1952 Willys Aero Early Olds with Homemade tri-power intake Olds Rear Stick Shift Manual Drum Brakes Hope to have it running by late spring
Great project! That rocket looks like it was made for the engine bay. The first car I overhauled was a '53 Willys Aero Ace with a 161 ci F-head. That Olds engine will bring it a lot better.
Thanks guys for your support of my project. Constructive criticizm is also appreciated . Many of you have good ideas and I"m old but not to old to listen.
DUDE! thats freakin cool! I've always loved those Aero's, would love to have one myself some day. Never seen one as a hot rod, GO MAN GO !
Sweet little coupe - I've heard they had very good handling qualities in their day. If you've seen the 1954 movie Johnny Dark, they were the product of the car company Tony Curtis worked for. What will the wheel/tire combo be?
I hope your right about the handling cause the suspension is basically stock. I may add a front sway bar and am definately going to add some old school traction device to prevent axle wrap up. Rear tires are old style 7" cheater slicks and the fronts will be something 15" and skinny. The rear wheels are 15" steelies[5 bolt GM] that the center has been moved out to obtain the needed tire clearance as the wheelwells are very narrow. The fronts are stock Willys 4 1/2 X 15 wheels. I would concider some sort of old mag for the front but I am limited by the 4 bolt hubs and the wheels can have very little offset. As always suggestions are welcome.
Good luck on the Willys! My '52 Aero will never see the road again, so it's good to see one lookin' good!
A pretty little coupe complete with a Rocket that has 3 carbs and 3 pedals!! What more could you ask? I love it when people come up with projects that can be filed under: "And now for something completely different..."
LOVE IT my first car was a '53 Aero. Put in a 265, but left three on the tree (couldn't afford to update)...fun car
Hey badshifter unfortunately for me I agree with you. I wish it were as simple as pulling them off and plugging the holes but its not as they are attached from the inside as well as attached from the outside with bellows adhesive. I will have to make a new gasket, re seal it and re paint it.
The intake manifold ports are divided and are approximately 10.5 inches long measuring from surface where the intake bolts to the head to the other end up inside the intake plenumb. The runners cross over inside the plenumb I.E. the left side of the engine breathes from the right side of the intake. The plenumb area is much smaller inside then it appears from looking at the outside. If my son stops by I'll get him to post some pictures as I do not know how.
This was my plan in the beginning but the hubs are so small that when we drilled them for 4 3/4 X 5 GM pattern it weakened them even more. They are about the size of a small fishig boat trailer. I couldn't find any hubs that were similar so I stayed with the originals and re drilled a set of Olds brake drums and installed the Olds backing plates and hardware so that I would have bigger brakes. I wanted to keep the suspension as original as posible; its a trunion set up and I couldn't figure how to make it work without changing everything. In retrospect I probably should have had a new set of hubs made up but I was afraid of what the cost would have been. Changing the hubs to 5 lug may still be done if I can find an economical way to do it. Thanks for all the compliments and as always suggestions are appreciated.
Nice one , it's looking good. One of my friends is building one , we are going to put in a Kugel IFS , he tried an axle but could not make it work. I'll post pix for comparison when it comes in , Denny does things differently .Funnily enough he's called his the Rocketeer.(302 Ford powered) Keep the updates coming .
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