1932 Willys Silver Streak

Gojeep said:
I thought it would be a good challenge for some reason to see if I could straighten it by mainly stretching.
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Good challenge? You need additional challenge? This whole thing just makes my brain hurt, but I enjoy attempting to follow your mental machinations. Thank you for the ride along!
 
TugboatBill said:
The one thing that bothers me with the mockups is that the slight rake doesn't carry to the hood. Other than that, the last one looks pretty good.
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I was being lazy and only photo shopped the body part because the hood already had some out of alignment issues in the photo to start with. ;) It will follow the rake all the way to the grille and why I show checking out where to rake ends up at it in photo 2. Didn't want to lose the height of the grille if I didn't have enough ground clearance.
 
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Before I can build the rear door, I need to know where the rear guard/fender is going to sit. To make sure it is as accurate as possible, any repairs and modifications need to take place to it first. It had gathered some damage in its 93 year life so far, including being a paddock basher and garden art for the last half of it. Here I am knocking out the main dents and creases using the hammers and dollies shown over the sand bag.

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A lot of rust also where the inner brace is and where it bolted to the running board. I made a quick patch for that and tacked it in place just so it could hold some shape.

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It had a number of flat areas on the edge as well for some reason and not a consistent curve that the other side has. I have already repaired one such area above this, but thought I would show how I went about putting curve into the edge which has 4mm-5/32" wire inside of it. First I would cut a eyebrow shaped slot just behind the edge bead as pictured.

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Next I would use a soft hammer to hit it across supporting the outside of the guard with my hand. If there was not enough curve yet, I would cut more away before repeating the exercise. The edge would twist, so it is important to twist it straight again using channel grips or pliers before moving on.

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Once I was happy with the curve, or I couldn't get it to move anymore, I welded up the slot. This is the method I use to cut the top off the weld. A die grinder with what is left from a 9" cut off wheel! The disc was first used in my 9" grinder until it wore down to 5". It was then used in my 5" grinder until it was too small for that. Then it gets used in the die grinder until it is down to the support rings. The grinding is done at an angle to the weld only touching the weld surface, and not the original metal.

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To make sure I had the exact centreline of the axle, I first put it back into place. Being on my own it would be awkward to first remove the assembly from the trolley it was on, and then get a jack perfectly balanced under it. So I put a piece of 8"x3" timber on the jack and rolled that under the trolley and jacked up the whole thing as one! Put the four bolts in and lowered the jack and trolley back down and the job was done.

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I used the laser making sure it was, not only exactly on the axle centre, but also square the the body as well. Otherwise on a multi-depth surface it will not read accurately at all. I placed the Willys guard in place and lifted it until it was at the same height as where the inner wheel well liner sits on the donor Chrysler. This will make sure I will have the same amount of up travel on the suspension without it hitting the guard. This places the guard 60mm-2 3/8" higher in the body than stock. So the whole wheel tub and arch in the Willys body will have to be lifted as well on the rear quarter panel.

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The guard will also have to be made longer to suit the higher mounting position. So rather than cut and add to the guard at both ends to make it longer, I just rotated the guard around until it started at the same spot in the body as stock. I will then just add twice as much to the start of the guard where the shape is simpler as well. The start of the guard however does have a transition from flat, where it attaches to the running board, into the curve profile it has from the rest of it. The contour gauge is showing the profile further up the guard where the transition starts.

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This is how much it has changed in the distance the extension needs to be. I don't want to just extend the flat section of the end to make up the length, as that just wouldn't look right.

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I am making the new piece big enough to replace the rusted section as well as the extra length needed to account for sitting higher up in the body. I used a step die in my bead roller the same height and offset as the edge bead. This just gives me the first bit of the edge profile.

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The start of the wire edge was next and I started that by using a tipping die to form a 90° fold. As the edge is curved, I cannot not do this in a folder.

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I have a pretty good match to the edge bead, although slightly wider, but that can be tighten up later when the edge will be rolled around the wire.

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To start the shape of the piece I clamped it to the guard and just pulled it around by hand over the section of the transition.

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Over the sand bag I used this huge antique fender hammer to form the wide end of the radius.

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Then used a quality hammer I got from Peter Tommasini at Hand Built Tools, http://www.handbuilt.net.au/handtools.html, who were just around the corner from me. He has always been a great supporter of mine with advice and encouragement.

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The shape follows the start of the transition well enough now.

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When I slide it down to where it going to get welded in you can see how much I have to change the original guard to blend with it.

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So I ran the end of the guard through the English wheel with different radius anvils to remove the original transition and make it match the rest of the guard profile. I just have it balanced here further up the guard to get a picture of it.

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I then cut off the rusted section, carefully leaving the wire untouched so it can be joined onto. It is better to have the wire join offset from the panel join to prevent fatigue cracking.

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Can see now how the guard profile now matches the new extension piece.
 
continued...

