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I ended up mounting my hand throttle to the steering column and REALLY preferred it over on the shifter. When I use it as a boat throttle it is really close behind the wheel on the right side....kinda like a turn signal lever ( but is pull to increase RPM). This lets me make small adjustments better I think on the fly. My right hand always seems to be close....and doesn't have to find a different position for every gear.

I've had them on the shifter in the past with small levers, and the sensitivity just wasn't there. The ratios and ergonomics where just off for me.

I use mine as a boat throttle almost all the time. Friction in the shifter to raise/set the rpm to where I want....not spring return. Then I just slap it off. For me this always has seemed to work better than spring return.
 
Discussion starter · #822 ·
Thanks for the additional info Meiser. Reviewed one of your Rango pics to refresh my memory. I can see how that location is pretty convenient, and the longer lever is nice too. I'd think that the cable routing is easier from the column - straight down the column and up to the firewall after getting under the dash. The routing from the stick shift is a bit more circuitous.
Will keep all these inputs in mind when I set it up!
 
Discussion starter · #823 ·
Pedal wrap up

Following up on the prior posts- I ended up straightening the brake and clutch pedal arms a bit to tighten up the pedal spacing to gain foot room on the left. I reduced the brake arm offset from 1" to 1/2", and also set the pedal pad offset toward the gas by an 1/8" - so closer to the gas pedal overall by 5/8". The CJ rubber pads have a notch for the arm, and it allows the pad to be offset a little without cutting the rubber pad. I used a little pedal offset on the brake arm to preserve clearance to the steering column. Reduced the clutch offset from 2"" to 1 3/8" , and set the pedal centered on the arm - so same 5/8" shift overall. These felt comfortable in the new positions. Maybe could go tighter, but my priority is on good control with no snags over foot rest comfort.

It's a small change, and not enough by itself. However, I also decided to change my roll cage plans to move the A pillar back from it's current position (as shown in the pic below with a temporary lower tube) to a more typical position away from the dash instead of centered within it. That moves the tube outward as well, and I think the combined changes will give me enough space to reach a dimmer switch, and to rest my left foot farther forward in the footwell.

Welded on the pads, and wrapped it up:



 
LOL. Maybe we need those levers on the steering wheels like on cars from the early 1900's.

Agree on one where you can adjust the friction for a constant idle or not. I can now see the advantage of the boat-hand throttle idea. That would be a new skill to learn. And yes, the smaller lever is twitchy but remember I also lengthened the throttle lever on the throttle body. Not perfect for sure, but generally solved a huge problem.

Carry on...
 
Discussion starter · #825 · (Edited)
One thing leads to another...and I decided to backtrack on some stuff that I had completed. As described above, I originally planned an A-Pillar cage tube position that was integrated into the dash- but that forward position reduced foot well space at the pedals (due to the angle of the body sides). I decided to go with a conventional A pillar position back a ways from the dash to get more foot room, but that then changed how I planned to connect the A pillar into the engine bay part of the cage...

I originally was going to run a 1.5" round tube from the A pillar to the firewall corners, above the cowl support/windshield mounts. This would be messy to route through the dash above the cowl support tubes I had built. To simplify things, I decided to make larger 1.5" square tube cowl supports that run from the planned A pillar to the firewall to tie into the engine bay cage tubes- so they serve as the cage tubes and also provide flat mounting/sealing surfaces for the cowl and body side panels. As part of this change I considered switching to spherical bearings at the windshield mounts as ISDTBower suggested- but opted to keep the current pivot mounts on the windshield since they were already aligned well, and I didn't want to cook the steel any more with further welding for new pivots. I did come up with an easier way to align the new windshield pivots on the cowl side though. Kind of a pain to go backwards, but glad I changed it before I got boxed in a corner.

Here's the new cowl support tubes and windshield pivots:


The new windshield pivots were easier to align. The earlier ones I made were cut to match the angle of the cowl supports and then welded - and fitting them was difficult to get the alignment right. I made the new ones smaller and drilled the cowl supports to insert them into. This let the angle float a little at the cowl support - and then they were tacked in position held in alignment by the windshield. Much easier. Here they are tacked, and then final welded:




With that bit of backtracking done,I was glad to move forward!

I made the new dash panel next. It's a steel panel with a step formed around the edge that mates to backside of the cowl flange. The flanges will attach using 10-32 button head screws. The step is formed with a bead roller. The step places the front of the dash flush with the front of the cowl flange. I'm new to bead roller work, and it took a couple of attempts to get the step to follow the cowl flange that way I wanted it. The first two I made went in the scrap pile, but I'm happy with the third one. After forming the step, I made a flange at the bottom with about a 1/4” radius. This was formed with a slapper over the radiused edge of some rectangular tube. I'm not a fan of the sharp bend of the stock dash- had my shins smacked pretty bad in the past and wanted a little more forgiving lower edge. The panel is just a little shorter in height than a stock 3B, and the bottom edge aligns with the bottom of the new cowl supports.

