Hi folks! I have been thinking for a while to start a thread about my Willys project and finally I took the time. It began with I found a Willys for sale in southern part of Sweden. The vendor had got it from his father for about fifty years ago and then he put it away disassembled for forty years in a barn. The cause of the sales was that he needed the place, lucky me. It is a Swedish sold car and not imported recently. It is in a very good shape. The only bigger rust on the body is in the trunk floor and I shall replace it with a new. The frame, doors and trunk lid are quite free from rust. The bad thing was the hood (very rusty), but I found two not so good hoods for sale and bought them! From three hoods I can rebuild a good one and a little bit worse one as a standby. I shall build it as a mild pre-60 gasser style. I have put a Chrysler 8 1/4" rear end and I shall have a Chrysler 360 sb engine. From the beginning the plan was to have an Olds 371, but the Swedish traffic authority said it was to heavy for the original frame so I decided to put a SB because I want to have the original frame and front axle. The pics below shows when I picked it up and some early build up. /Mike
Glad to see you start a thread,,I can assure you it will inspire you as well as others,,looking forward to the build. HRP
What front sheetmetal are you going to use? I dig the earlier stuff a lot. Hard to find parts for that stuff. I use to be into that stuff. Looks like a cool build. Keep the pictures coming and stoke that fire. It looks too cold there.
In the first shot.....the body on a dolly. The rear fender appears to be wider across the top than a stock one.....has it been widened, is it a repro, or is it the camera angle?
Thank you all for nice response! I recently have worked with the firewall and moved it about 5-6 inches into the coupe. I choose to have the engine a little bit into the coupe to reach a good balance, yes I now I cut the firewall, but I hope you like the new. I will put some pictures about that as soon as possible. "Curbspeed", I'm sorry I don't understand: What front sheetmetal are you going to use? Do you mean fenders?
Well my fellow Viking. I was refering to which style of frontend sheetmetal you were going to use. A lot of guys will put 41 Willys front sheetmetal on their earlier cars. I tend to like the 37-39 frontends on 4-doors myself. Just wondering if you were going to keep it a 38. That's all.
Of course I keep the original front end. I like the fenders and hood style of -38. Unfortunately have the owner before me remade the front light in the fenders to fit old VW lights. I will change that. I have just for now done a test setup of the lights I purchased when I visited the USA 2010. I think this lights are better. Do you now from what car model they comes from?
Those were aftermarket from mail order, mostly J.C. Whitney. They were the parts of choice when changing to sealed beam type headlights instead of the original element type. I've seen them in two different styles.....the ones you have pictured, and one that uses a "smile" shaped glass element below the sealed beam, above the lower mounting screw.....allowing for a parking or running light. Though they resemble the OEM '40 Ford pieces they are not the same. Yours are definitely the mail order pieces. Also popular in the '40-'41 front ends.....Stone Woods and Cook the most notable.
Here are some pictures when I boxed the frame and cut at som space for brake servo. It took long time to saw these metallic plates and formed them to the right shape. I only have/use electrical hand tools. Some times it would be easier if I had some better machines for help. I did some miss calculating of the brake servo position and was forced to do some more space in the floor. I think it works and the driver seat comes to hide the bigger part of it. It's my first Rod project so I hope you folks have a bit forbearance to my mistakes.
Thanks a lot for the information! It is a pity that the orginal fenders are redesigned and not completely original anymore, but I think it gonna works with this aftermarket lights.
Hi! I have follow your project thread from the beginning. It's a amazing nice job and so cool built. I wish I had your skills.
You are fortunate to find such a rust free Willys and it looks like your skills are up to making the best results with it. Keep us posted on any further progress. Frank
On the willys overland registry website, there is a black 37_39 willys pickup that uses the after market sealed beam headlights. Its the website with all original willys and has all the photos of the australian style willys.
Will follow this with interest. Glad you are keeping the 38 frontal bits.I have a stock 37 sedan,they are cool.JW
Here is a pics of the brake disc and the caliper. I took used brake discs from a Volvo Amazon. I left them to the workshop and had them turning them down a bit and then they came back with a fine and smooth surface. With right type of bearings and very slight adjustments they fitted perfect on the original spindle. Then come the hard work to cut out the caliper attachments. The calipers are taken from a Volvo 240. It's advantage to use Volvo parts because I live in Sweden and there you can find a lot of good used parts and even new manufactured parts to old car models. The second advantage of using Amazon discs are that bolt pattern are the same as Ford.
This is recently done of the firewall. It was a lot of hard work and adjustments to get a good fit, but I think I made it. A buddy helped me to do reinforcments in the firewall.
Thanks for positive response! I'v been looking in your album and you have really cool cars. Whats the plan of the Willys -37 Sedan? Is it in complete original condition? I think it has a great patina and seems to be in very good shape
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