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I used some panel clamps to hold the piece in place so I could check before welding if this was all going to look alright. Also note just how well the radius of the guard actually matches the radius of the donor inner wheel well.

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I had to stand back and just see what this actually looks like. Was very pleased with the look which was a relief! This is at actual stock ride height of the donor car.
 
Stakebed said:
I like your antique fender hammer and the hammer with the cone shaped head.

Not only does the Willys fender match the Dodge wheel well but I am amazed that the Willys wheel bolt pattern seems to match the Dodge bolt pattern.
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There is only a slight difference in the stud pattern between the Chrysler 300 5x115mm and the Willys which is the same as Ford, 5x114.3 or 5 on 4.5". But the Willys has only 1/2" studs and the 300 14mm, but the holes in the wheels are so worn it fitted until it hits the 4 spot Brembo calipers. It is 3/4" shy of sitting on the wheel mounting surface. I believe the smallest rim I can run is a 18" and these are 16". Stock on the 300 is 20".
 
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Happy with the shape the next step is to extend the edge wire. I used the TIG to join the wire to keep it a softer join than using a MIG.

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I coated the wire and inside of the edge bead as they wont be accessible later. Mind you, the rest of the wire edge has survived 93 years so far without any paint!

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Tacked into place ready for welding.

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Been 2 years since I had done any TIG welding of panel steel, so will take a bit to get back into it again.

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Without any practice it seems to have done alright welding steel that is 90 years apart since they were made.

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I first grind the backside of the weld flush. Then I can place a dolly directly on the ground weld seam while I hammer the front side bead to stretch the shrinking that happens with the welding. Any low spots on the backside can have the weld bead from the front side pushed into it.

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After the major stretching and planishing of the weld HAZ is done, I then grind the front side of weld bead off and continue to planish the weld removing any distortion. So long as you don't over stretch an area of the weld, there is no reason to do any work on the rest of the panel as it will all return back to the shape it was before welding.

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I have never done a wire edge before so this will be a good learning experience for me. I remember 10-20 years ago there was a coach builder in the UK called David, forgotten his surname, that showed how he did it. I can at least remember the first starting step to it so here goes nothing. I unrolled the piece I had cut off the end of the guard so I knew how much metal to have in the flange width. Factory on this was 2.25 times the wire diametre. So in this case the wire was 4mm in diameter so 2.25x gives a 10mm flange. From memory David did 2.5 times the wire diametre for the English cars he worked on. Started by clamping the wire in place so it couldn't move out of position while rolling the edge over.

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Hammered what I could between the clamps before switching to a piece of flat stock that I had shaped to fit the radius of the wheel arch edge repairs earlier. Just thought this could work in this type of edge flange that has the step bead as well. This a bit different from what I have seen before.

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I was able to increase the wrap by hammering the flat stock on the edge.

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Then finished tightening the wrap just using some channel lock or multi-grips. I couldn't use a dolly like David did due to the bead channel.

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The clamps were moved to the wrapped sections and then the bits in between were rolled over. Probably not the way the professionals do it, but it worked out great for me. :)

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Once welded I checked for any changes that might be needed.

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Two things I didn't like was that at the 2 o'clock position, the arch is further out from the tyre compared to the other side. The other was that the front part of the arch could be tighter to follow the tyre and then end vertical, which is needed to bolt onto the running board. As shown earlier, I had already increased the radius in a couple of spots here as was even worse before.

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I took a contour reading from the less damaged guard from the other side at the top centre. Placing the gauge at the same spot on this one showed the difference between them. If you rock the gauge back it would show how the front face is more vertical than the other side. Remember that this side was stretched out 50mm-2" more than that side too and was really hard to get into place in the wheel arch. I have already brought that back so it matches once installed, but could do with more in the relaxed state.

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So with more time in the English Wheel, I now have matched the contour.

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I have actually started to keep this contour right around the edge as it showed it was tightening up the arch radius when doing so. The light line shows some more still needs to be done toward the right side in the picture, so back in the English Wheel it goes.

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What a difference that has made! Pulling up the edge with the new contour evened out the radius and it follows the tyre with better flow. Just a little more at the start to get it right for meeting the running board and it should be good to go.

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Can see the transition needs some work which will solve the last problem.

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Rear view I am happy with as well. Just a slight tidy up with the blend into the reverse curve to go.
 
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Bubblehead617 said:
Is Lisa helping as "pit crew" or is she staying out of your domain?
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Not hands on normally, unless it is just way to awkward for me to do by myself. She is my sounding board though when I am trying to work things out as some how explaining to an other out loud helps me put things right in my own head! Like today when trying to work out if increasing the scrub radius increases or decreases the Ackerman angle! I need to know before ordering the custom offset wheels soon as will be running a front end from a much shorter wheelbase vehicle, so wanted to make sure I was helping the situation and not compounding it.
She is also much more involved than before in the design decisions on this one as for one, I wanted a 2 door sedan and not a 4 door. No chop on this one either etc.
 
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