1961 Willys Pickup; Just an Honest Utilitarian Work Truck

CrazyCasey

CrazyCasey

Bigger Hammer
All-Star
Jul 24, 2023
68
Virginia City
First Name
Casey
Willys Model
  1. Pickup
Willys Year:
  1. 1961
Hello!

Many of you know me from my brake drum saga, but I wanted to post a “build thread” to outline what’s going to be the largely underwhelming process of putting my 1961 Willys pickup truck back into service. The work is happening fast and furious, so I’ll try to keep up with this thread.

Ever since my first trip to Disneyland’s California Adventure Park, I’ve always wanted to do a themed build (sort of) of a vintage Jeep into something like an old Forest Service rig, or something along those lines, anyway.

This is the Willys on display in that park:

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So, well, to make a long story short, I’ve been driving an old 4x4 converted Ford cargo van for the past few years, with hopes of building a sort of “Poor Man’s Sportsmobile”, and I finally started building out the interior, and now I need a proper work truck. I mean, I can’t even go buy a sheet of plywood right now…

So, I found this neglected old Willy’s pickup on Facebook marketplace, and of the half dozen or more I’ve seen advertised within 500 miles, it was the first one that actually had a title!

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Despite having some fairly significant issues, the truck is remarkably rust free. It had changed hands a few times, and each owner seemed to have taken it a bit further from ever being back on the road again, unfortunately. Though it did have a fresh 283 Chevy installed, it was not fully hooked up. The wiring harness was cut at the firewall, all of the brake and fuel lines were removed (and lost). The headlights and turn signals were removed. The fuel tank itself was weeping through a million tiny rust holes. If I drug this thing home, I was going to have my work cut out for me…



…




So of course I drug it home!

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And immediately got to work on knocking the ugly off of it…

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Anyway, that should be enough of an introduction post.

However, I also am a “YouTuber”, so I made a little walk around/project introduction video, and I will post that here if anyone is interested:


1961 Willys Project Introduction




In the next update, I’ll bring the project up to speed with the work I’ve done so far. But, spoiler alert, I touch on some of that in the video as well.

Thanks for checking out my thread!



Cheers,

Casey
 
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Thanks everybody! Getting out there again today to try and come up with a fuel tank mounting. I hear you guys are all familiar with “Bubba” in the Jeep community. Well, he cut the mounts out of my Willys long ago.

Yesterday I ran new brake lines, and installed headlights and parking lights, which were missing when I first brought the project home.

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What a difference those make! I wish I could afford the chrome bars for the grille, but maybe later…or perhaps I can find an “ok” used set that doesn’t brake the bank.
 
Looks nice. Great progress already.

In addition to the used Willys parts places, folks here on the forum have parts. You can place an ad of what you’d like in the “wanted” section of the OWF classifieds:

Wanted

Looking for something Willys? Yep, post your needs here...
www.oldwillysforum.com www.oldwillysforum.com
 
Hello!

Any chance one of you fine folks on this forum can walk me through, or link me to a diagram to wire up the speedo uni-gauge cluster on my pickup? I really just need a confirmation on a couple things…

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I’m running gauges in place of the “Oil” and “Amp” lights, and I know that the other three lights are two instrument and one high beam indicator.

I’m unsure of how to hookup the 5 posts at the bottom of the gauge.

On the fuel gauge I’ve got “S” and “I” as well as the bus bar. I’m assuming the bus bar get’s gauge power, and that “S” is sender, but what is “I”. I’d guess ignition on, but wouldn’t that make gauge power irrelevant?

And then I’m assuming the other post on the temp gauge has to be for the sending unit, right?

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Thank You!
 
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Hey fellas. I’ve recently started working on this old girl again after being stalled out over winter (the Mustang was a paying job that took precedence), and I realize I’ve done a real garbage job of updating this thread.

So here’s a little update from my last post, and I’ll do another in a few days that should bring us current. And then hopefully I’ll follow up from there because I’ve got a few NEW things planned for the truck.

Alright, so…plumbing. This truck had none. I ran fuel, brakes, cooling, exhaust, and electrical.

The exhaust system I ran was a 2 into 1. I didn’t have manifold extensions for the Chevy “ram’s horns”, so I whipped these up:

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I made the exhaust studs on the lathe out of some all-thread, cut the flanges on my plasma table, and bent the collectors on my press (don’t worry, the power wire got some heat sleeving).

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I used 2-1/2” tubing because I found a mandrel bent Camaro cat-back on Marketplace for $25, and I was able to cut the whole thing up and reuse it. I was able to keep everything tucked up pretty tight for wheelin’ clearance.

