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

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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



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Nice quiet day today, no callers or phone calls, bliss !!! cracked on and got the dash installed, unfortunatly there is a bit of making good to do around the pillars because the butcher that had it before has hacked out lumps of the pillars, I will sort it later but its so unnecessary !!!














Next I decided to fit the Lokar 16" shifter & handbrake, all went well after a few minor tweaks, the rear cooler outlet needs changing for a 90 degree fitting.










Next I stuck an old bit of foam in for a trial check of the seat position,its a little tight for me but ok and absolutely perfect for Sue who might race it in the Gasser Circus, should be good for 12's I reckon





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Wow Steve, the truck is looking sweet! Great machine work on your blower. That is so cool to be able to do all that in your work space.

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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Very nice. How's your weather been down there?

Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe

Very nice. How's your weather been down there?

It's been very windy which increases the coldness but still getting on though.

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Now that is a shame Steve as the triples on top of the blower had " That Certain Look " which sadly a 4 barrel lacks I think. There is a guy here in Auckland NZ running a big block Ponty witha 671 blower featuring the 6x 97 carbie looking fuel injection so he has that look plus the car runs real good and reliable. That is in a '36 Chevy Sedan with no bonnet. Sorry I don't have a photo of it.

Originally Posted by Whiplash23T

Now that is a shame Steve as the triples on top of the blower had " That Certain Look " which sadly a 4 barrel lacks I think. There is a guy here in Auckland NZ running a big block Ponty witha 671 blower featuring the 6x 97 carbie looking fuel injection so he has that look plus the car runs real good and reliable. That is in a '36 Chevy Sedan with no bonnet. Sorry I don't have a photo of it.

Yeah it is a shame Whip, I liked the look best but I have a 4/71 and only dual carbs as not enough room for triple setup, If I could of got triples on there I wouldn't need to change to the 600 4 barrel.

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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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That is a really cool looking heater!

Ditto x2

Seems to me if mama ain't happy NOBODY is happy. Heater looks great

Now bolted to the firewall

Sexy heater! Sue, the next question is, "Where are the switches for the heated seats?"

Originally Posted by rspears

Sexy heater! Sue, the next question is, "Where are the switches for the heated seats?"

Roger stop giving her ideas mate

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