Here's some pics.
Forming the lower flange with slapper after bead rolling step:


Dash panel placed on cowl supports (the back of the cowl support tubes will get trimmed and welded to the planned A pillars. The strap tacked across them is the maintain their position until the cage is built.)


Dash panel with cowl in place:




Will make mounts to attach the dash to the cowl supports and punch the dash flange holes soon- but want think through what else will be mounted under the cowl first. One thing that will be under there is a heater...
 
Discussion starter · #826 · (Edited)
I'm using an original Willys/Harrison heater in keeping with a somewhat traditional look. However, I want to mount it differently from stock- closer the the firewall and higher up. Rather than chop up the original backplate, I decided to save it as is, and make a new back plate that I can add different mounts on.

Here's pics of the heater front cover and partially completed new back panel:


The MDF hammer form was fitted to the inside of the front case with some room for the flanges to be formed:

The corners needed a lot of shrinking to get a smooth flange. A steel form would work better than MDF as the MDF is too weak to handle that amount of hammering- but a steel form is a lot of work- so I used MDF and finished the corner detailing with hammer and dollys. I initially thought I might have to cut and weld the corners, but didn't need to. Gradually hammer shrinking the folds in the corners with different dolly shapes worked out.


Here's the panel fit into the front case. The hole in the center was used to run a bolt through the hammer form, sheet metal and clamping caul. I tried to position it so it would align with the motor shaft- which would then allow me to assemble it with the motor in place to fine tune where the shaft lines up - and then cut the large hole for the fan blade. It ended up aligned to the shaft well, so I can reference the final opening to it.


The original fan blade is a 7" diameter steel blade. This makes the upper section of the back plate pretty narrow around the fan opening. I decided to change to a little smaller 6" blade so the case will be a little stronger and so it will be easier to shape a reasonable fan opening profile. I have a 6" aluminum blade ordered and will finish the fan opening after it arrives.
 
Discussion starter · #827 · (Edited)
Continuing in the cockpit area- I ordered up a steering column and wheel from Limeworks. Great folks - very helpful!

The column is their 40 Ford style, with a 1.5" tube that's the same diameter as the stock Willys. It's a stainless tube (I chose unpolished) and has nice bearings and splined lower shaft. It supports horn button wiring, with the wiring exit low on the shaft which works out nice in a Willys. I'll be running a traditional clamp on turn signal switch. They also make it in 1.75" and have some other traditional style columns.

For the wheel, I went with a new model that they just added- which is in the style of a 50's 356 Porshe. It's about 1" smaller diameter than the stock Willys wheel. I like a big wheel, but wanted a little smaller than stock. It has a traditional looking black outer rim, and stainless spokes. The amount of dish combined with the adapter and one of their stock column lengths gave me the overall length I wanted. They were great in talking through the details on the length, putting the parts together to confirm total length while the phone.

The wheel is one of the first four samples from the manufacturing run. Each one was made to demonstrate slightly different finish treatments - full polished, brushed, and in between variants. The final product has the fully polished shiny finish, but I liked the idea of the less polished proto - and they sent me pics of all of them so I could choose the one I liked best, which was cool. Great folks at Limeworks!

Will be working out the column mount which will tie into the pedal box and dash panel.

Here's some pics:





 
Discussion starter · #829 ·
Thanks nofender! Modifying the Harrison is a pretty screwball idea. I didn't want to chop up the old back plate since it could be used on a stock rig, and they are getting hard to find. Kind of a diversion, but a fun one!
 
Discussion starter · #830 · (Edited)
Harrison heater continued...
I attempted to make a shroud / fan entrance for the new back panel. I decided to use a 6" fan blade rather than the original 7" blade as it simplifies the shroud. The 7" blade doesn't leave much room for the shroud at the top of the case, and the original has a transition to fit it. With the 6" blade I could make the shroud as a continuous ring shape. Still a challenge for my meager sheet metal skills though! I made two simple rings out of flat sheet metal strips with the ends welded together, then used a bead roller to roll the edges towards each other to join by welding. (The edge of smaller inner ring was rolled outward, while the edge of the outer ring was rolled inward. The other edge of the outer ring was also rolled outward to transition to the case panel. Here's the two ring pieces before welding, viewed from the "inside":

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Initially , I estimated diameter for the outer ring wrong and needed to cut and re-weld it to get its rolled edge to line up with the inside ring rolled edge. The pic above was made after the outer ring diameter was adjusted, and after a little hand tweaking to get them as circular. as I could. The cardboard they are resting on has two circles drawn with a compass to guide the manual adjustments. Once adjusted, I welded the rolled edges to each other, and filed and finished the weld. Here's the front side after welding together at the top edge and finishing the welds:
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Then welded the shroud ring to the new back panel, an inch at a time...

