1959 Pickup

Since we installed the main panel tonight that he bent-up the night before:





We pulled the engine, transmission, and transfer case


and made it a little easier to get to the frame and eventually the underside of the cab.





More as it comes.

With the cab off the frame, we wanted to get the engine disassembled and get it to the machine shop so the necessary bore-, crank-, and head-work could be performed while we’re going after other aspects of this project. Separated from the transmission and up on the engine stand, it was time to tag and bag each piece.




While my partner was taking care of the more technical aspects of engine disassembly, I was left to some of the more mundane, but otherwise just as necessary, work of preparing the frame for the upcoming welding, welding that will be needed once the new coil-spring suspension brackets are fabricated.





Lest anyone think today’s teens are somehow less capable of overcoming challenges than any of the current graybeards can recollect of themselves; one of the head bolts decided to round-off its head rather than loosen. Undaunted but understandably unsure of the outcome, this particular technician removed valve keepers & a spring to gain a little extra clearance, committed himself to the task at hand by taking out the 4″ grinder, and with the deft touch of a seasoned pro, carefully removed the offending bolt head without touching the abrasive wheel to the machined head surface or any of the surrounding parts.



Afterwards, all that was necessary was a little clean-up with a cutoff wheel on the Dremel to allow the head to be lifted, slipping it up and off what was left of the bolt. The 3″ or so of shoulder left protruding out of the block was then easily grabbed with a pair of vice-grips and removed.



Once disassembled, our inspection revealed a good sized ridge at the top of each of the bores from just under a couple-of-hundred-thousand miles of piston wear, so a yet-undetermined amount of over-bore will be in order. The crank had some slight scoring that should be polished-out before putting it back in the block. And while we played with the idea of lapping the valves and installing new valve guide seals, I made the executive decision that since it was his first-and-daily driver, we’d have the head professionally done while we were at it.






And with all the engine parts either labeled and securely stowed or delivered to the machine shop, one of us moved onto making some brackets for the front-end while the other started disassembling the transfer case.

More on that in a bit.

Be proud of that boy. Mine would have spent 2 days on youtube seeking a magical solution only to discover the bolt magically removed by impatient father or grandfather.

Great progress.

Love the updates. Looking forward to that coil sprung front end.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

Good reading. Keep it coming.

The Transfer of Experience

Like many of the Cherokee parts we’re rebuilding for this truck, someone has been there before us. Not so much on the internals (“not at all” on the internals as a matter of fact) but very-much-so on the hardware. Case in point: When it came time to disassemble the NP231J transfer case, we found all four bolts holding the front drive shaft to the output yoke were rounded. Obviously a previous someone had already tried to separate them from their rusty confines, unsuccessfully; but we needed to remove them to get the chain and gear-train out of the case so we could continue with the inspection and rebuild.



After taking the time to fully understand how the planetary gear arrangement allows for high or low “range” selection and how the following “mode” gear-set and forks are used to select 2WD or engage the 4WD, one by one (requiring slightly more heat than a bic lighter) the u-joint saddle retaining bolts were heated to a dull- or in a couple of cases cherry-red and removed, being careful not to overheat any of the surrounding aluminum parts. Afterwards the yoke retaining nut was easily removed as was the yoke, enabling the front output shaft, gear, and chain to be slid out from the back.



More than a few consecutive 2 degree Fahrenheit days and nights had passed since that evening in the garage and his mother evidently must have felt for him because one evening after a 12hr shift I walk in the door and there he is! All warm and comfy with some donated-by-supportive-friends-to-get-him-started tools in hand, working away on this thing on a piece of plywood on the kitchen table with nothing more than a printed exploded view to guide him like it’s some sort of plastic model.



He systematically broke each assembly and sub-assembly down to its individual components leaving only the planetary gears & needle bearings untouched in the carrier. With Rebuild Kit in hand, the only thing that stopped the complete reassembly was the condition of one precision-thickness snap-ring used to hold the shift-mode synchronizer ring on the output shaft, and it does not come as part of the rebuild kit. The old one might have held the synchro ring in place sufficiently, but it would alway be in the back of an operator’s mind if it was going to let go when it was most needed. Every time one pulled the lever to engage, they’d wonder. The decision was made to hold-off on final re-assembly and at the time of this writing the particular replacement part is one day away.




Difficulty Rating:

Experienced in the inner workings of a 4WD transfer case, the next logical and intended step was to up the difficulty level to that of rebuilding a manual transmission; but evidently having to “wait for parts to arrive” doesn’t mean “sit around doing nothing” because when I came back home from work the following night he was already tearing into the Aisin AX-15 5-speed seen here, up-ended, front bearing retainer removed, nose-down, splitting the case.



