed and 6 x 1" holes cut for the fuel to enter the sump, putting holes in rather than cutting 1 big hole would help baffle the fuel and make sure the pickup would always be covered.

First job was to make up a cardboard template

Next the template was laid flat and some 16swg sheet was marked out.

The shape was cut out and folded, corners were welded up.

Tig welded into position.

5/8" holes were drilled for the -10 fittings and deburred, 2 were put in but only one used for the moment. Next 2 weld on bungs were turned up and threaded 7/8" UNF

Also my old mate Paul Hobby kindly powder coated my battery tray silver, Thanks Paul.

:thanks:

 

[langy]

I ended up not using the threaded weld on bungs i made as i found a couple of -10 AN fittings in my box.

Had to put in a rollover breather valve just incase

The Aeromotive pump has to have a 1/2" minimum return line so a boss was spun up and welded into the filler neck, Its aimed at the side of the tube as the returning fuel is airated and hitting the side of the tube on return will act as a degassing plate.

Had a good day between the showers yesterday Flatted off all the rear of the body, while i was there i gapped up the trunklid and sanded the opening returns to the same thickness of a steel car, I had already epoxy primed the trunklid so while it was raining I primed up the trunklid with some Max Meyer Grey 2K primer, I really like the look of the grey.

While i was there i addressed the problem that all Willys have, there is no drain in the lower trunk gutter, sorted this by drilling a hole and bonding in a piece of stanless tube with the end squished slightly, works a treat.

 

[langy]

Not sure if I mentioned or not but I've decided to run the car in grey primer this year and paint it blue flake next year, reasons are I'm not a big fan of polishing cars, time is running short and I kinda like the grey primer look anyway.
The frame and underbody will be gloss black and finished to a decent standard.
I primed up the hood last night and fitted it up with various bits and pieces, I think the grey primer gives it a real tough look. It also makes the shiny bits stand out.

 

[langy]

I've been looking for some valve covers for the Cadillac motor to clear my roller rockers, the only ones that do the job are the fabricated type, MTS Cadillac sell them but at $400 i thought they were a tad expensive :eek:

I found a company on Ebay cheaper but they were real thin 16swg ally and really poorly made so decided to make some

My mate folded the ally sheet for me at work so all i had to do was make up the fixing bolt sleeves and weld them together.

I was going to get another mate to do the welding as i very rarely do Aluminium so i'm not as good at it, anyway i was impatient and wanted to see them done so the Tig was sparked into life, for those that are interested i used a 2.4mm rod with a 2.4mm tungsten for the main part and a 1.6mm tungsten for around the bolt holes, It came out ok and better than i thought it might !!! They are going to be polished anyway.

I scored some original 60's Offenhauser NOS breathers off ebay US, there will be some people that think fabbed valve covers are not in keeping but I think thats the sort of thing they would of done if they couldn't get something way back then.
Offenhauser must of had funny rulers back in the day because the measurements on the instructions are not the same as on the breathers

After a lot of block sanding the main body is done, just the 4 fenders to do know which isn't so bad, Not bad for driveway built !!!

Looks completely different to me, I like it !!!

 

[langy]

We loaded up the car with a pair of old curtains and several sheets so we didn't scratch the doors and set off for Leicester to see the Bigbossman, signwriter extrodinaire & champion cake eater

On the way we swung by Krispy Kremes to pick up a sackfull of doughnuts as the Bigbossman will do anything for doughnuts

I think we may of interupted something as the Bigbossman had his bedroom attire on :eek:

We had a quick looksee at the doors while Miss Whiplash (Mandy) got the kettle on
Wow they look fantastic !!! I came up with a humorous idea and the Bigbossman did the rest, Lettering is done in 23,5 carat gold leaf, the rest is all old school sign writing.

By now the kettle was well boiled and already the Bigbossman was tucking into the doughnuts, One in each hand was a bit greedy i thought

Managed to get them home without a scratch, here are the pics, Its virtually impossible to show how the gold leaf pops in a pic but its certainly bright !!!, unfortunately I can't fit them until wednesday as the hinges are at the chrome shop, Needless to say i'm over the moon with them and can't say thank you enough to the Bigbossman who has done a 1st class job, Thanks Ian.

for looking.

