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

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Today has mostly been taken up doing a few minor changes on my Coupe but I did get the radiator back in place and bolted the front panels together.







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Yesterday was another day of measuring and more measuring but made good progress, my pal Gomez came over to hold the end of the tape which helped no end.
We made up a flat surface to sit the body on which helped stabilize everything, I'm not sure of whether this body has ever been an actual car or not because we found some very odd things with it First thing we found was all though the door inners sort of fitted the openings they were an odd shape, cut some bits out to correct this and will reglass them the right shape later. the inners are actually too short width ways but I can fix that quite easily.










The out door skins had us scratching our heads for a while as they were both way too long for the openings even though the body & doors had hinges on them Luckily I had the dimensions from a steel truck and when checked we found the door skins were way out !!!, We also found one door was 1.5" longer than the other So out with the cutting wheel and they were sliced down to the correct size You can see in the second pic there are no cutouts for the hinges and the front of the door is clearly too long, I can only assume someone started this but never finished it.










After a bit more measuring and trimming we got them fitting correctly











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Ah yes, more of that fine fitting fiberglass!!! Oh well, easy to fix anyway. Good progress, Steve! Always liked the looks of the Willys cabs, IMO second only to a Hudson pickup!

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

Ah yes, more of that fine fitting fiberglass!!! Oh well, easy to fix anyway. Good progress, Steve! Always liked the looks of the Willys cabs, IMO second only to a Hudson pickup!

Yeah getting there gradually Dave, cheers

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Well a little bit of progress, started glassing the various pieces together, most of the glasswork is underneath but I had to get it stuck together solidly to turn the shell over.

First the sills were attached to the rear of the body, I guess this is glassfibre porn to someone out there









Then in between the bits of aluminium sheet was glassed to hold it together while the aluminium was removed. Then it was glassed up fully.













The lower cab rear corners had been hacked about quite badly so these had to be repaired before the flloor went in.









The floor was then bolted back in and glassed at the rear & front, next job is to glass the flloor to the sills and then turn the body over for the underneath to be done.







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Great work and that is really good you were able to get the doors fitting nicely! I like fiberglass work but it's still nerv racking hoping the mixture is just right.

Well got to a point where I needed an extra pair of hands so Allan (53pop) popped over to lend a hand, I needed the body upside down to glass in the floor and its getting heavier and awkward to move around.
First job was to glass in the rear of the floor, I had had to cut the floor into 2 halves to get it in so the joint had to be fixed, while there we bonded in 2 short pieces of 1/2" square tube as strengtheners.







Next up was the front section of the floor & the sides









Next up was the cowl joint which came out real nice.







Had to alter part of the rear lower panel, I had the measurements from a stock pickup and I checked the rear panel and found out the lower cut out that fits over the frame was 1.25" to high in the panel, so I cut it out and moved it down to the correct place, the rear panel needed repairing anyway so no big deal, the pics tell the story.









This meant the last 4" of the floor needed to be angled very slightly so some more cutting was needed.







Dropped the body back on the frame for a looksee and it now fits much better so can glass up to finish it.







While the body was back on we loosely held the frontend in place for a looksee, the front is slightly high at the front by about 2 or 3" but you get the idea





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Looking very nice! When glassing to the plywood, do you just rough up the wood like you would other fiberglass to allow it to bond? Or do you have any other steps to help make sure the fiberglass bonds to the wood? Great work!

Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe

Looking very nice! When glassing to the plywood, do you just rough up the wood like you would other fiberglass to allow it to bond? Or do you have any other steps to help make sure the fiberglass bonds to the wood? Great work!

Yes Ryan but one other thing to do is drill multiple 1/4" holes where you want to bond, it links both sides together.

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Originally Posted by roadster32

Yes Ryan but one other thing to do is drill multiple 1/4" holes where you want to bond, it links both sides together.

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Yup,,good idea on the holes.. Whenever I do a glass over ply,,I aways sand the ply well,or with disc grinder,,and slop a good strong coat of resin on it,,and let it sit over night.. Then scratch it up well in the morning,and get a good key to the top surface.. After a while,,(years) I have found a bit of de lamination with polyester resin,to ply..
I have been using a product called''bendy ply'' (down here),,on the 32 chassis,for a form fitting floor,,available in varying thickness..The last sheet I used was 1/4'',,with three layers of 600CSM mat over the top,,and another three on the bottom.. Makes for a bulletproof floor,,about 1/2'' plus thick..If we do a simple GOP floor here in NZ,,we have to put steel inserts inside each hole we drill through the floor,,to satisfy our certification process..

Glad to see I'm not the only one to use melteca(melamine) sheets for laying up flat sheet stock..Usually got a bit of varying thicknesses in stock,for the little jobs that pop up..

Originally Posted by lamin8r

Yup,,good idea on the holes.. Whenever I do a glass over ply,,I aways sand the ply well,or with disc grinder,,and slop a good strong coat of resin on it,,and let it sit over night.. Then scratch it up well in the morning,and get a good key to the top surface.. After a while,,(years) I have found a bit of de lamination with polyester resin,to ply..
I have been using a product called''bendy ply'' (down here),,on the 32 chassis,for a form fitting floor,,available in varying thickness..The last sheet I used was 1/4'',,with three layers of 600CSM mat over the top,,and another three on the bottom.. Makes for a bulletproof floor,,about 1/2'' plus thick..If we do a simple GOP floor here in NZ,,we have to put steel inserts inside each hole we drill through the floor,,to satisfy our certification process..

Glad to see I'm not the only one to use melteca(melamine) sheets for laying up flat sheet stock..Usually got a bit of varying thicknesses in stock,for the little jobs that pop up..

Yeah I use bendy ply all the time, amazing stuff, I did the floor of my Coupe with bendy ply and with 3 layers on each side its like a 3/8" steel sheet !!!

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Originally Posted by roadster32

Yeah I use bendy ply all the time, amazing stuff, I did the floor of my Coupe with bendy ply and with 3 layers on each side its like a 3/8" steel sheet !!!

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I think I will be using the bendy ply more often now,Steve.. Seems a little more cost effective than a solid glass floor,,that I have used in smaller floors.. Darn stuff costs as much to ship it down from Auckland,,as the cost of the sheet.. The good thing is,,that it comes with about three packing sheets,to protect it,,so I will never run out of stuff for patterns..

All looking good,Steve.. Yup..It makes ya wonder sometimes,,when people take molds off panels,,what is going through their minds,,as I have seen some real shonky stuff in this industry.. Your doors are a good example of that..You got them sorted now,though.. Its coming together nicely..

Originally Posted by lamin8r

All looking good,Steve.. Yup..It makes ya wonder sometimes,,when people take molds off panels,,what is going through their minds,,as I have seen some real shonky stuff in this industry.. Your doors are a good example of that..You got them sorted now,though.. Its coming together nicely..

Cheers Robin, I think it was originally moulded to fit a another frame, Its the only reason I can think why it was altered

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Now don't take this the wrong way BUT that is just plain SEXXY