It Begins, my 1949 rebuild.

Looks good John. It all takes time to do it right.

John,

Thanks for sharing your build. I just read it from the start. You've made good progress in a short time. ' love the attention to detail and the nod to hobby modeling with the detail paint. I'm guilty of the same thing myself and can appreciate your work and the joy you get from doing it... even though the only other person who may ever see it in person would also have to be into this stuff enough to be on their back underneath it with you. You are not alone in your appreciation for things like original motor mounts and the scribing from someone who came before.

If you were to head east on Woodmen until it ended and then go another 4 miles, you'd be close to finding us.

John, I was excited when I seen you went into that timken axle! I have two 1948 willys with timkens and everyone has been telling me I'm crazy for trying to keep them going. If you wouldn't mind and are able to in the future, send me the part numbers you used in the axle as I'm having a difficult time locating parts in my area I'd appreciate it! Keeping an eye on this build!

Dual48s said:

John, I was excited when I seen you went into that timken axle! I have two 1948 willys with timkens and everyone has been telling me I'm crazy for trying to keep them going. If you wouldn't mind and are able to in the future, send me the part numbers you used in the axle as I'm having a difficult time locating parts in my area I'd appreciate it! Keeping an eye on this build!

Click to expand...

They seem like a simple rear end, however I do understand that parts are hard to source. Im fairly confident all of the bearings and cones can be sourced easily with the exception of the one pinion bearing inside the housing. Apparently its different than any of them. Have you read this article? http://www.public.asu.edu/~grover/willys/timken.html interesting read. I was lucky in the fact that all of the innards of mine are in good shape, or at least seem to be. I just cleaned everything up and will go back with the same bearings in the diff, they look pretty good ( no scoring or heat marks). I didnt touch the pinion, I let it be. I had to make a gasket where the two halves join. I guess the true test will be when I first drive the truck. I will go with new axle bearings and they can be found at just about any Willys parts house.

Its been forever since I have posted but I finally got the Timken Rear end finished. FINALLY! Ive been caught up in everyday life, so its been a slow go but with the nice weather ive been getting out to the garage more often. I lost some motivation to be honest but im back on track. I wound up getting my frame off of its side and set it back down, then mounted the Transmission, Tcase and overdrive in the frame to give me more motivation to get on this thing! Its working!

Here is the Timken all done.





And now on to the front. Axles are probably my least favorite thing to do. The front seems a bit more interesting so here I go.

Started in on the Dana 25




The closed knuckle housings had some grease but they certainly were not full of it.





Parts off and ready for cleanup


I got the diff cover off and discovered this!


thats a pretty good crack in the carrier.



Now im searching for a replacement carrier, or an entire axle if I have to. It seems these carriers are not plenty-full searching the bay.

John,

Sent you a PM about axle parts!

Been awhile since I started working on the front axle. I got it all back together and painted. Last weekend I got the brakes and hubs assembled and got it back under the truck... finally. Here a few pics







Also got one of the locking hubs cleaned up and re-assembled.

Nice work John. Keep motivated!

Its been a long time but im still at it! Ive got the body up on some saw horses and started cutting out the rust in the floor. Getting the toolbox out was interesting. Ill have to re-weld and patch it back in.

If you remember, (or read up near the beginning of this thread) My firewall is full of holes and I mean lots of them! Someone long ago went hole saw happy on it. So I decided the best way for me to patch it would be to remove it. That took some time but I got it out.




Here you can see the many holes and that its banged out of shape. Here it is below, banged back into shape the best I could and all holes marked for patching.


These all got welded. With the larger holes I had to patch with sheet metal on the back side then fill in with welding. After all of the grinding and sanding, I skimmed some epoxy polymer to level everything off.


Then a shot of primer.

Its not perfect but its no longer full of holes!! Ill do some more sanding on some imperfections then weld it back onto the truck before doing any more painting on it. I had to reference a lot of pics and learned that holes were added and changed by Willys as the years were produced. I found several pics of 48 and 49 trucks for reference. All of the holes in this last pic should be close to stock.

John

Good to see the truck having work done again John. Looking forward to seeing more progress.

Its hard to believe its been two years since I last posted. Im still around and still working on my truck. Life gets in the way sometimes but I get back at it. Here is my progress since my last post.

I did get the firewall back in, got new floors welded in and the toolbox welded back. Welded up the floors on the bottom, sealed and undercoated.
Then I got the cab back on the frame for now so I can work on it easier with a little more room in my garage. I made a jig to fit my engine hoist, it was easy and inexpensive to make plus it was a fun welding project. Next I stripped all of the orange paint from inside the cab, then primed the inside of the cab.

I know, not a lot over two years time but its still coming together! Thanks for looking!

John

Wow time flies when you're having fun! Keep up the good work!
Bill

Progress is progress. Nice work.

First time seeing your project, was a great read and you have done some excellent work.

Thanks for sharing the detail and good luck on your build. Looks like it will be a fun truck to cruise around in.

jtscj3b said:

Been awhile since I started working on the front axle. I got it all back together and painted. Last weekend I got the brakes and hubs assembled and got it back under the truck... finally. Here a few pics

Also got one of the locking hubs cleaned up and re-assembled.

Click to expand...

Wow, looks great, nice work!

Looks like good progress John. Hope to see more soon.