1956 Utility Wagon

That frame looks great. Why did you choose acid over blasting? Good luck with you're project.
 
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Big Dog Frank said:
That frame looks great. Why did you choose acid over blasting? Good luck with you're project.
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Thanks Frank. I chose to acid dip as it was explained to me that the body shop I chose is trying to get away from blasting because the sand can collect in nooks and crannies and cause issues with paint adherence down the line. Also the acid dip gets into the cross-members and cross-tubes/nooks and eliminates rust which can be hard to get sandblasting. I trust this body shop as I have seen their work at many auto shows and they seem to know what they are talking about. I also tend to try and reason things out myself because experts aren't always right. In this case though, their explanation makes sense to me.
 
Well I got my front axle back from the differential guy and took it right to the body shop for sand blasting and painting. Lock outs and the axle itself look great. The housings for the lock outs are apparently aluminum alloy and the "screws" are brass, so I'm going to try and polish them up as I think having them this color/hue is cool. It screams Willys to me not being painted and such. As you can see they are very simplistic with having the arrows line up to lock the front in and the arrows at opposite ends to make the lock outs open. I'm not sure if they are factory due to lack of stamping of any kind but I'm sure they are period correct so I am keeping them. They operate with a large flat bladed screwdriver which aids in their simplicity vs. other odd tools and things I've seen throughout my short years that usually turn these things. Do you guys know any good polishes for this? I have been told red jeweler's rouge but wanted to check what you all are using. Anyway here are the pictures!



 
Well it's been awhile here but here is the next update, nothing exciting though. I have to disassemble my grille to take it to Canada and actually trade straight up with another member for the correct grille for this year. This trip will take place in July but I figured it would be best to get the grille I have taken apart and show you guys what all goes into taking one of these apart. First I have a picture of the grille in hiding:



Then I moved onto taking the radiator off. I have included a picture of the part number in case anyone is curious as to whether their radiator is original. I googled it and came up with a ebay listing matching my number saying it was a radiator from a 1960 Wagon. I plan to have this re-cored and re-use it on my restoration to stay with the original theme.



Here I show one of the 4 bolts (2 on the top, 2 on the bottom) holding the radiator to the grille:





Next here are the way the two bottom bolts are on the grille. These don't use nuts on the back like the top but speed nuts clipped into the holes I took the radiator off so you could see the speed nuts and then a picture up close of the bolt and speed nut removed:





And here is the radiator all free:



Another removal involved the hood latching mechanism which is located in the center of the grille. It is held on with 4 bolts but some of them had washers on them which I assume where to help "clip" the hood in securely.



Here is the culprit all out of the grille and free:




The last thing I had to take off the grille from the back was this weird asbestos material which must have served as some kind of shroud for the radiator although I'm not sure how it could. Does anyone know what this mystery material is for? Note the top and bottom differ as the top as slots for the previously shown hood latch.

Top:


Bottom:


And together first in the grille, then out:






Well that's all guys, sorry it's not too much. In my next few updates I should be done painting the front shackles, spring plates, and show them all put together and ready to go on the Wagon as soon as the frame is ready for them. I already have the leaf springs sitting and just need to order the rear shackles and then the suspension could be applied. Well that and finishing the rear axle brakes so it can be painted. :eek:
 
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Well here are the hub data plates that were shown earlier on this thread to me by darrel632. They look just like the ad and thanks again for showing me them, would've never known they existed without this site. I can't wait to add them to axles and complete the look.

 
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Well I have some progress to post at last! I had a lot of chroming done again but this time on little parts for the interior as well as some small exterior parts. As I'm sure some of you saw in my other post, I had an issue with the place I was taking my metal to and have decided to have Paul's Chrome Shop finish the rest. Anyway, it's a shame as these were done very nicely and close to home but a part was ruined and the owner did not want to reimburse me so oh well. Enjoy the pictures!

Rear Flip Down License Plate Bracket



Speedo/Gauge Cluster



Taillights



Dome Light


And finally a few ash tray handles for the front ash tray in dash
 
I have rechromed license plate holder ends if you want to trade For an ashtray


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
More updates to post. Finally progress is being made upon the body and it's been stripped and now in the process of being primed and worked to fill in previous holes, dents, etc. The body is in fairly good shape but like most of these wagons requires a few sheet metal pieces here and there to make it whole again. Anyway onto the pictures. It was moved from storage and is now in the "main" work area of the shop. Prior to being moved, many of the parts were acid dipped and then primed with self-etching primer. Some of the stuff (including the body) is not self-etched yet and other parts have been given a proper primer coat to protect them and make them ready for final body work.

