Virtual Willys MB

[bluesblooded]

Hello Everyone,

I'm newly retired from an IT job. In the last year, my hobbies have changed quite a bit. I was planning to build electric guitars and after 7 builds in 8 years, I decide to quit woodworking. First for the noise and saw dust, second for the space since I'm planning to move in a smaller house, third, how many guitars a bad player really needs. So I sold everything and got a 3D printer. I'm really happy with my choice. Makes little noise and fits in a corner of my desk. For me, the fun of 3D printing is to be able to design my own stuff and print it to validate that everything works fine. It's a rapid prototype platform.

My love for the Willys Jeeps comes from watching MASH with my father and then with my son. It reminds me of great family time. Designing a Willys was therefore a natural choice, because of my attachment to the television series and that it is a "relatively simple" design. I chose the WW2 model because there seems to be more information available for it.

This will be my first car design from scratch. I will learn a great deal and curse like us French Canadians are well known for.

My goals are to render the Willys MB as close as the original as possible. I will digress from the original to accommodate the 3D printing process. I also wish to make it so I can scale it by changing a few parameters. This will complicate my design a lot as everything will need to be define properly. I'm not sure if I will be able to meet that goal.

This will be a long thread. I'd say it should take at least 6 months to get to the final design.

Enough chit chat, let's start.

[bluesblooded]

First thing i did was to insert blueprint canvas in my design software Fusion 360

Ive inserted a right, top back and frame images.

001.JPG

Here's the right view.

002.JPG

From that view I designed the frame and extrude it. You only see half of the frame as I plan to use the mirror command to generate the other half

003.jpg

I plan to validate early on that the design is sound.

Here is the first print out of the frame so far

004.jpg

Some assembly is required since the frame is too long to be printed on my printer's bed

005.jpg

[bluesblooded]

Here is the whole thing so far assembled

006.jpg

I think I need to revise the front part of the frame. I don't think that it should lift up like this, but some pictures I saw has this but I have problems figuring out how the triangular bumper bracket will fit.

007.jpg

I've never seen a Willys close enough, so I'm working from plans, video and pictures.

Your feedback will be greatly appreciated.

[okiemark]

That is fascinating. That looks like a lot of fun. There are some other crossmembers that go in there. The jackstands are neat too. I know we are all looking forward to the progress on this.

[BLE Bob]

Interesting project.

What scale are you building this in??


* like the 3D printed jack stands!!

[okiemark]

I believe he said 1/10.

[bluesblooded]

Thanks Guys,

Working on the other crossmembers this morning.

Yes the chosen scale is 1/10 but if all goes well, I will be able to do whatever scale by the change of a single parameter.

[gmwillys]

Yeah, I would have to have a set of jack stands as well, then it would really look like our 2A in its present form.

[bluesblooded]

Yeah, I would have to have a set of jack stands as well, then it would really look like our 2A in its present form.

Made some progress on the frame.

Made the front of the frame flat. Replaced the front flat crossmember with a tubular one. Created the two other crossmembers.

008.jpg

next, the bumpers

[bmorgil]

Oh my God I love this! Fascinating to say the least. Here is a frame shot for you. As you go along we may be able to provide quite a few actual shots for the detail if it will help. If it is a Military Frame it needs the machine gun mount. gmwillys posted some pictures of one somewhere.