 

[langy]

Steve, I can understand you not getting any work done on the gasser today, you must have been down at the Diamond Jubilee, rubbing elbows with the Royals. Did Sue make you go or was it your idea ?


Don

Are you kidding Don i was out working on the car all day, making up a twin remote oil filter mount and a few other bits.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h229/stevelangylang/WILLYS/853da105.jpg[/IMG



Well it stopped raining today [IMG]http://www.nsra.org.uk/newforum/images/smilies/yes.gif so i managed to get some more bits painted at last.

While i was waiting for it to dry i mostly played fender piping, tried Black looked aweful, tried Grey but no good as i can't find a perfect match for the primer, ended up trying some chrome mylar, Looks ok but i'm still not sure so it might get changed again, opinions ???

While I was thinking about it I finally got around to finish polishing the weight bar and fitted my Willys licence plate light that finally turned up. While I was there i fitted a Wilys script to the trunk to stop people thinking they are following a VW

Also tried these against the car today, they are original 60's McCulloch Paxton supercharged chrome scripts as new condition, they came in the blower kits when you bought one, I found them on Ebay for little money, Rockit put me onto them, thanks Shaun.

Just can't make up my mind where to put them ???

 

[langy]

Picked up a rather unusual line lock off Ebay (thanks to Rockit for spotting it} Its a MIco lever lock, basically a mechanical valve, they were first made in 1957 and used thoughout the 60's i'm told so ideal for my project.
They were made by Minnesota Automotive Inc, I remember seeing some of them fitted to muscle cars in the early 70's but havn't seen one since.

This one has sat around for years and was seized solid so I soaked it in plus gas for a few days and finally managed to get it apart, the main body is aluminium and has a steel sliding valve with an o ring seal, The bore was pretty corroded but cleaned up well after honing it clean. The valve was polished up and a new O ring fitted, bit of brake fluid and it was sliding nicely. The 5/8" UNF thread had been damaged but running a die down it restored it enough for the handle to screw back in place.

The tag plate has unfortunately been butchered at some point but the details are all there and the Bigbossman has come to the rescue yet again and is going to print off a new tag face.

The lever was chrome and it was unusable so I made a new one in stainless round bar.

The original supplied bracket was for fitting underneath the dashboard but was no good for my use as I need it mounted between the seats, I was going to make a box for it but I kinda like the open bare look so I made a new mounting bracket in stainless that will bolt to the floor.

It stopped raining for a while last evening which gave me a chance to weld in my remote oil filter mount. They show just enough to be noticed.

Managed to just get my chrome hinges on before it started raining yet again
Looks even better now.

 

[langy]

The original tag plate on the lever lock was a bit butchered but the Bigbossman put on his cape and came to the rescue yet again, he made a new one !!! brilliant.

Mostly very windy & showers here today so a workshop job had to be found, Been looking at the fairlane grille and thinking it needed a surround, I found some 1/4" annealed stainless thick walled tube that would bend easily so made up a surround, Its held in place by 4mm screws from the back which screw into tapped holes in the back of the surround.

This is how it looked

With the surround

Willys are well known to have cooling issues due to the rad being high, I made up an air deflector to make sure all the air went through the radiator.

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[langy]

Getting a bit closer to the big strip down for final paint and detailing, one of the last jobs to do was to move the front axle back 1" to the 102.5" wheelbase and replace the knackered front springs, I was going to get the springs remade but i've never been happy with the cutouts in the front panel, the springs were 36" between the eyes and i replaced them with 31.250", this pulled the shackles back inside the front panel which looks much neater, the cutouts were reglassed. This enabled me to cut the frame horns back by 2.5".

The springs were chromed and stainless shackles fitted, the towing eye was originally threaded into the original bumper mount holes, as these had been removed the open end was plated over and a tapered stainless mount spun up in the lathe, this is welded into place and a corresponding hole drilled in the front panel for the towing eye to be screwed into.

Looks much better now.

 

[langy]

Just a few small jobs to do before i strip it to paint the chassis, one of the jobs was to brace the firewall, Willys bodys always seem to have the dors drooping when opened and mine is no different, its only a tiny bit now but its annoying.

My firewall is cut right back and even though it has a tube frame its still flexes slightly, the answer was to put in a tube either side to connect the firewall to the front of the chassis horn.
The tube is 16swg 1.5" 316L stainless, it doesn't need to be thick wall as this is very strong in compression & light. Bends are mandrel bent 316L stainless.

