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

Steve--
I'm a bit stymied by the fit of that front gear cover on the blower, what was that originally cast for?
I don't recognize the name on the casting.

 

Hahaha, I never grew up Kev !!!

 

My home tig has a cooler but my mates Miller doesn't Mark

 

Denny, i'm led to believe there were early & late blowers and they vary slightly in shape on that side, the cover I have is a mag one and made for the early shape with rounded corners, Its an easy fix that just involves an extra bit of ally welded in, I kinda like the cover as have never seen one before, anyone know anything about it ??? It has Odyssey cast into it.

 

Simply awesome machine work!

 

I feel severely inadequate when I look at this thread. Awesome work!

 

Steve--I looked at some photos of one I had nearly 40 years ago, I don't believe it's a difference in the blower cases, I think the difference is the bearing/gear case casting shape.
Yep, I've never seen that front cover before, was that cast in G.B.
Doug
p.s. keep posting all those great machining photos, it takes me back to all those
"Government Jobs" I use to do at work for my projects.
Heres one

 

Thanks for the kind comment Dave

 

Sorry Denny that's what I meant, threw you a curved ball there.
I have no idea where the cover was made, I did Google it but nothing came up.

 

Cheers bud, I'm no machinist but I like to have a go.

 

Steve--
Just a thought, you stated your front cover is magnesium.
I was wondering if it was made for the Petes Engineering.(Pete Robinson/George Montgomery
blower cases, as they had more of a rounded casting, I believe they were the first blowers cast in magnesium.

 

Steve the 71 series blowers came in a couple of different size cases.

 

That IS an interesting cover; kinda looks like a combination of an inline 6-71 and 6V71 cover.

 

Yeah so I was told Gary, thanks for confirming

 

Thanks Steve! Will give him a call.

 

Steve--
Stumbled on a website with some pretty interesting reading regarding blowers, manifolds, drives, etc.
Never heard of it before, may have more info. than you ever wanted but may be of some future use.
Doug
victorylibrary.com/mopar/blower
Tech Papers

 

Sorry, linky not worky, try manual entry

 

Thanks Doug, will have a looksee, sorry about getting ya name wrong

 

It's all good Steve, I've always been known as the guy with three first names.

 

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 do a short video to explain broaching 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.









.

 

thrilling skills, Steve, i read all the book, just waiting for movie release, i'll take balcony 1st row. btw, what will it be named?" me and blower McGhee"? "el machinero"? "stainless steve strikes lathe"? Britain's got Willy's?" seriously, lookin' at your thread tops the entire tv guide ten times. compliments again and hats off to your build!

Cheers , Carsten

 

Brilliant Work

 

Hahaha, thanks Carsten, havn't thought of a name yet to be honest but as its a shop truck it will probably have my logo on the doors.

 

Thanks Oz, I see yours is coming on great now

 

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



.

 

Steve. The work and upgrades to your blower are very interesting. Top notch work, should be a nice reliable blower.

 

Cheers buddy, i'm not reinventing anything, ust doing whats been done for years

 

Hey stop posting all these blower pics I,m getting jealous.Never would have let you have that blower if I knew you were going to tease me with all these pics.But I gotta say it,s looking good mate.