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Mr. 360

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I finished up my welding project last night, adding in the extra beef where needed. Since I was using stuff I had on hand, I decided it would be best to add in extra bits to strengthen it. Going to shoot it today with some black tremclad to even things up a little.

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I was pleased with the accuracy I could get with that new chop saw. nice mitred corners all around. I worked off a cad file too which helped take the guessing out.

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As a side note, and perhaps others experience this, but I get a lot of migraines. One thing that seems to trigger them unfortunately is welding smoke/fumes. I did 15 tack welds on this thing on sunday (under a minute of welding), and the next day i was laid out while my head decided to run at about 3500psi. Now, I fault myself for not running my exhaust fan, so for the full weld job I re-engineered the window fan to swivel and face the work, opened the door, and got a good breeze going. I also tried wearing a respirator the whole night, and took, what I believe, to be my first ever "selfie". So far, so good today, but we'll see how it goes.

View media item 44536
 
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Mr. 360

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I give up Eric :headscrat

Lets see.

Clearly its something on wheels that you can tow and has an engine of some note??


Wood splitter

it's a towable thing-a-ma-jiggy that has a venturi

portable generator is my guess.

I say Military jeep of some sort.

A re-furbished trailer for the saw mill?

These are all really good guesses. Some of you may (or may not) actually be pretty close. wonder if I have any other clue pics...

Ok, here's a small one, but if you know your stuff, this will answer it for you.

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Just got caught up on this thread....really cool setup

Thanks very much!
 

rmalkow2

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Glad to see the detail pics and assessment on the chop saw. I've long debated to myself how much difference it would really make for a home shop vs a commercial place. But as their prices come down it looks like a good tool to have for some really precise cuts.

Good move to add in the respirator and exhaust of fumes. Take those precautions now and not only save the headaches but you'll thank yourself 20 years from now.

I sadly do not know my stuff well enough because that last clue did not help me. I'll wait patiently till the big reveal.
 

Dirk Thelen

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Eric,

Are you welding with gas shield or with flux cored wire?
I used to suffer from headaches at the shop when we were using flux cored wire, the boss was a cheap s of a b and he wanted to have a mobile welder without have to drag a bottle around (some wheels would have fixed that but that was to expensive I guess). When the shop was taken over by another company they had us throw out the flux cored and gave us brand new gas shielded MIG welders. Never had a headache since (stupid stuff aside)

Regards,
Dirk
 
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Mr. 360

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Hmm, im using a flux core setup, simply cuz I dont weld enough to make the real mig worthwhile. That's interesting though, perhaps it's just the fact that its a cored wire. On the plus side, after a full 5 hours of welding (using a respirator and exhaust fan) I was absolutely fine the next day, so I count that as a win.
 
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Mr. 360

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Ok, I think I'll make this the last clue. You guys will find out in a couple days anyways, and maybe it isn't as groundbreaking as I figured, but I think in time it will be a nice addition to the shop.

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I should mention, while this item isn't exactly new to me, it will be new to the shop. I may have mentioned it a year or so ago. I've definitely posted about it in other threads.
 
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Hello Eric,

Let me start off by saying I really enjoy your posts and this is my first one !

We have a lot in common, I'm from Montreal, have a one car garage in progress, renovating a new (old) home and also a Jeep lover. I also value, collect and use older tools and things and enjoy re-purposing and using stuff other people have thrown out or abandoned.

My vote is a CJ3B :)

Cheers!

Ken
 
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Mr. 360

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Scratch that.......Willys Pickup :)

Ken

Ding ding ding! We have a winner. I figured there would be a Jeep guy that would end up figuring the pickup in that last clue.

I'm moving it from my parents place to my place. Only about 15 km, so I'm flat towing with my dad's jeep. We'll see how it goes. Safety police, now is probably a good time to look at something else for a bit...

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The brief hard facts:
-1960 Willys 1ton 4x4 pickup
-sports an all original drive train. a tall stack carter carb feeds the 226 super hurricane flathead 6, while power is sent through a Borg Warner T90 top loader transmission.
-I picked it up for $900, and sold the rough 1960 Meyer snowplow off it for $300, so I have $600 into it. It's in good shape for its age, all things considered.

I will start a separate thread for it, though it will be a slow build for sure. More to come, I tow at daybreak.
 

Dan in Pasadena

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Great old truck. A very nice starting point.

I've got an oldie I'm working on myself, rather s l o w l y:


What is your plan for yours? A full on restoration, get it running/stopping and use it, or possibly hotrodding it - twin turbo big block, etc? Lol
 
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Mr. 360

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Thanks guys, and I'll get some more pics up soon when I've got them on my laptop. I have an oldish blog I started about it at http://willyspickup.blogspot.ca but I think I'll just give a quick history recap of it and continue a thread on here.

