Thread: 41 Willys pickup project

Tweet

If you can call it that, the truck was pretty well built to begin with. It really was not finished though and the paint work is no where near the level it should be for the quailty of the rest of the truck. Many little things have been overlooked with the truck; things like door weatherstripping (that helped cause the door skins to crack), oversized carb, improper starter and I could go on.

I am pretty young for the general street rod hobbyist, I'm 28. My dad always took me to the York PA street rod shows when I was younger and I got hooked. It wasn't easy, he doesn't work on cars. I had to buy all my own tools and I have taught myself everything. I've been working on my own stuff for about 10 years now and have done quite a bit of fab work since then. I post a lot on here when there is something I'm not to sure of, its helped out greatly. I started out building a tuner car with a 2000 Ford focus, then went into a 69 mustang and traded that for my first street rod a 23 t bucket. I always said that if I got a chance to own a 41 willys or a 32 ford roadster I would take it. I came across it, and being a truck I couldn't turn it down. The price was perfect for me.

There were alot of little things wrong with the truck but I am working on fixing them. I am getting ready to add some original head lights to it, and have it repainted in the fall as the paint work just looks rushed in areas. I have quite a bit of work into it now. Hope you enjoy some of the pictures. I'll keep it updated.

So here are a few pictures of the truck to start


Here is one example of where you can see the rushed paint work. Look under the bed rails.










Here i had already gone through the ignition, carb, and fuel lines, I added a pressure regulator and gauge up on the firewall.

This is currently how the truck sits, the doors are off at the body shop so the cracks in the jambs can be fixed


Here you can see cracks in the door jamb because of the lack of weather stripping, allowing vibration.

Here is the repro headlights I bought, with new buckets and H4 bulbs

and a little video

Bitchin Ride! Thanks for the pics also.

Great truck!!!

That is a bad ass truck, especially at the age of 28! I love it, very nice and keep up the great work! I hope my car turns out half as nice as your truck is.

Is this the same ride that had/has the radiator in the bed? And it was running hot???

Thanks for posting the pic's! It's indeed a great looking truck and I hope you get your "issues" sorted out and addressed in the right way for the long term. Also, I'm overjoyed to learn you're into this at 28!!
Same as Mike, I looked at the pictures showing the tonneau cover and thought, "I've seen this before, isn't that the louvered radiator outlet?" (Link to earlier thread - incredibly hot engine bay temps, need advice or suggestions 41 Willys 350, pics insid ) Did you get your overheating problem solved, and if so, what did you have to do?

yessir this was running hot, I found my issue to indeed be underhood temps. I'm fabricating a spacer for the hinge to help vent the hood up near the window. The radiators are doing their job, as I turn the fans on they pull the temp down drastically and pretty quickly. I may add an electric waterpump later on down the road. Its all a work in progress kind of like everything else. I may not have it perfect yet but its getting there.

Thanks for the comments though! Its been a long tough road to get a vehicle this nice. It was nice to be able to break into the hobby at a young age, I've learned alot the hard way. Sometimes thats the only way to learn. I stumbled across my 69 mustang when I was 24, it was in pretty decent shape as well but needed a motor. I ended up doing a 351 swap on it since it was the original motor that was in the car. It had a 302 when I purchased it. The T bucket was a blast with a 440 chrysler big block and a 727 torqueflight, it just wasn't practical enough for what I wanted.

Here was a picture of it with the Willys right before the new owner came for it.

From my experience with electric water pumps, they don't last for crap on a street driven vehicle. I used to keep a spare when I had my 388 stroker in my 72 Camaro. I finally switched over to a high flow aluminum unit and it was mucho better.

HMmm.. I guess my memory isn't as bad as I imagined! Good to hear you've made progress with her too! It's a sweet lookin' ride!

And glad you came back to hang out with us!

oh yea i've been here, mostly browsing and following others builds. Especially the 41 willys thats being built over there in the UK. Ive been posting some here and there too, its a nice active forum with a lot of helpful and polite people. Thats hard to find.

Hey heres an update for you guys. I got my doors back from paint and they look great, cant even tell the jambs cracked. I also got my new tinted glass cut and in the door. I have everything lined back up nice the way it was.

Additionally today was the huge spring swap meet at the Carlisle fairgrounds. I was able to go and get some nice weather stripping samples for free from the guys at steele rubber. I found the kind I needed and ordered it tonight. While walking around there I found a pretty sweet air cleaner to finish off my engine dress up.

Heres the doors right after being hung on the truck.




Heres the air cleaner I picked up today as well

AHHHHhh - so the pictures are in this thread!! 8-)

Looks NICE!

this is a sweet Willys and I like the years

Here is a new update for the truck, I was working on my hood spacer today. I have the hood off and I am kind of liking the look, I think. I'm not to sure about it just yet. I have all chrome hardware for the bolts and the spacers so i'll probably just put it back on. Here it is in the meantime, the doors are all weather stripped now too.

Well the hood went back on today with the spacers and all chrome hardware I bought from the local hardware store. I wasn't sure that my plan was going to work the way I wanted, I had been thinking about it for weeks and finally solved the problem in my head today at work. The hood was bolted on before with bolts running into the cab and had nuts fastening it from behind. The problem with this was the accessibility to the nuts. So I ran the bolt out through from the inside, put on the spacer with a jam nut and lock washer. Boom no more needing to pull the gauge cluster out to get the hood off. The hood vents nicely too, its pretty subtle looking as well.

Here's my little idea:

and a nice little gap for the heat to vent properly