First Date Jitters

The first date is always the most fun and the unknown, will she or won't she? Well she did! Tonight I went to the cruise-in and had a new date: The Willys. And guess what: SHE won an award for the effort. If it was an HE I would not have dated HER. Everyone had a lot say very positively. They rubbed the wood to make sure it was wood. I should have brought some polish and they could have waxed the car. They liked everything about the car and not 1 expert that I could hear had anything negative to say. It's always nice when you go to the Prom with the best date, at least in my opinion.

I've Been Framed

Now we look at the frame and see what needs to be done. This can get real boring so I might only spend a day. All of the "unneeded" holes were welded shut and even some of the "needed" holes were later re-drilled. After a lot of grinding to make the frame smooth and remove all of the sharp edges the frame was then coated with a thin coat of bondo to make it look good. Then the great sanding took place and put a nice layer of dust all over the shop. Even though this seems like a small project it consumed the better part of two weeks. Now when it comes to spending money you might want to blame yourself or significant other for spending too much but I suggest you read about spending a million dollars per day at http://bsweasy.blogspot.com/

Frame looks a lot better painted. It looked so good we took the pictures inside so others wouldn't steal our trade secrets.

A Stitch In Time

The car came with "Factory Air" but it only worked with the vent open and driving at 50 mph. Therefore a Vintage Air system was selected and the old factory air closed by "stitching" in some metal and let the bodyman work it over. Also the antenna hole was plugged. All of the work was done at J&B Streetrods. In the picture above you can see that the brake booster was mounted on the firewall. The decision was made to install it on the frame and make the firewall as smooth as possible. I was thinking about the cost of this project and it is good news; if I had left the money in the stock market I would have lost 50% of it therefore I have only spent 50% of what I thought I had spent.

PS I am looking through the Stimulus Package and hope to find something for this project and I think I have found it: 1 billion dollars for Old Former Army Retired Trying Somehow to build a car (Old FARTS)

2 Steps Forward, 1 Step Back

Sometimes things just don't go the way they are supposed to; the wood on the sides have developed stress crack along the joints; last night the dash lights wouldn't work; the low beam headlights were about as bright as a burned out match; then I overfilled the gas tank and ran gas out the overflow causing an "Al Gore" reportable incident; and I had 25 emails about basically nothing. Other than that it was a pretty good day.

Now back to the real world, we are wiring the power windows and lo and behold nothing seems to work. The connectors that came with the kit are too big, won't make good contact and basically suck but alas things could be worse. Here is one of the worse things that could happen.

This car was advertised to cruise smoothly at 80 mph.

Not quite sure if that was true. As you can see the U-bolts holding the rear end in the car were not even through the nuts as well as the lugs for the wheels were too short. Maybe he meant safe at 8 MPH.

A New Expert Emerges

By now all of the floor has been replaced and the body was ready for a first class bodyman to work the metal and paint the car. The guy next door was a retired bodyman and said he could do the job. He was into the job and doing a good job but had to quit due to illness.

That left me to seek EXPERT NUMBER 2. While the body was in the shop we could concentrate on the frame. After looking for awhile I picked up a business card for a body shop. I interviewed him and he looked at the car and said $10,000 to do the body work. I said that was outside of the budget and he came back with a $6,500 bid. I accepted and then the body went to his shop. He picked up the body and started to remove panels and weld in new ones, EVEN the ones we had put in. His father was there telling what a good guy he was a great bodyman. I visited a couple of times. He wasn't making much progress and then the big bomb. We need to sign another contract because of all of the work was not counted in the contract even though the contract said; "All bodywork, paint and polish" Let's see if you are good with Math; How much was the new contract? You are right Mr. Computerhead: $10,000.

And The Beat Goes On

Still sad after the departure of the MGM I now return to the Building The Willys. After much thought I will now review some of the metal replacement. After ripping the floor out as you can see there was considerable work to accomplish. We decided to replace all of the floor from the firewall to the tailgate. This was not an easy task and patch panels purchased proved to not fit. The best part was calling the panel provider and them saying "well all Willys are different". Makes you feel sooooo good. Tomorrow we will intoduce you to yet another "Expert" Expert 2 in our series of experts.

An Old Friend Leaves Town

Today I want to forget the Willys and tell you that an old friend has left town. It was my faithful companion for the past 3 years and many car shows and 38 thousand great miles. It has gone to Arkansas to a new owner and hopefully will give him the same cruising miles that I had, Bye Bye MGM (Mercury Green Monster, a name given by my granddaughter)