Dan, that is a gorgeous truck. I've seen it a bit on here and the hamb, always been a fan of the Tri-Five era trucks. As far as my plans for this machine, I would like to use it as Brooks Stevens intended when he designed it, as a truck. So, that means the drivetrain will remain original (however I may slip a few era appropriate mods into it, like perhaps dual carbs and a smoother flowing exhaust). I have a new bed for it to replace the aging one, and another willys truck to borrow some parts from.
 

HSpencer

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WOW a 1960 Willis Truck!! You have a gem there. Are those new tires on it? It will make a wonderful restore!! That is just about AWESOME!!!

Best Regards
Herb
 
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Mr. 360

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WOW a 1960 Willis Truck!! You have a gem there. Are those new tires on it? It will make a wonderful restore!! That is just about AWESOME!!!

Best Regards
Herb

Thanks Herb! The tires are actually old Fisk "Hi-Traction" tires from the 60's. Except the white rim'd tire. That's an old spare Uniroyal fleetmaster deeplug from my other willys farm truck. I had a valve leak in the old tube so I swapped it out. Need to fix that valve sometime. I'll be happy to give it some love, though it won't be a trailer baby.
 
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Ding ding ding! We have a winner. I figured there would be a Jeep guy that would end up figuring the pickup in that last clue.

Haha at first I thought that was the heater air intake on the passenger's side cowl of a CJ3B but then it hit me. I had already seen that hole half covered up by an aftermarket turn signal on a Willys pickup I had looked at on kijiji !

Very nice, solid truck ! I look forward to reading up on it! My Jeep fleet is actually only my weekend family ''ice cream rockcrawler'' TJ at the moment but I am looking for a pre-76 CJ5 or even a flatfender to put in the garage soon :)

Keep up the good work !

Ken
 
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Alright, let me start by saying, everything went very smoothly, and I learned a lot about flat towing in the process. Maybe I'll give you guys a recap of this weekend's events.

Saturday:

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While poking around the scrap steel bin at work, I came across some nicely welded roll-formed channel and said "hey, this will bolt up perfectly to my frame." So I brought it home and chopped the lengths I needed (it's in the background of the pic above). I also grabbed my wife's grandfather's homemade toolbox, and loaded it with the tools I'd need for towing. As a side note, I love this box, I might have to make a few more for myself, they look real real easy.

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The first order of the day was fitting my new custom tow mounts to the frame. The frame on the Willys trucks have 2 holes near the front of the rail for the bumper, 6" apart. the pre-punched holes in the profile lined right up. I also fed my heavy safety chain into the channel and passed a mounting bolt and the tow pins through it to secure it. This whole setup was cheap as free, everything was repurposed. Scrap steel frame mounts from the garbage bin at work, the coupler off a junk piece of farm equipment, the tube steel off a 1960's railing I took out of the house, bed-frames for the angle iron stiffeners, even the hardware and pins were cast-off used hardware from work. at $0, this was great.

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Next Step was fitting the Fleetmaster DeepLug on the back. what a cool looking tire. This is the spare off my other Willys truck, and I'd never used it. Note, Willys uses a reverse thread lug nut/stud. This is very perplexing the first time you go to take the wheels off.

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The final order of business besides cleaning around the truck was to mount up the towing lights. Again, I didnt drop a nickel on this. The wire was all old trailer wire, and the lights I've had for years. They were on sale for $4 at princess long ago. A few holes and a bunch of zip ties and I was off. My dad threw together a nice 'In Tow' sign, as you'll see, as well as some pylons in the back so it all looked official.


Sunday, 5:45am

As these things go, I forgot to take any 'en route' pics. Frankly, I wanted to get it all over and done with. I had the t-case in neutral for towing, and had done a few test runs to check the tracking, etc. With all systems go, we hit the road.

It took about 45 minutes to do the 14km drive, sticking to max 25km/h. Given the time of day, almost nobody was out, which lightened the stress levels.

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I was fairly impressed with my hitch setup. It seemed plenty strong and the safety chains were probably overkill.

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With my dad's Jeep out of the picture, I had to get the rig up the driveway, so I had nabbed the gas tank out of an old riding mower a while back. A few more zip ties had it secured to the grille support, while a hefty magnet and scrap chunk of aluminum ruler formed a temporary support for the bottom. A few lengths of rubber gas line allowed me to route it through an inline filter and a small shutoff valve.