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Here it is assembled, with the new 6" fan blade. It's Dayton part # 2MXY8, which I got from Grainger. It's aluminum, 5 blade rather than 4, but with same CCW rotation as the original.

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The core inlets and outlets are pretty standard 5/8" size tubes, that enter the engine bay at the lower passenger side corner. The reason I made the new back panel is that I will mount the heater differently than stock. I want to mount it higher up so that it flows better around the taller than stock transmission hump. That would work fine with the current inlet/outlet tubes. However, I'd also prefer to have the heater plumbing go through the firewall closer to the engine to make the routing cleaner to the engine and keep away from the headers. I have also been thinking of making a cold air inlet for the engine air cleaner right behind the passenger fender - where the stock oil bath air cleaner would be and where the heater tubes usually route. Not sure I want to trim the tubes to re-route the plumbing though. If I did trim them, it would be nice to solder on AN style connectors close to the case and use threaded 90 degree elbows. I can't seem to find solder-on fittings though, as are seen on some aftermarket heaters like the ones from Vintage Air. I'll call them and see what I can find out. Could also sweat on some household plumbing elbows? Some thing to ponder before I make mounts...
 
Discussion starter · #831 ·
Turn signal diversion...

While waiting for welds to cool on the heater parts, I finished a little fun and games diversion project- modifying the aesthetics of the turn signal I bought with the steering column. It's a traditional style hot rod unit from Limeworks, and has a nice machined and polished aluminum case. It goes well with hot rods with finned valve covers, finned bee hive oil filter cases, etc.. but I thought the fins were a little out of place for the aesthetic I'm going for, and I bought it with the intent to clean up the lines a bit.

Here's the unit as purchased:

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I took the innards out of the case, put some tape on the sides to protect the finish, and then went after it with a Vixen file to shave off the fins. This was a nice time filler while welding the heater case- weld an inch on the heater, then file the turn signal while the weld cools. The turn case is plenty thick on the top, so I could remove the fins and round the edges a little to make it visually smaller and simpler.

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Once shaved, then did some finer file work , sanding, and then finish polish by hand with some old simichrome polish I had around.

I'm happy with how it turned out:

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Discussion starter · #832 · (Edited)
Mounted Dash Panel:
I initially held off on final mounting the dash panel as I was thinking of potentially mounting an air compressor, tank, and controls under the cowl behind the dash, and thought that it might change how I mounted the dash panel. However, I'm now thinking I'll put that stuff under the seats/chassis. So I proceeded to get the dash mounted up- so I can move on to steering column mounting. The option of mounting the air stuff behind the dash is still possible, but second choice at this point.

Mounted two simple tabs on the cowl supports to attach the lower flange of the dash panel. This easily supports the dash when the cowl is removed for servicing stuff- and leaves the upper part of the dash panel flexible enough that the upper dash flange mounting screws snug it tight to the cowl flange when attached together.

Here's the passenger side tab:
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Used a Roper Whitney punch to make the cowl flange / dash mounting holes in the cowl, then mounted up the dash panel and cowl and tightened up all the front firewall and side support screws to get everything in final position. With the parts positioned, I used a transfer punch through the cowl flange holes to mark the dash flange hole positions. Took it all apart again (for what feels like the 100th time...) punched the dash flange holes, and pressed in 10-32 stainless PEM nuts. Here's some pics of the dash with flange punched, and then mounted again on the tabs (viewed from back side / above):

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Then buttoned it up with 10-32 button head screws:

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Next up is mounting the steering column and detail stuff associated with that. Received Mastercraft Rubicon seats so I can do the column fitting with a seat mocked up.
 
Discussion starter · #834 ·
Again I say impressive. enjoying the details such as the turn signal mod. Very unique and good eye! Looks way better.
Thanks nofender! That means a lot coming from you. Sure dig your East Coast Willys thread and builds. Fun history, and great builds with thoughtful design choices, really clean work, and cool ideas!
 
Discussion starter · #835 ·
Made some progress on mounting the steering column. First, I needed to finish the pedal box to tie it into the dash - to minimize flexing of the firewall from pedal force, and to provide support of the dash and steering column drop. I originally was going to just weld a support piece onto the box, but decided to make the support piece detachable. The main reason was for service flexibility - to allow the pedal box to be removable from the top (lifting it up with the cowl removed), or out the bottom with the cowl and dash in place - it can be removed in either direction.