Having another motivated someone in the shop is something I just haven’t been accustomed to for quite some time but I won’t claim I wasn’t somewhat overjoyed walking in the door to this. Our doors are always open, friends and neighbors come and go regularly, and anyone who knows even a little knows I’ll go out of my way to help, but this is a place I come to be productive and/or creative. Unapologetically, this isn’t ever going to be the “man cave” hangout with a TV, a bunch of stools, or a refrigerator / bar with a group of guys who don’t want to go home.



That being said, I just can’t get over how much of a refreshing change it’s been having an almost endless supply of M&M’s, Skittles, Cheezy Poofs, or an occasional something hot or cold to drink within reach while working… but I still get caught off-guard every now and then by an unexpected underfoot crunch, only to lift my boot to find some purple or orange dust left from whatever I just mashed into the floor.

Pretty cool he's that into it. I hope my daughter takes an interest later on, she's almost 3 now. She does like to come see what I'm doing in the garage though! This is going to be great when it's done.

Metalguy said:

Pretty cool he's that into it. I hope my daughter takes an interest later on, she's almost 3 now. She does like to come see what I'm doing in the garage though! This is going to be great when it's done.

Click to expand...

She'll take an interest in you.

I see where some of the dads of his friends wish their kids would come out and spend some time with them but the kids just don't want to. Truth be told, after working around some of the parents, I wouldn't want to spend any more time stuck in a box of a garage with them than I had to either... gettin' all mad when things aren't easy or don't go right the first time.

We put the front output shaft back in that stupid transfer case and bolted the yoke back on, all happy we had everything in place, going together smooooth as butter, snap-ringed the input shaft in, and then realized we'd never get the chain on. DOH! Realizing we had to take apart what we just did, he looks up at me and I knew in that instance it was to see how I'd react... I could have gotten mad, but I laughed.

"Boy that was dumb, wasn't it?"
"Sure was." he chuckled back, not exactly sure what else to do I think.
"Let's tear is back apart" was my immediate reply. I knew (from experience) we wouldn't want to do it later any more than we want to redo it now and I wasn't about the take the wind out of the sails with some sort of "Well, let's just fix it later." When what we need to do is to fix it now.
(Consequently, it was on that re-teardown that we discovered the questionable snap-ring that we're now waiting to replace.)

We're the mature ones with the longer perspective. Whether they see it this way or not, this is something we're doing while we're spending time together, not the other way around. It's not about the "thing" being worked on, or getting in a hurry to get it done. It's about showing them how an adult works and thinks and handles themselves; helping them get understanding, learn a skill, commit, have character. I'm not going to be around forever and he's going to have to figure his way through. I'm not building a truck here. The priority is my son. The truck is just the means.

In my respectful, humble, and unsolicited opinion, if you can invest in her more than getting caught-up in the material object, there is a much better chance she'll be at your side, enjoying what she's doing, whether you're working on a classic Willys or shoveling poop.

All the best for you and your family in every future endeavor,


- John

Just so no one gets the mistaken impression that I'm not doing any of the hands-on
I’m still behind the scenes installing a coil-spring suspension where it wasn’t meant to be, amongst other things… and Yes, what’s going on in the image is also my idea of a good time.




Bare in mind if you’re making your own parts there is nothing wrong with making those parts from pieces of scrap frame as long as you don’t put them together like you’re putting together pieces of scrap frame. As chic as it may be to buy everything new, I think most of you would agree that sometimes it’s just good to be able to make due with what one has. Having the ability to form something with one’s own two hands makes it no longer a matter of whether one can afford to buy, but rather which option one chooses to exercise. Sometimes I just make due because I have learned to & I enjoy doing so. It’s a trait I hope to pass on.




The Willys Pickup frame sits approximately 4″ higher than the uni-body chassis of the Jeep Cherokee in the area where all the steering and suspension components originally bolted. Fabricating a couple of drop brackets for the axle trailing arm mounts and one, shown here, for the power steering box allowed me to keep all of the critical angles and OEM geometry stock Jeep. Doing it this way meant it was a simple copy/paste affair from Jeep to earlier Willys, something anyone could do virtually these days with the tap of a screen in 1/5 of the time… maybe even less if you’re on TV.



The only real difference between my real reality and that of the oxymoronic virtual or fake reality was that I actually exerted the effort to cut through some 3/8″ steel plate and some thick-walled DOM tubing. Both materials are probably overkill in some senses, but being the beneficiary of hind-sight, seeing the after-effect stress-cracks in this area of many OEM engineered truck chassis, I decided overkill here would be in good order.