Flat threaded plates are welded behind the firewall to bolt into.

Didn't have any 1.5" flanges to hand so used the 2" triangular ones that i keep in stock, these needed an adaptor to make up the shortfall in size.

Adaptors were spun up in the lathe and welded into the flanges from the rear to keep it all looking neat & tidy, all parts were polished before welding.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h229/stevelangylang/WILLYS/15c6091a.jpg[/IMG


Well the last few evening have been quite exhausting !!!

Seeing as this is a street car also I needed a full exhaust system so I picked up a pair of 2.5" bore Smithy mufflers, I decided against running the system under the car and have gone with a under sill mounted system which exits just in front of the rear wheels. This is very easily removed by a few bolts either side.

Firstly I made up some brackets that would take cotton reel rubber mounts in compression that would bolt to the floor.



[IMG]http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h229/stevelangylang/WILLYS/b0260ba7.jpg




Next a mount was made and welded to the muffler on each end.

Gaskets were made in Reinz heatproof gasket material

Then the complete muffler/bracket was bolted through the floor.
Next a stainless tail pipe was made from a 45 degree bend and some straight tube, the end was slash cut and looks just right.
Next some more stainless bends were cut and welded to hook into the header collector, this section is painted black VHT as i don't want it to show.

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[langy]

Well after 3 weeks of persitant rain it looks like I maybe able to catch up and get to the Hotrod drags

The period 60's waterslides turned up so tried a few out.

My 90-10 front shocks arrived from the states but were slightly longer so the mounts had to be moved.

Next i stripped out the rearend for painting & powder coating and started the big stripdown so i can mediablast the chassis and get it painted.

Hopefully i can make a few test runs at the HRD's, wish me luck with the weather


Well in between rain showers I got the frame stripped down and managed to finish all the welding so off to the blasters on monday, Still need to tidy some of the welds but will do that when i get it back.

The FX3 frame is 2 x C sections inside each other, this makes it real stiff but the drawback is that the edges are sealed with some kind of sealant, its rock hard and impossible to remove, even the blasting process don't touch it Downside is when welding near the seams it melts and contaminates the weld and it has to be ground out and done again, a real pain !!!

While i was there I dropped the steering box mount, It was a little tight on the block so I thought i would move it down 1/2" for a bit more clearance.

While i had the welder out I put in 2 extra legs going forward, This makes the K member into an X now.

If I get the frame back from the blaster on wednesday my aim is to have it all painted black by the weekend.

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[langy]

Well things are going along quite well at the moment and the weathers nice , Got my chassis back from media blasting on tuesday afternoon so first thing wednesday morning I took it over to my mate Dave Hicks workshop as Dave had kindly let me use his place to paint it, spent a real long day blending and fettling all the welds and getting it primed for painting.

Unfortunately I had to go to my brother in laws funeral on Thursday so Friday was set for painting day, walked in the workshop today and it was all black !!!

Dave knew i was tight for time and had a few hours free so popped the paint on for me Boy was I pleased as it saved me a whole day so i can get more done, Thanks a bunch Dave your a great mate.

Heres a few pics to where I am at the moment, I didn't go mad with the smoothing out as its not that sort of car but it came out pretty good. Its had 3 coats of Black Epoxy primer and then wet on wet 3 coats of 2K Black topcoat.

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Well the weather has been great again so I started to run the brake pipes today, I couldn't make my mind up to use Kunifer or Stainless but the decision was made for me when i checked my fittings stock as all i had was stainless fittings.

I didn't have any stainless thru the frame fittings so made some up on the lathe from 5/8" stainless bolts.

Brake line is held by rubber lined stainless P clips secured by 5mm stainless button head set screws.

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[langy]

Nearly forgot the Bigbossman swung by today probably hunting for doughnuts :lol:
He has been doodling again and made me up this tag plate for the firewall :lol:

Last few evenings have been sorting the fuel system.
Had a slight problem in that where i had planned to mount my fuel pump wasn't gonna work as the pump wasn't low enough, it has to be mounted level or lower than the bottom of the fuel tank.

