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

[langy]

More progress, I tacked the plenum together ready for final welding but due to it being 1/2" plate my 200amp machine was not gonna do the job without a lot of preheat so it was off to see Mr Miller Dynasty

Got it all welded together late in the evening eventually, then had to drink numerous cups of tea while it cooled down

Thanks Gary

One of the mounting lugs on the intake had been damaged at some point so this was built up with weld and reshaped.








The bottom plate thats bolts to the inlet bowed by about 20 thou over the length so it got a small fly cut on the mill. If you have never seen flycutting i've added a short video below.

I mocked it up to have a look and discovered the front plate is a little shy in 2 corners so will have to make up a couple of bits and welded them in.










Next up was the snout drive shaft, its 1.250" steel bar turned done to be welded in to the hub at the blower end, the other end I have to broach a keyway into, made up the pulley flange. the shaft has been left long at the moment so I have something to hold on, I will shorten once its all mocked up on the motor.












I was a little concerned about the mounting bolts on the intake not being very far apart, probably be fine but just to be sure I added a pair of braces, they have to be welded to the intake yet, they bolt to the 1/2" blower plate with 2 x 1/4" bolts.












Here it is mocked up in place ready to measure for the snout length.





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[Wallace]

Love it!

 

[langy]

We played around with the iphone video a bit last night and were surprised at the results we got !!!

We had the ceramic glowing nicely !

 

[markyb]

I'm really enjoying this thread Steve . Fantastic videos . Can't wait to hear this one running .

 

[langy]

Love it!

View attachment 61653

You did that quick !!!

 

[Wallace]

You did that quick !!!

If I had better software I would have done a whole front page!

 

[fixerupper]

Great vid,.... small cameras are able to produce stuning results in the right hands ..
is it just me , but when I watch a film about welding ,as the arc strikes up my hand involuntarily goes up to cover me eyes ..must be the old training working for GEC in the 70s .....jeff...

 

[langy]

I'm really enjoying this thread Steve . Fantastic videos . Can't wait to hear this one running .

Cheers mark, I wasn't quite sure if the video would even work !!!

 

[langy]

Been busy as usual today but not that much to show for it, I usually mount my coils behind the dash but thought I would have a change this time, I got some of these OBT coil covers and thought the cast look would go well with the other parts under the hood, was a bit disappointed with the design really, nice concealed mounting points but then they go and put a grub screw right in the front, could of easily been put in the side where you wouldn't see it

I'm running a MSD blaster coil and a MSD 6A ignition box behind the dash out of sight. Will paint the top of the coil black later.












Was going to make a carb plate for the 2 x Edelbrock 94's but found one of my suppliers made a nice carb plate already and not expensive, check out Dashmans hotrod parts http://dashman.net/parts.html










Also the headlights from Willys Reproduction Parts arrived so it now has a face

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[Robotstar5]

Wouldn't the carbs be better offset from each other as the front one blocks the air flow into the rear one.

 

[dobbslc]

Love this build!
The workmanship is stunning, if I had half the skills you have I'd be very happy!
Didn't think I'd be into hot rods but now........
I can't believe the work rate on this project, it's taken me 3 months to make a brake disc spacer for my cafe racer, although this does include repairing the lathe.
Keep the updates coming.
Maybe see you at the next meet?

 

[RonB]

Congratulations on using the Y block! I haven't owned or worked on a Y block since the 70's but considering your fabrication talent I am surprised you didn't just make a manifold for the blower with a blow off valve. a couple of plates for the heads ,a water duct and some tube for the intake runners and bingo...
it would have saved that Fenton manifold. The Y block is a very under estimated engine but it may have something to do with the massive weird shaped intake ports. We could get them to really rev with just a 650 Holley,after the intake was hogged out and plate brazed to the top. But those intake ports cut the low end torque if the throttle was opened to quickly. I have seen all sorts of intake stuff made for them over the years but the Doan Spencer T/bird engine engine was the highlight,complete with ports Moved to improve breathing.
http://auctionsamerica.com/events/feature-lots.cfm?SaleCode=AF13&ID=r375

 

[langy]

Wouldn't the carbs be better offset from each other as the front one blocks the air flow into the rear one.

It's fine mate, they have been this way for years without any problems, if I had the space I would of used a thicker spacer on the rear carb, but havnt got the space.

 

[langy]

Love this build!
The workmanship is stunning, if I had half the skills you have I'd be very happy!
Didn't think I'd be into hot rods but now........
I can't believe the work rate on this project, it's taken me 3 months to make a brake disc spacer for my cafe racer, although this does include repairing the lathe.
Keep the updates coming.
Maybe see you at the next meet?

Building a Hotrod is indeed a lot of work !!! Many have tried and failed I'm afraid . The secret is you have to be totally committed.

 

[langy]

Congratulations on using the Y block! I haven't owned or worked on a Y block since the 70's but considering your fabrication talent I am surprised you didn't just make a manifold for the blower with a blow off valve. a couple of plates for the heads ,a water duct and some tube for the intake runners and bingo...
it would have saved that Fenton manifold. The Y block is a very under estimated engine but it may have something to do with the massive weird shaped intake ports. We could get them to really rev with just a 650 Holley,after the intake was hogged out and plate brazed to the top. But those intake ports cut the low end torque if the throttle was opened to quickly. I have seen all sorts of intake stuff made for them over the years but the Doan Spencer T/bird engine engine was the highlight,complete with ports Moved to improve breathing.
http://auctionsamerica.com/events/feature-lots.cfm?SaleCode=AF13&ID=r375

I did give it some serious thought Ron on making an intake but the stacked ports make it tricky, there is a guy in Australia making blower intakes but at $1000 plus shipping its way to expensive for me i'm afraid.

 

[markyb]

Building a Hotrod is indeed a lot of work !!! Many have tried and failed I'm afraid . The secret is you have to be totally committed.

.That is so true , many start ...........so many never finish the project

 

[langy]

.That is so true , many start ...........so many never finish the project

Its easy to see why if you think about it, you have to have imagination plus be project designer, welder, fabricator, project manager, painter, panel beater, machinist, trimmer all rolled into one !!! Not everyone can juggle that any hats

 

[langy]

Coming to the end of most of the machining now, just the snout drive left, I had previously made up all the components and just had the keyway to broach into the drive flange and shaft. Popped into see my mate Brian as he has all the broaching tooling, I took a pic of the setup and a short video of the action, this is the old school way to put keyways in, not sure how its done these days.
Basically a mandrel with a slot is inserted into the flange and then a tapered rack with cutting edges is pushed through by a power press, this removes about 60 thou each pass, then a thin spacer is inserted behind the rack which on the next pass cuts the groove deeper and so on until its the required depth is achieved.

I did a short video but this one explains it better

The shaft keyway is much easier to do and is milled in on a vertical Mill, I chose 1/4" key basically as I already had some 1/4" key steel.










Although i'm using a sealed bearing I felt it needed an oil seal just incase any oil wicked through the bearing/shaft joint so a seal was pressed in place, I had already cut a circlip groove. the key was raduised at one end to fit the keyway perfectly.








Here its all assembled and ready to fit. The mounting holes were originally bored for socket cap screws so I counter bored them to accept 12 point ARP bolts.









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[Parm]

Fabulous work as always, but I'm intrigued as to how you allow for belts when making all these custom parts with custom spacers. Do you start with a belt length in mind or are these custom made too?

 

[langy]

Fabulous work as always, but I'm intrigued as to how you allow for belts when making all these custom parts with custom spacers. Do you start with a belt length in mind or are these custom made too?

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