Transferring the measurements from Jeep to Willys required an accurate leveling of the recipient frame before laying out some impromptu shop-floor geometry. After grinding the rivets free and removing the original leaf spring hangers I was able to use the same holes as the manufacturer to locate our frontend. Measuring, squaring, and re-measuring until I was sure the wheelbase was the same as John Willys intended, I started cutting more brackets.



The lower control arms of the four-link suspension position the axle where it needs to be longitudinally and they were set first. The upper control arms of this design set the pinion angle and since they need to be mounted to the frame in a position relative to the lower control arm pivot so the two arcs to work together, those brackets were designed and welded second.



Viewed from the top it’s easy to see the front control arms are angled inward. The lower control arms (not as readily visible) are correspondingly angled outward. This triangulation between the two minimizes the axles lateral movement. The lateral movement is more rigidly held in check by a fifth bar running perpendicular to the frame directly in front of the axle, attaching axle-right to frame-left while still allowing for up-and-down suspension travel. This fifth bar of a four-link suspension (go figure) is regularly referred to by hotrodders as a panhard bar, the trade name of the company that first used it. Jeep called theirs a Track Bar, most probably to avoid infringement.




If you weren’t getting enough bars, there is still the sway bar to connect. I incorporated threaded holes for the the left sway bar mount into the bottom of the power steering box bracket. I still need to bend a mount for the right side.

TinKnocker said:

She'll take an interest in you.

I see where some of the dads of his friends wish their kids would come out and spend some time with them but the kids just don't want to. Truth be told, after working around some of the parents, I wouldn't want to spend any more time stuck in a box of a garage with them than I had to either... gettin' all mad when things aren't easy or don't go right the first time.

We put the front output shaft back in that stupid transfer case and bolted the yoke back on, all happy we had everything in place, going together smooooth as butter, snap-ringed the input shaft in, and then realized we'd never get the chain on. DOH! Realizing we had to take apart what we just did, he looks up at me and I knew in that instance it was to see how I'd react... I could have gotten mad, but I laughed.

"Boy that was dumb, wasn't it?"
"Sure was." he chuckled back, not exactly sure what else to do I think.
"Let's tear is back apart" was my immediate reply. I knew (from experience) we wouldn't want to do it later any more than we want to redo it now and I wasn't about the take the wind out of the sails with some sort of "Well, let's just fix it later." When what we need to do is to fix it now.
(Consequently, it was on that re-teardown that we discovered the questionable snap-ring that we're now waiting to replace.)

We're the mature ones with the longer perspective. Whether they see it this way or not, this is something we're doing while we're spending time together, not the other way around. It's not about the "thing" being worked on, or getting in a hurry to get it done. It's about showing them how an adult works and thinks and handles themselves; helping them get understanding, learn a skill, commit, have character. I'm not going to be around forever and he's going to have to figure his way through. I'm not building a truck here. The priority is my son. The truck is just the means.

In my respectful, humble, and unsolicited opinion, if you can invest in her more than getting caught-up in the material object, there is a much better chance she'll be at your side, enjoying what she's doing, whether you're working on a classic Willys or shoveling poop.

All the best for you and your family in every future endeavor,


- John

Click to expand...

Thank you, and I couldn't agree more. I didn't have a great relationship with my dad as far as this kind of stuff goes, he just didn't know how to relate to me. I swore when I had a kid that I'd be happy doing whatever they wanted to do. He's been gone for 2-1/2 years and I miss him a lot. It's funny though, what I once considered irrational behavior from him turned out to probably be undiagnosed PTSD from his involvement with our county's Search and Rescue. The only I could unfortunately figure this out was to have the same thing happen to me when I joined up. Luckily I have a great wife that helped me through it and some good friends so that my daughter can be happy to be around me. There's nothing greater in the world than teaching your kids or just hanging out with them!

The Cherokee tank is 20 gallon and the filler is more conveniently located on the driver’s side. Additionally, the Cherokee tank houses the higher volume electrical fuel pump needed to support our fuel injection. Measurements were taken for tank to bed clearance to tuck the higher capacity tank up as high as possible between the frame rails and then brackets were made to secure the stock Cherokee mounting straps to the frame.



Although this little bit of work is being done with the bed off the frame, the brackets are made to provide sufficient clearance to lift and unhook the straps after loosening to drop the tank without having to first remove or lift the bed. Kind of a no-brainer when you think about it but future repairs from underneath are something that could easily be overlooked when working comfortably from the topside with the bed off.



