Oh no not another Willys Gasser build, this time a Willys shop truck

[Parm]

Belts are the easy part as you can buy any width/length you like off the shelf, as this is a twin vee belt setup I will buy a matched pair. If you look at the part number on a belt its the length in mm's

In an odd sort of way I suppose all this custom fabrication without any plans to work from is a bit like snooker where you have to be thinking three or four steps ahead all the time to ensure everything works out (most of the time)

 

[langy]

In an odd sort of way I suppose all this custom fabrication without any plans to work from is a bit like snooker where you have to be thinking three or four steps ahead all the time to ensure everything works out (most of the time)

Yeah your right, there is a lot to work out before starting, hopefully I've got my sums correct !!!
Funny you should mention snooker as I used to play for Berkshire years ago, misspent youth and all that

 

[chevy2]

Yeah your right, there is a lot to work out before starting, hopefully I've got my sums correct !!!
Funny you should mention snooker as I used to play for Berkshire years ago, misspent youth and all that

Pocket billiards more like.

 

[langy]

Pocket billiards more like.

 

[langy]

Thought I had finished all the machining but completely forgot to strengthen the bearing housings and triple pin the rotors, The rotors are easy, first I drilled 1/4" holes either side of the stock pin on the other 2 surfaces, only the drive end gets pinned as the other end is under no stress, then the tapered pins are coated in Loctite and pressed into place slightly below the surface



Stock pinned




Uprated








The bearing housings are quite weak in stock format, it don't take a trained eye to see why !!! Why on earth they never made the housing a bit beefier is beyond me !!!
Anyway the solution was to clock the inner housing surface on a face plate and then just kiss the 3 high spots so they were all on the same pitch circle, next a piece of tube was looked for, turned out to be the same dimensions as the axle tube on a truck 9" axle , as we narrow lots of these a quick scour in the scrap bin and an offcut was found . This was parted off to give 4 rings 3/8" wide by 1/4" wall thickness, these were then bored out to fit snugly and pressed into place. Only the front bearings really need doing but I did them all anyway.
The new bearings, seals & gaskets arrived today so next is reassembly



Stock






Modified



.

 

[RonB]

Great to see you can discovered the joys of wet blasting too. I have my own machine which I bought cheap from a brake overhauler . I worked on roots blowers a long time ago,mostly on GM Detroit diesels and Rolls royce diesels. The rollers had paper shims in the end plates which had to set very accurately . If not , the damned things would seize within the first few minutes of running. The Detroit units would just need a set of bearings but often didn't even get those
The first one I ever saw on a Rod was Wade unit off a TS3 truck engine on a sidevalve V8....

 

[langy]

Great to see you can discovered the joys of wet blasting too. I have my own machine which I bought cheap from a brake overhauler . I worked on roots blowers a long time ago,mostly on GM Detroit diesels and Rolls royce diesels. The rollers had paper shims in the end plates which had to set very accurately . If not , the damned things would seize within the first few minutes of running. The Detroit units would just need a set of bearings but often didn't even get those
The first one I ever saw on a Rod was Wade unit off a TS3 truck engine on a sidevalve V8....

Not new to me mate, been having parts vapour blasted for years, My first blower was a RO34 on top of a 4.5 Daimler Hemi in 1974 !!!

 

[langy]

Nice quiet day today, no callers or phone calls, bliss !!! cracked on and got the dash installed, unfortunatly there is a bit of making good to do around the pillars because the butcher that had it before has hacked out lumps of the pillars, I will sort it later but its so unnecessary !!!














Next I decided to fit the Lokar 16" shifter & handbrake, all went well after a few minor tweaks, the rear cooler outlet needs changing for a 90 degree fitting.










Next I stuck an old bit of foam in for a trial check of the seat position,its a little tight for me but ok and absolutely perfect for Sue who might race it in the Gasser Circus, should be good for 12's I reckon





.

 

[langy]

Last few mods to the blower before it all goes back together, The magnesium front cover I had didn't quite seal in 2 of the corners so had to fix it. Made up 2 small inserts in 3/8" plate and prepped them to be welded in place, i don't have a WP26 tig torch at the moment so off to my mate Garys to use his.
Once welded it was draw filed flat.

















