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

If you mean the shift knob it won't be staying Doug, I have someting planned

 

There is a god
Steve--I have a "thing" about Lokar and Gennie shifters I guess(I don't like the looks of them).
Not that you need anybody's approval, but this is what I had in mind.

 

Thanks Gazza, i've been looking but they seem thin on the ground at the moment

 

I was/is gonna make something like an I beam shape Doug, gonna change the action to press down the whole lever to shift. rather than pressing a button

 

I can't speak for anyone but myself Steve, I just thought considering the "theme" of the truck; the shifter handle/knob didn't quite fit the bill. As with everything you make, it'll be cool.
Full speed ahead.

 

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.







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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.







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Excellent work Steve. Is that a motorcycle fan?

 

Yes Geoffrey

 

Now bolted to the firewall

 

Only got 5hrs in today as been sorting out customers, nice to see you Paul Nothing spectacular to show i'm afraid as been correcting previous owners butchery on the returns, why someone would hack all the returns so badly is beyond me
Anyway I used a steel rule to give an idea of how it should be, then keyed the glass up and backed it with a bit of sheet stainless and built up with 4 layers of mat & resin, I gave it a squirt of primer to get a better look and they came out alright











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Steve--The diversity of your skills makes me want to take up a different hobby.
How much is a plane ticky from Just North Of London England to Portland Oregon?
I could use some glass help on my roadster.
Look'n good
Doug

 

About £600, I will book it tomorrow never been to Portland

 

Better hold off, I'm saving for ceramic exhaust coating for two cars.
You would really hate it, RAINSALOT
Just like home eh!

 

Too bad Steve--I`d even buy you an Adult Beverage or two if you managed to get North over the river to my place...Oh well......don`t have any `Glass work pending either....

 

Exactly like home Doug, funnily enough its been pretty good last few days apart from Friday

 

Always tempted by beer !!!

 

Perhaps I had better stock up a bit then....You know.....just in case....

 

Beer is good but if you really want to tempt me get some Cider in !!!

 

Bit more done over the Easter weekend, my Ebay 7" fan for the heater turned up but wasn't 7"








I thought the fan was gonna be an easy fix as it was 7" and the hole in the heater 7.125" , Solution was to bin the housing and carefully trim 1/4" off each fan blade.








Next I needed a new fan housing, this was made in some aluminium sheet I had hanging around. Tried it out and it blows really good








Next I finally got around to fitting the pickup bed skirting panels I had made ages ago.








Following on from the door jam repair I added a steel upright and tied it into the lock striker for support, thiswill be further tied into the cage hoop.








While I was at the door jamb I added some strips of ply for attaching the headliner when the time comes, this was bonded in with some CT1 adhesieve sealant.










Next little problem to solve was the air filter, as I had changed to a 4 barrel things had changed and space is getting tight, looked around for a 9" diameter filter but nothing suitable so decided to make one, looked for some 1/4" aluminium plate but the scrap bin was empty so popped over to my mate Brians shop and found a bit, had a few holes in it already but these can be welded up easily and it was painted a rather fetching shade of green.
Anyway the plasma was struck up and 2 discs were cut out.
Heres the base plate after a bit of lathe work.







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Got the air filter finished last night, as I said earlier due to the carb change things had got very tight !!! We are talking every 1/8" counted.
Got the base spun up on the lathe, then the 5.125" hole was put in on the faceplate as the hole is off centre to keep as much of it as possible inside the scoop opening. A 3/8" thick ring was formed around a bit of 5" tube and welded to the base to lift it slightly for clearence, not sure what sort of aluminium it was but it turned real nasty like toffee and welded horribly as well, it would weld nice and then not so !!!












There was no room on top for a securing nut thingy so it had to be a countersunk bolt, this screws into a piece of hex bar on top of the regular 1/4" unc stud.










Here it is finished, you can see its a little tight on space but will get a nice flow of air, next job is to extend the front of the scoop slightly.
While I was there is turned a nose on each carb stud to help putting the nuts on easier.











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Bit more progress today, mostly been repairing fibreglass but while i'm glassing up I generally plan other things in my head, one of these was where to pu the boost gauge where it would be easily seen, I put the one in my Coupe near the column but its not easily seen so a small mistake, anyway I thought what screams street racer ??? Yep scuttle mounted gauges !!!
I already had a Stewart Warner 2.062" gauge so looked around for a mounting cup but couldn't find anything suitable, didn't want chrome or black, I started to make one out of a piece of stainless tube but eve with a brushed finish it didn't look correct so I started to make up from some aluminium bits from the scrap bin.
After a bit of lathe work I welded the bits together and blended & fettled the welds.












Its held in place with 3 small studs, 2 holes were drilled through the base so the lighting wires and boost tube are not seen. It will get vapour blasted and have a cast appearance.











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Keep this stuff coming, a lot of us don't post props every time because we would sound like a broken record. Always look forward to the next post.

 

Thanks for the positives mate, they are appreciated

 

They seem to be breeding, oh look identical twins :laughing:

 

Update on the gauge pods, I always intended to put in a stiffener plate but couldn't decide what shape, Did a few doodles on cardboard and ended up using this one. I might run a weld around the base yet, i'm undecided.














Oh, heres the clearance on the screen






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Something else the carb change affected was the scoop, Its now been extended 2.25" and I altered the shape of the opening slightly.








While I was extending the scoop I decided to add a finisher around the opening, this is made in 1/4" stainless rod and curved around an old alternator pulley. Once I had the shape I looked around Ebay for some mesh but couldn't find anything I liked, suddenly it came to me !!! I still had the offcuts from the aluminium Fairlane grille , Now you know why I never throw anything away !!!
Dug them out but not long enough to go the full width so I decided to weld the 2 halves together. I sanded the joint to a perfect fit and tig welded it, a little clean up with a file and it looked fine. A quick trim up and it was all fitted and dandy, matches the front grille, got a little bit of making good at the front but will do that later.

















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Looking great Steve! Just slow down........you've nearly built two cars while I haven't even finished one!

 

Right on Steve

 

I'm thinking the same as you farmer12! Great work Steve!