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The old battery needed a jump even after a few days of trickle charging, and with a quick swig of 2 stroke mix fuel (all I had on hand) down the throat of the carb, the flathead 6 drew breath and fired off, filling my neighbourhood with a nice plume of 2 stroke smoke. After easing off the choke, I slipped the Spicer 18 transfer case into low (no brakes, remember), and clicked the 18" shift lever into 1st, gently maneuvering the rig around to line it up into my driveway, where it sits for now, waiting for some much deserved love. I think this has got to be as good a shop truck as any, I can even picture a hand painted old-style logo on the door.

When I make a thread for it soon, I'll add the link here.

Thread started; check it out!

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=268567
 
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Mr. 360

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Sweet truck Eric. Looks like it could be a very fun and useful workhorse!

Thanks Patent. Although I bought this truck before I knew about GJ, It was probably your old truck and E-Tek's old truck that got me thinking about it as a shop truck, and wanting to move it over. I know the other Willys truck I have has proven itself many times, I'm sure this one will be no different.

Awesome shop truck!

Wow. I love Willy's! That is going to be awesome!!

Thanks guys! It'll be a long ride I'm sure, but I'm looking forward to it.

Nice transfer job and there was no cost.
Any reason why the lug nuts threads are reverse thread?

You know, I'm not sure why they reversed the thread on the lug nuts. It does mean I have no replacements on hand though. I'm not sure if the boffins at Willys HQ figured that traditional thread would loosen when being spun? no idea.
 

metalhead140

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Hey mate, been reading for a while but don't think I've posted. Great work on the garage, great drawings, and I love the Willys! Keep it up...
 

OJ Bartley

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Eric, thanks for the inspirational small space thread. I really love what you've been able to do in the shop, it feels so comfortable even through your pics. I'm your neighbor to the west, just on the Pickering/Toronto border, nice to see such a GJ treasure close to home.

I have a similar vision for my little attached 1-car, a neat, organized place where I can work on projects and relax. As you clearly know, efficiency is key when you don't have a lot of space to work with, and your organization is really coming along well... especially with your tendency to rescue old stuff and bring it home!

The wood stove and tin roof are really nice touches that must add so much to the atmosphere. My dad has a 2 1/2 car garage out in the country with a wood stove in it and I love working out there. So cozy. The cabinets turned out great as well.

If you're interested, have a look at the thread where I dug up some garage door insulation info and did mine. It has worked really well for me so far, although I never actually took any empirical measurements to prove it.

Oh, I caught your note about using the hood from an '87 LeSabre as a sled to drag wood around. We had an '87 and it was a great car... definitely a good size hood too, and super cool the way it opened.

This has been a great read, and I'll stay tuned. Looking forward to your bench build, although now I think you have a new priority project on your hands!
 

Dirk Thelen

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You know, I'm not sure why they reversed the thread on the lug nuts. It does mean I have no replacements on hand though. I'm not sure if the boffins at Willys HQ figured that traditional thread would loosen when being spun? no idea.

There are only a few car makers that have ever done this. The drivers side lug nuts would tighten counter clockwise and passenger side clockwise. The theory behind this madness is that when the wheels are under load and turning the lug nuts would come loose. From today's cars the only car maker I know that still does this is Rolls Royce.

On European front wheel drive cars the axle nuts/bolts are occasionally counterclockwise.
 
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Mr. 360

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Yes for me too, the Willy's .....:drool:

Loving the Hot Rod Art work and that A frame looks interesting.

Good work on a successful tow and move. It will make a great shop truck. Looking forward to the new thread.

Hey mate, been reading for a while but don't think I've posted. Great work on the garage, great drawings, and I love the Willys! Keep it up...

Thanks guys, aside from a bit of stress about the actual move, I had a lot of fun with the tow. glad to have it on this end of the journey though.

Eric, thanks for the inspirational small space thread. I really love what you've been able to do in the shop, it feels so comfortable even through your pics. --- Looking forward to your bench build, although now I think you have a new priority project on your hands!

Thanks for the comment, always good to see locals around. 1-car spaces are great, and that door insulation trick you used is just the kind of thing I hope to do. The pink fibreglass I have in mine now is temporary, it makes the door very very heavy to open. Funny about that old buick, I had mine given to me by a neighbour. It only ran for about 2 weeks, and then the entire electrical system gave up. Had a rebuilt motor in it though, the 3.0 or 3.8 or something, I dont recall. Hood's been quite useful though haha, and the tilt forward option meant that the front end was pretty beefy, perfect for a sled.

There are only a few car makers that have ever done this. The drivers side lug nuts would tighten counter clockwise and passenger side clockwise. The theory behind this madness is that when the wheels are under load and turning the lug nuts would come loose. From today's cars the only car maker I know that still does this is Rolls Royce.

On European front wheel drive cars the axle nuts/bolts are occasionally counterclockwise.

That's interesting. Actually I have yet to take a tire off the passenger side, so they may be clockwise...
 
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