Popped into my mate Brians shop and the crank pulley keyway was broached.








Unfortunately I had a slight change of plan in the carb department, Did my sums and no matter how much I modified the 94's I couldn't get them to flow more than 400cfm and this motor ideally needs 550cfm, so had to bite the bullet and change to a 600cfm 4 barrel carb, this meant changing the carb plate, Ben at Dashman whittled up this one for me, I then topped it off with a Edelbrock Enforcer 600cfm in black powdercoat.







.

 

[mike os]

does that just plug straight in to a forecourt fuel pump?

 

[langy]

does that just plug straight in to a forecourt fuel pump?

Hahaha, nowhere near as bad as you think Mike, it should get 25 mpg easily, they are a very tunable carb.

 

[mike os]

He'll I can think of a few modern vehicles that can't do that

 

[langy]

He'll I can think of a few modern vehicles that can't do that

To be honest it amazes me how many people think that if you have a V8 it will do poor mpg, All the cars i've ever owned have managed 25mpg apart from my Willys (don't want to think about that mpg )
Its all down to careful choice of parts and good tuning, for instance ask anyone what carb a SBC needs and everyone will say 600cfm when infact they will run quite happily on a 400. They came from the factory with a 2 barrell !!!

 

[brewdexta]

I only get 22 out of my disco 3, I dream of getting 25

 

[chevy2]

To be honest it amazes me how many people think that if you have a V8 it will do poor mpg, All the cars i've ever owned have managed 25mpg apart from my Willys (don't want to think about that mpg )
Its all down to careful choice of parts and good tuning, for instance ask anyone what carb a SBC needs and everyone will say 600cfm when infact they will run quite happily on a 400. They came from the factory with a 2 barrell !!!

Is that why i struggle to get 20mpg from my s/block chevy with a 750cfm carb, it does make it go faster so i'll live with it

 

[langy]

Is that why i struggle to get 20mpg from my s/block chevy with a 750cfm carb, it does make it go faster so i'll live with it

No it's your lead lined foot !!!

 

[langy]

Its been a bit hectic business wise the last week so not much done, parts side of things has really took off and not enough hours in the day to do 2 jobs

Anyways I was fitting a relief valve into the blower front cover and Sue came around for a look and said wheres the heater going ??? I said "gassers don't have heaters" !!! Anyway I will get onto to the heater fitting in a moment

The relief valve had a 7/16" UNC thread and of course the front cover hole was 16mm typical, nothing ever just bolts on !!! I turned up an adaptor out of a bit of hexagon brass left over from the brake fittings

Next the heater, some of you will know that I have a certain passion for Vintage auto heaters and have amassed a bit of a collection

I had one in particular that I liked but had never found a project for it, its a 1948 Firestone accessory heater, I had started to restore this about 5 or 6 years ago so it had already been blasted and had some black epoxy primer splashed on it and the 2 doors re chromed and the matrix had been pressure checked, even nearly 70 years old the matrix was still perfect. I had binned the 6 volt fan ages ago so first thing was to arrange one of them, I found a 7" fan on ebay cheap so ordered it up.








The door knobs were long gone so I looked for some replacements, I had 2 spare dash switches left over from the dash so they donated their knobs which were bolted to the doors, matches up nicely with the dash now

Heres the nice condition matrix, this got a spray with a satin black rattle can.








The casing was fitted with rivnuts to aid reassembly and tabs made to locate the shortened heater outlet tubes., also 2 rings were soldered on the ends of the tubes to stop the hoses from popping off.












Next job was to make up some brackets to attach it to the firewall, made these out of some 1/8" aluminium angle I had laying about.














Here it is all bolted together, I will paint it body colour at the painting stage.







.

 

[markyb]

Great job Steve, that has to be the coolest heater box I ever seen .

 

[langy]

Great job Steve, that has to be the coolest heater box I ever seen .

They certainly are cool Mark, here's a couple more, green one in my 32 roadster and the other in Sue's model A

 

[langy]

Now bolted to the firewall