Here is the first picture of the stripped body. It's mainly a picture of the firewall. Now I still have the original wagon I bought on a rainy December day which fortunately had a very solid firewall so I will be cutting it out in order to use on this one. They told me about an inch back from the firewall but I'm going to cut 2" just in case they require a little wiggle room.


Another area which I'm sure most people have replaced or done work to on these old wagons and trucks are the pockets for the door hinges. At some point the check strap seems to break on all of these and the doors consequently open too wide and ruin the metal. Well my crack team of body guys are on it. In both pictures work has been started to correct these (but obviously not complete ;)).




Here are some side angle shots of the stripped body. Notice the driver's side had the typical rust over the wheel well (and the unpictured passenger's side had this as well). Both these areas and will be replaced with quarter panels from Walck's 4WD. Also you might notice on the passenger side some damage to the C pillar and roof. It appears as though this body was on it's side at some point and body work had been done in the past when lead was still commonly used.




Here are the doors which I felt were in the best shape upon inspection. As you can see they have been dipped, primed, and are now wearing the grey primer coat in order to have final body work done. Just the bases of the doors need to have some patch panels welded in so hopefully they are done fairly soon.


Another part that seemed near completion to me were the front fenders. The passenger side one needs no work but the driver's side fender needs some work in order to be done. There are multiple "pinholes" present but I have another fender with junk "skirts" but should work great to meet the lines and be patched in to fix these holes. The first pictures show the fenders hanging and the last picture shows the holes.





Finally I have pictures of the tailgate and window frames which were all stripped and then self-etched with primer. The tailgate requires the patch panel at the bottom but no extensive work like the original tailgate I had owned.


 
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Also another minor update was finishing assembling my front shackles. I was going to use plain old Grade 8 hardware until I found this tray at my local Ace Hardware of Grade 8 flanged bolts and nuts in black that were a perfect length. The other "gold" colored standard Grade 8 bolts would have either been too short or too long and it would take nothing short of a torch to cut them so I decided to just go with these. Besides I believe the original bolts themselves were flanged. The sleeves where the bolts ride and hold the shackles to the frame and springs to the shackles were from Walck's.


 
My last post today is a list of parts I needed to order for the body as per the body guys. I only post this because I thought my body was in good shape when I bought it all the way in Idaho. And although it is compared to many other bodies I have seen, I want people to know that looks can be deceiving. If you can't fabricate or weld a lot of metal yourself, you have to rely on a body shop to do the work. I am much more involved than the average guy who takes his vehicle to one of these places so I order things myself and check in biweekly to see if any additional supplies are needed. This isn't to dissuade people from a project like this, but to give them a more realistic expectation of what it takes to fully restore one of these beautiful vehicles.

All of these came from Walck's 4WD:

Passenger's and Driver's side rear quarter panels
Rear valance panel
Passenger's and Driver's side wheel house panel top wheel house section
Rubber body mounts
Rear bumper bracket Seals
Rear body cross member under tailgate
Tailgate repair kit
Passenger's side rocker panel
Station wagon tailgate hinge
Door check repair kit

Classic Enterprises Floor Pans:

The reason behind ordering these floor pans was the fact that they go up higher than Walck's and many other companies. I also do not care for Willys America, which carries these at a slightly cheaper price, because of a bad deal they made with me as well as a story I saw on here about junk pans being passed off as good.
 
Well my next update is a simple one. The shop who is working on the body wanted the frame measurements to make sure that my supplied frame (shown a page back) is straight enough for them to use and then place the body on it to make sure that no "tweaking" is needed for either item. I found that this manual, which I acquired from the same person who sold me the body, has been invaluable for figuring out small things like this. I really like having shop manual like this for all vehicles because they help with not only mechanical issues, but electrical gremlins and the like.



The whole area of section R is devoted to the frame and measurements. As you can see the factory gave certain points in several areas to measure diagonal measurements as well as the front and rear cross-members to make sure nothing has been crumpled or twisted. I highlighted the wagon measurements on this copy of the pages so as to minimize confusion with the truck measurements.





Stay tuned for the next update!
 
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Well here is another few photos. As you can see the body and frame and are mated at long last. Both are still in the primer stage and waiting to undergo more work but they have them together for now and I for one really enjoyed seeing a non-rusty pile of parts looking good. Sorry I haven't posted in quite awhile, the whole photo bucket shut down kind of got me a little bummed but I figured out how to post pictures here anyway so back to progress!
 
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Does anyone know how to make the pictures bigger that you post? Whenever I used photobucket they were larger?
 
Hey Dale, I hate to tell you this, MOST of your pictures from Photo Bucket DO NOT SHOW UP. Just get an error message. Pivnic
 
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