1932 Willys...barn find to runner in thirty days.

Well over some liquid refreshments last night me and a buddy came up with this idea. Just got the car from PA. last week and after looking it over decided this could be doable. It's all light surface rust and the wood looks like new. So follow along as we tear into this project. September 1st is our goal. It'll be small block chevy ,700R and ford nine inch going into it and a vega box for steering, cause it's what i have laying around the shop. The biggest hurdle will be adapting different spindles to the stock round tube dropped axle ( it's too cool not to use ). And as much as some won't like it i'll be putting disc brakes up front, this is one BIG FRICK'N CAR!!!! Has anybody dealt with this conversion?Well thanks for reading this and i'll post updates every 2-3 days. Wish us luck......

 

Go for it!!Burning alot if midnight oil!! look forward to your Pics

 

Looks kool

 

Your right, that is a big Frickn' car !

 

I used the spindles and disc brakes from a 70's era AMC on my '31 Essex sedan. The spindles unbolt from the AMC ball joint uprights. We machined off the Essex spindles from their king pin boss and made a plate that had 6 mounting holes. The 2 lower holes lined up with the lower holes on the Essex king pin boss. The center and upper holes were drilled to match the upper Essex mounts and the AMC spindle.
Net result was bolt on disc brakes AND a 3" lowering of the spindle, and you dont have to adapt new spindles-king pins to the axle. If you're interested I can check my files for some photos.

 

i like that grill and the hood sides are, different

 

Yes Rich i'd be interested in seeing some photos. I'm a macinist by trade so that part is no problem. thanks, Scruffy

 

looks like a cool project maybe ill be able to come check it out when im in town at the end of the month.

 

No problem let me know when your in town.

 

cool car

 

neat car

 

Good luck! I'll be watching for the progress. Cool Car!

 

Sure it's a 32? My book shows that grille and hood on 31 Willys-Knight.

 

cool car. i saw one guy adapt mopar drums to an essex axle, he stuck the spindle in a lathe and turned it down to the mopar specs. he was even able to use the wheel bearing seals.pretty sure the shaft is the same for drums and discs. i need to come up with something like this for my essex.

 

Here's the only photos I can find on the Essex-AMC brake conversation. They are not as clear as I had remembered, but remember this was done 32 years ago in 1977. The notes on the back of the photos detail how we used 1/2" plate. In an attempt to lower the front even more, we tried putting the axle on top of the springs, but found the axle hit the frame with the slightest bump, so we put it back under the springs.

The flat steel plates required spacers to line up with the mounting holes on the Essex king pin bosses. As I recall we bored solid steel rod to the exact dimension of the shouldered 5/8" grade 8 bolts which were shortened to the exact length required.

 

If its a Knight, it will have a sliding valve engine. If its decent you should be able to get a good buck for it from the Willys Knight antiquers even for parts.

 

Great score,gonna look killer.

 

Do it, do it. We get wild hairs up our asses too and thrash like mad to build stuff. Ill be watching this one.

I fully support the disc swap. When you are following a new car and it stops....really quickly....and you cant....it doesnt matter how "traditional" you are. Make it fast, make it safe, drive the wheels off it.

 

It's an overland for sure and believe it to be a sliding/slip valve motor. From what i can tell Knights were not the only cars to get this motor.

 

Thank you Rich, any and all help i can get on that part of the job is most appreciated.

 

Rich, one big difference is mine has a round tube dropped axle. Could they be the same spindles?

 

The year and make of the axle and spindle doesn't really have anything to do with the conversion. This conversion can be used with virtually any make car...you just adjust the dimensions to fit your application.
When you machine off the round part of the spindle that the hub rides on, you are left with what could be considered a universal mounting king pin boss with 4 holes. The dimensions on the original Essex gave us the opportunity to offset the AMC spindle, but if your Willys mounting holes are closer together, you could actually drill 8 mounting holes in the flat plate and offset the new spindle at whatever height you choose. 4 for the Willys holes and 4 for the AMC spindle holes. Just don't mount it so high that the wheel/hub would start to act as a lever and flex or bend the flat plate.

 

Ohhhh...this is gonna be a GOOD thread...I can feel it!
Gotta say I'm a tiny bit iffy on the Vega box, but if it needed changing later a bigger box will bolt on, so its no big deal or anything...

I've seen pics of that spindle conversion done before Rich and actually grabbed an AMC spindle/disc combo from the scrapyard just so I would have what I needed to do the conversion to some rig in the future!

BTW...If anyone has a fear of bolting spindles together they should remember that all the big engined AMC muscle cars/sedans/wagons etc, with their excess front weight compared to a setback Hot Rod, had bolt together spindles!
I've never heard of a problem!!!

Also...if you ever had your kids going to school in your wifes pre 96 Mopar Minivan, you'd be interested in looking at the rear axle construction!
BOLTED on spindles...no machined locator or anything. Just 4 bolts and they aren't very big. Mopar cars of the era were the same!
(Makes a cheap trailer axle though...)

 

Well thanks for the comments, time to head out to the garage to start the teardown. I love taking stuff apart!. I'll be back in about 10 hours to post some pictures...... and we're off.

 

Looks like a 1931 Model 95 Light Six, I have a 1931 in the garage right now, I'm trying to free up the motor. Looks like the same car except for the hood sides and the wheel type.
If you run across a hand crank for it let me know. Also if you want any Pics of how something should look I'll be glad to send them.

 

Hello Ralph, yes mine is model 6-90 1932 sedan. I have a hand crank that i will not be using . It's yours for the taking just pay for the shipping. PM me if your interested and we can set something up. I just got done pulling the motor and trans and it too needs to be freed up. Pulled the plugs and put in some kerosine, see if that works. I'll be using a small block chevy for this build but figured maybe somebody could use the motor down the line. I believe this to be the slip valve motor but don't know enough about them to be sure.

 

No title came with the car but i know it's a Willys Overland from the tags and was told it was a 32. Is there suppose to be an I.D. tag on the firewall? Only one that i found was on the floor inside the drivers side rear door with the serial number 6-90 8060.

 

Well after a long day we pretty much have the car gutted. Engine, trans,rearend and driveshaft, 4 fenders ,hood, grille, radiator and misc lots of little other things are off the car. All thats left are the boards, splash aprons and rear pan for the sheetmetal. The brake rods ,cables and brackets,column ,box and steering related on the mechanical end. Then lots of cleaning , wire brushing and sandblasting which might be pretty boring to post , so on we go. Till the next update, see ya.

 

More pictures.

 

Those sleeve valve engines are worth something to a restorer, best left as is, don't force it to turn and brake something. Good luck with the build, I be following along with the rest of the gang.