Decided to use the rear coilover mount crossmember, I need a drop plate to get the pump down so made one from some 1/4" aluminium plate i had hanging around, because it was quite a drop i made a strengthening rib for the back, unfortunately my Tig plant is in for repair so i took all the bits over to my mate Gary Laytons to use his Tig for glueing them together (Thanks Gary)

The plate is bolted to the crossmber with 4 x 3/8" UNF set screws. A few holes were cut in it to not only lighten it but to stop it catching the airflow.
The pump is rubber mounted and Aeromotive assured me the mounts won't break but i put on a pair of 1/2" aluminium rod supports anyway just incase, I will slip 1/2" rubber heater hose over these later.

Next i started running the 5/8" aluminium feed line and the 1/2" aluminium return line, these are held to the chassis rail by rubber lined stainless Adel clamps.

Had to find somewhere to mount the Aeromotive bypass regulator, I didn't want clutter the polished firewall so chose to mount it of the offside firewall braceing tube, Had to make up a mount that clamps to the 1.5"od tube.

Forgot to mention while i had the frame stripped i fitted it with a drop out trans crossmember.

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Been busy last few evenings, Got my axle case, ladder bars and panhard rod back from powder coating, (Thanks Paul), I went with powder coat as it was quicker and easier than painting it
I've tried to use mostly Castellated nuts & split pins as they look older and I think they look cool

Got it all back installed and fitted the diff.
Suddenly realised I didnt have an axle breather, no time to order one so just copied the one of my roadster, a bit of hex aluminium bar and 15 mins later i had a breather, had to redrill and tap elsewhere as the old location was too close to the coilovers.

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[langy]

Got a call from my mate the chromer today to say my axle was done
I only gave it to him on friday as an emergency job so has done a brilliant job.
Don't know why but the metal is incredibly hard to polish, I know its forged, Anyone know why its so hard to work ???

I did the roughing out polishing and he finished it off, Its bl00dy heavy and he said he wouldn't want to do another one ever !!!
Hopefully get it bolted on tomorrow evening.

Well i started to refit the frontend last night but it started to rain so knocked off work a bit earlier today and got it more or less back on the car
Came across a couple of small problems though, my mate Allan kindly milled a couple of castor wedges, It would appear that the taxi only had 1 degree of castor and i wanted 7, the problem was the stainless U bolts i got were a bit short once the wedge was in place, solution was to ditch the nylok nuts (didn't like them anyway) they came with and make up some barrel nuts, I only had enough material to make 4 so if anyone has a bit of 3/4" hexagon stainless bar i could put it to good use

The other small problem was the locating stud on the springs was a different size to the hole in the axle, axle was 5/8" and spring was 1/2", solved this by turning up a piece of stainless bar with the size on either end, worked a treat.

Heres the progress so far, hope its dry tomorrow as i want to fit the front calipers and rear drums.

 

[langy]

******* down again yesterday so I decided to put my rear brakes together in the workshop, I have a stash of 11" Ford drum parts and a new pair of drums so it looked an easy job

First problem I came across was I have New big ford axle ends but out of the 5 pairs of backplates I had all were old ford fitting Only thing to do was to modify them to fit.

I had a pair of new ford bearing axle end housings so turned up a mandrel from a lump of aluminium to align the backplate with the housing, then I scribed the holes as they are slightly different.

Once the holes lined up I clamped it all together and ran a drill through each hole to clean them up.

I now had elongated holes in the backplates, answer was to weld on some large diameter thick washers.

Everything was going very smoothly until I started to assemble the brakes then I suddenly realised I was missing the parking brake levers Couldn't find any in my stash so I've asked my mates to have a look and see if they have any laying around otherwise its order from the states which is gonna hold me up yet again

Oh well 2 steps forward and one step back

This is the parts i'm missing just incase any one has a pair hanging around, they are for 11" diameter brakes

I'm starting to think they are out to get me !!!

Finally sorted the backplate bits and pieces and pulled the drums out of the boxes and guess what ? Wrong stud pattern

Anyway I decided to use them and just redrill, heres how the job went.

First I turned up a spigot from a lump of aluminium round bar to align the centre hole of the drum, then a aluminium spacer I had was fitted to it, everything clamped up and then I drilled through the stud holes in the spacer, Fairly straight forward job but I could of done without it to be honest.
I cleaned off the very thin coat factory paint with a zip wheel and epoxy primed them and then gave them 2 coats of 2K Jedi black.