It would have been much easier to cut a couple of slots in one of the bed under-supports to hang the straps, but then the alternate job would not be possible without undue complications, you wouldn’t be able to remove the bed without first dropping the tank. Here it's visible from the front-side how the flange of the strap-rod slips in and out of the T-slot. A look beyond the slot to the rear of the image shows we still need to make the brackets that will hold the back of the straps.



The front springs aren’t installed only because I’ll be taking everything apart shortly. I’ve got about a day’s worth of small stuff left to do before unbolting the rear and flipping the frame over to get to the underside. Afterwards, we’ll be coating it all with KBS Frame Coater.

The project is coming along great. Cherish the time with the kiddos. It all happens too quickly with them growing up and leaving the nest. Love the donor you picked. There are litteraly a million of them and they have some very reliable components in them.

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Part arrived and the transfer case is all back together. (Forgot to take a pic while we were out there.)

Then he needed a fixture that we didn't have to be able to press the gears from the transmission output shaft. I suggested that he make one from what we had around... and he did.






Here's what it looks like right now:


The input shaft is in the center, standing behind the cup.
The counter shaft is just below it.
The output shaft is just below that.
Upper-right is 5th/overdrive and all the internal shift rods.
Other gears, bearings, and synchros are at the bottom.


I still have just a couple of brackets to weld to the frame before getting it ready for coating. Hopefully on my next set of days off,

Hi John, im another John from Colorado and not too far from you. I live in the Briargate section of Colorado Springs. Nice project you have going. Ive been working on a 49 pickup for the past year or so myself. If you ever need or are looking for parts or know of parts, keep me posted. Or if you want to just get together and talk Willys, im game for that too. Best of luck on your project!

John

John, thank you for the kind words on my build thread, I would love to see your project some day. Are you going to use Por15 on your frame?

John

When I read your thread, I saw you used POR-15. I went back-and-forth between the two, and ultimately ordered KBS Coatings Frame Coater Kit. It arrived late last week and we're a day or two away from starting the process. How did you like the POR-15?

John, I used the KBS system and am very happy with it so far. It has only been on a year but still looks good. Keep in mind where ever you get it, it will be there forever including hands,clothes and floor. Good luck guys.

TinKnocker said:

When I read your thread, I saw you used POR-15. I went back-and-forth between the two, and ultimately ordered KBS Coatings Frame Coater Kit. It arrived late last week and we're a day or two away from starting the process. How did you like the POR-15?

Click to expand...

I cant say anything bad about por15 its great stuff. You do have to be careful not to paint anything that will be in constant sun. Por15 breaks down under UV light. You can paint over it however to block that process. A little will go a long way with Por15.

Thanks for the input, Frank. ' greatly appreciated. You sure did a lot more to your frame than just paint it. Nicely done, and glad to see you're driving it. FWIW, I have family about two hours west of you in Tiffin.

We had hoped to get started on the coating process today, but the more we did the more little things we found that we'll be better-off for having taken care of them while we're at this stage. We finished the night with details done & ready to coat when we start another day.

Steps 1 & 2 are complete on our Frame Coating Process. I haven't used both products (yet), but from everything I can tell they both use a generic water-based degreaser followed by an acid-etching before applying the color/sealant. KBS uses phosphoric acid for the etch. Home Depot will sell you a gallon of the stuff for $15. Both products admit to fading under UV exposure but the fading shouldn't affect the actual sealing or longevity.

The 4-Step kit we bought about one week before this writing included the UV Protectant Top Coat and was $99.90 after shipping. (Really? Keep the dime. I couldn't even use it to call you anymore.)
If one were to consider sourcing their own degreaser & etch and buying the sealant only:
KBS RustSeal is ~$40 a quart. POR-15 is $50.50. <-- Both are prices without shipping.

It's probably not worth the over-all savings for the running around, but I would have liked to have a little more of the acid than what came with the kit. I only needed half the degreaser but I found myself trying to squeeze the last few squirts of acid from the spray bottle to do the whole frame. Maybe next time I'll be more experienced/frugal from the beginning now that I know how far things go.


Step 1: Degrease and Pressure Wash



Step 2: Acid Etch and Wash


After making my way once around the frame, I intermittently spritzed it with the pressure-washer on spray instead of stream to keep everything wet per directions for 20 - 40 minutes. Adding water to acid is bad. Acid to water is better, but there was no way possible to keep the frame wet for the time stipulated having already run out of the product on the first go-'round.



' looking forward to getting another look at it and hitting it with the first sealing coat in the AM.