Restoring Ham's '48 Willys - Home at Last

[LarrBeard]

The truck came home today after 19 months in the shop. Still a few punch list type things to fix, but she's nice! I'm taking one of the daughters, wife and granddaughter to supper tonight - in the new '48 Willys of course!

I'll write the last part of the story later.

Pictures follow! (The color isn't right in the photos...)

And, a late edit. Nothing makes an old truck look better than a pretty girl! Miss Ila thinks Grandpa's truck is really neat!

[DFT2112]

Congrats Ham. You stuck with it and it turned out really nice.

[JBell]

Nice! We're working on a 49 PU.

[LarrBeard]

It can be an adventure.

2WD or 4WD?

Post us some pictures, we'd like to see the work in progress.

[stonyman]

What a wonderful truck, and great job, Do you have any info you could help me or know anyone who may. I have a 53 and mostly the same, 10 boxes of parts, 4 plastic parts containers full of nuts, bolts, and screws. Can put a CJ together in my sleep, but some parts not sure where they go. For instance the front grill need a rubber under the mounting center? Any help would be great.

[LarrBeard]

What a wonderful truck, and great job, Do you have any info you could help me or know anyone who may. I have a 53 and mostly the same, 10 boxes of parts, 4 plastic parts containers full of nuts, bolts, and screws. Can put a CJ together in my sleep, but some parts not sure where they go. For instance the front grill need a rubber under the mounting center? Any help would be great.

Oh - That grill rubber...

Here is my entry from last June about setting the grill onto the frame:

I stopped by the shop early last week and the project had moved to the point that it was time to start setting the doghouse onto the cab. We walked around and looked at the fenders and grill and wondered just how to start. The grill was the obvious starting place, but we wondered how to set its height. There had originally been a spacer between it and the frame cross member, but it was so badly deteriorated it really didn't tell us much. But, the mounting bolt for the grill had worn a keyhole slot onto the cross member mounting hole. So we checked the mounting bolt and sure enough, there was a worn place on it that gave us a starting point, about an inch. That proved to be a good starting point and the grill and fenders aligned pretty well. There are still some adjustments to be made, but all of the wear marks lined up and it's looking good.

We found a heavy rubber spacer, but I had planned to cut a chunk(s) out of an old belt we had from a construction conveyor. The spacer ended up being about an inch thick. That one piece will set the fit for the front end pieces against the cab, so you may have to try a couple of times to get it right. Call KW and see if they have one - they have things that don't show up in the catalog. Walck's has things like that too. You'll get to know all of those folks before you're done.

Look for wear marks where fenders rubbed against the frame or cab - that gives you a hint of where things were. And, don't be surprised if some parts are just gone!. One of my fenders is missing a rolled edge and about 1/8 inch of metal where it had rubbed off against the frame.