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The only thing I had to buy retail was a muffler. I went with a Dynomax “race bullet”, which sounds amazing, but it’s honestly too loud. The tip was cut from one of the Camaro cat-back bends:

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I’m not sure what these pickups originally had on the dash in front of the driver, but this is what mine had:

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I didn’t hate the gauges, but as was SOP for this thing, the previous owner had cut the lines coming out of them. So I bought the cheapest Autogage three gauge panel I could find, and promptly decided I had to come up with something better to mount them. Honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing with sheet metal fab (trying to learn), but this is what I came up with:

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At first I kind of hated it, but once I got it mounted, it started to grow on me.

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My gauge cluster (the center mount Willys one) still doesn’t work, which I need to get back to, because this thing gets horrible fuel mileage, but more on that later…

After everything was plumbed up, I filled the radiator, and found coolant pouring out the back of the rebuilt 283 Chevy…

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And if you’ll notice from my little aluminum patch job, I couldn’t get the distributor out (even with the cap/rotor/points plate, etc pulled), so I had to either cut a hole in the firewall or pull the engine. What a fiasco!

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Regardless, I took the opportunity to strip the green paint and sort of half-[donkey] polish the manifold up. I believe it’s a
“Torker”. And then I thought, well shoot, I should really letter these valve covers while I’m in here. And now it looks a little more like somebody cared:

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So, about this time I realized there was nothing keeping me from that “first fire up”. And since I had to break a cam in, I didn’t record any of that, but here is the aftermath:


Also…

My three year old approves!

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That’s all for this one…
 
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CrazyCasey said:
And if you’ll notice from my little aluminum patch job, I couldn’t get the distributor out (even with the cap/rotor/points plate, etc pulled), so I had to either cut a hole in the firewall or pull the engine. What a fiasco!
Click to expand...
And now you know possibly the greatest reason the people install Ford Windsor V8's into Willys.

Good post. Thank you for sharing.
 
Alright so, some of these are a bit out of order, because I actually rebuilt the brakes prior to doing the engine stuff, but I forgot to cover any of that. I had a Hell of a time getting the right drums, but did eventually find them thanks to the help of this forum.

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I decided to go with a disc brake conversion on the front, which I found locally through Parts Dude 4x4. Sam who run’s the place is just the salt of the earth. Turns out his business was all of 30 minutes down the road. AND because he had taken a week off to go to the Jeeper’s Jamboree, he was offering a 10% discount, which put his kit cheaper than any of the rest.

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Tear down for the discs led to pulling down the knuckles when I discovered some stripped threads in the steering arm attachment. And an abundance of gear oil in the knuckle led to the decision to change axle seals, which led to replacing axle shaft joints, etc.

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When I finally got everything together, I found that I had contact on one of my rotors to the caliper bracket. Of course it was 4 o’ clock on a Friday. I knew I could clearance the bracket, but I never do anything without calling the manufacturer. So I call Sam @ Parts Dude…

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HUGE SHOUT OUT to Part’s Dude 4x4!!!
4 o’ clock on a Friday. Sam’s answer!? He got in his truck and drove a new rotor/hub assembly out to my house! And I live in the sticks. I will be a customer for life.

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Alright, so, getting back in order with the posts here somewhat.

When I broke the cam in, I wound up with a pretty big puddle of oil under the engine. And, I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. I suspected the rear main seal, but I couldn’t see anything on the crankshaft itself…in an effort to fix that, I realized the 283’s road draft tube port had been sealed with a freeze plug, so I had the front fill/breather, but nowhere for the pressure to evacuate. So I made an adapter for a PCV valve on the lathe (because there was no way I was gonna cut those beautiful valve covers).

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Anyway, fun little exercise, but the leak persisted. I got underneath the truck with it running, and looked around…


And decided that the leak was almost certainly coming from the front of the transmission. But it was engine oil. Scratching my head, I drained the trans, and refilled it with gear oil and UV dye. I still had a slight leak, confirmed with the dye to be coming from the transmission, but it was greatly reduced, so right now I’m living with it. My thought is that somebody topped the transmission off with motor oil, and the low viscosity pushed out more easily. Gonna have to pull it at some point, but for now…

 
Stakebed said:
And now you know possibly the greatest reason the people install Ford Windsor V8's into Willys.

Good post. Thank you for sharing.
Click to expand...

Thank YOU. And you know what’s funny, is that I am a total Ford guy, too. I’ve probably had 100 cars over the years, and this is one of maybe 5 Chevy powered ones. But what’s funny is my last Jeep (‘64 Wagoneer) had a 283 Chevy in it as well. Neither of them were swapped by me. The one before that WAS a Ford (‘43 GPW), and the Ford/Willys relationship would make putting a 260 or 289 in one of these a natural choice, in my opinion.
 
buxman66 said:
Nice job. Keep at it! Love your attention to detail. Young buck riding shotgun looks perfect!
Click to expand...
That’s my little girl, but that’s ok; she gives all the boys a run for their money. Her favorite things are trucks, tractors, and excavators. And she LOVES wheelin’ in Daddy’s Truck”. So I’d like to think I’m raising her right. I don’t share too much of her on Social Media, but this one was too good not to.

 
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