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[Seano]

Langy..you are my hero , been waiting for this build for ages, will now read very slowly, Oh and did I mention the Willys is one of only two favourite cars for me.... the other being an early 64's GTO

 

[langy]

Well ain't gonna make the Hotrod Drags so decided not to rush the build now, will just plod on and get it done.
Decided to sort a couple of modifications I had planned for the winter.

First I have decided to go with solid motor mounts but wanted it to still look ordinary so I machined up some copies of the rubber mounts in aluminium, I'm going to paint them satin black so they will still look like rubber.

Next modification was to the ladder bars, The installation of double adjusters will allow me to preload the suspension and plant both tyres equally on launch, Out of interest i played with the adjustment to see what it would do and found 1 complete turn on the adjuster moves 1" at the end of the bar.
I thought about doing this when I initially made them but decided against it, don't know why because it makes a lot of sense really and makes it all adjustable.
I had to shorten the bar to accomodate the double adjusters which meant making up a couple new thread bungs, These were made from 1" steel bar, the ends are turned down to fit inside the tube snugly and rosette welded on all 4 sides.
Normally the double adjusters would be in the lower leg of the ladder bar but i didn't want them to show, they will do the same job.

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Well what a brilliant sunny day we have had here today, real hotrod working weather

First job was to rebuild my Land Rover steering box, you can get any small part for these and for peanuts too, armed with £12 ($19) worth of gaskets, shims & bearings the rebuild commenced, 1 hour later it was done & mounted.

Next up was to sort out the pitman arm, I had sorted these bits previously but now there is no rush i decided to get them chromed, the track rod end goes in from the other side on the LR box and I needed it the other way around, the answer was to drill out the arm and weld in a bung I had turned up earlier, this puts the rose joint i'm using back in the same plane as the trackrod end but on the other side, Pics of stock arm and my modified arm, I also removed the big lumps off it ready for chroming.

Next job was to make the drag link arm up in stainless tube, 2 threaded bungs were turned up in 316L S/S and threaded. Then they were seam welded and rosette welded into the tube, finally it got a quick polish.

Next I needed a steering arm, I've used a Speedway hoop arm and modified it to suit, as I have 32 spindles and the arm is designed for 37-41 spindles the arms needed to be slightly closer together, I warmed them up and tweaked them to suit, The threaded ends were cut off and holes were carefully drilled in the centre of each leg and threaded to take 10mm Hi Tensile countersunk bolts. Also added 2 small pieces of tube to the legs to give them more stability, i.e. larger area.

Made an infill panel to weld in next time the steering arm is off for chroming, this is where I got a bit carried away and forgot to allow for the thickness of the caliper bracket so a small shortening modification was done to the offending leg

Put it right quickly though
While the pitman arm and steering arm are being chromed I will paint the calipers etc etc.

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[langy]

Somebody asked for a pic of how my discs are mounted on my spindle mount wheels, so here it is.

Nuts holding the disc to the adaptor are metal locking nuts.

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Decided to give the drags a miss as the weather was going to be good this weekend and I could get a lot done on the car

One thing thats been bugging me was the underside of the body, its just finished in fibreglass and originally I was just gonna paint it black and call it done but its just been bugging me that it would look better with a half decent finish on it.

The body is fairly light and easily turned by 2 people so Gomez popped over and we flipped the body onto its roof on an old mattress to protect it.

Out with the DA and some 60 grit discs and the highs were knocked off the fibreglass, Next a thin skim of filler was put on and this was buzzed down with 80 grit discs then 240 grit discs, Next i put on 3 coats of satin black Epoxy primer and allowed it to tack off for an hour while i thought about which topcoat I would use

I had a choice of gloss black or gloss white, thought about it and the black was out as I hadnt been that fussy about the quality of finish on the floor and the black would show any defect, Thought about the white and thought that would be a bitch to keep clean

Thats when I remembered I had some Gravitex satin black stonechip laying around , This would give me a decent finish and would look tidy and be fairly easily cleaned and is very durable

I put on 2 coats of the Gravitex as the first wasn't very textured, Not a bad days work but took from early in the morning to 9pm in the evening to finish but i'm happy how it turned out



Epoxied

Here finished in the stonechip, the camera flash has made it look grey but its actually black.