Here's what it turned out like:

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I decided to make my own column drop, and used a 304 stainless "mountable collar" from McMaster Carr as a part of it. I bought a couple in case I screwed one up... The ID needed to be enlarged to better clear the bearing flange at the base of the column tube, so the collar would slide onto the shaft. On the first one I went a little too far and the fit was sloppy. The second one turned out good- only had to open up about 0.010". It slides on readily , and clamps well once tightened. The shape was also tweaked a little further - the faces were turned to thin it down to 1/2" thick, put a bigger radius on one end, and finished it a little smoother. The final part is on the left, the original (with botched ID change) is on the right:

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The collar clamp is attached onto the back of an 11 g 304 SS plate with a couple 1/4-20 button head screws. The upper formed flange attaches to the dash & pedal box column support.

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I'm working on the floor mount now. It's a small plate from the same 11g 304 stainless, and will have a short section of 1.5" ID/ 1.75" OD SS tube welded on for the column to slide into- with a screw to lock the column in place in the tube. This little stuff sure takes a lot of time, but making progress...
 
Discussion starter · #837 ·
Thanks Meiser! Slow going, but making progress!

Finished up the column floor mount. It's 304 stainless to match the material of column tube and dash mount. Took some time in fitting it to get the angle set right. The tube section is 1.5" ID/ 1.75" OD. Like the dash column mount collar, the ID needed to be increased a little on the lathe to get it to slide over the little flange on the end of the column bearing, while keeping a reasonably close fit to the tube.

There's a 10-32 screw threaded in the bottom of the mount to fix the column tube in position. There's a small matching hole drilled in the underside of the tube. It doesn't provide much strength - it's primarily to set a consistent column position in the mount and that it doesn't rotate - so the horn wire exiting the column stays out of the way of the pedals. It also sets the position of the column u -joint relative to the firewall. In combination with the upper dash clamp, the column is very solidly secured.

There's a single, collapsible double D shaft from the column to the steering box, and the upper u-joint is bigger than the firewall and column clamp openings- so the connecting shaft would have a tough time punching the column back through the firewall in an accident. The mount also seals the firewall around the column.

Here's some pics. The first shows the argon back purge set up for TIG welding the pieces together- aluminum foil is sure handy for trapping the purge area. Happy with how it turned out once installed.

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Discussion starter · #838 ·
Finished the steering shaft set-up.

I had previously cut a hole through the front cross member for routing the steering shaft joint, but left it undersized and unfinished until the column was mounted so I could fine tune the fit. With the column mounted, it was time to open up the pass thru to final size and alignment and weld in an insert. The close quarters alongside the frame rail and cross member made opening up the hole and welding in the insert a bit challenging. Glad I didn't mess it up- phew!

Here's some pics and details:
I used a Borgeson u-joint / vibration damper at the steering box, and it's long enough to pass through the cross member with access to its set screws on either side. The pass thru tube is 2.875" OD/ 2.625" ID, which is big enough to provide plenty of clearance for the joint body including tipping it upward towards the column as it goes through the pass thru from the box, and small enough that the insert stays within the cross-member height. The tube insert is angled up and to the side slightly to be well spaced along the path of the joint. To get a good fit, after the u-joints and shaft were mounted, I marked the final cross member opening size evenly spaced around the joint. Then the holes were opened up to the outlines with a saw and half round file until the tube section fit through. The tube was then marked while positioned in the cross member- to get the angle cuts on its ends so they would be flush when positioned in the angled opening. Here's the fitted, chamfered insert:

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Here's the welded in insert:
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Once the pass thru tube was welded in, the drivers side radiator mount could also be welded on just above the steering pass thru, on the back of the cross member. (The passenger side mount was welded on a long time ago, but I held off on the driver's side mount to have access to weld the steering cross member insert.)
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Here's the set screw access on the front of the u-joint/ vibration damper, just ahead of the cross member. Close, but enough room to access the set screw and lock nut.
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Here's a view of the back of the u-joint/vibration damper, under the radiator mount. The joint set screws are easy to reach from underneath (turn the steering wheel to point the screws inward or down) and there's plenty of clearance under the radiator mount. It looks close in the pic due to the angle of the camera, but the joint sits about an inch below the mount.

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The shaft is a Borgeson collapsible double D. Here are some views of the routing. It worked out nicely to be a single shaft with no need for an intermediate u-joint and pillow block. One concern is whether the column u-joint will get too hot near the header and cook it's lubricant. It's about 1.5" below the tube. Stainless headers don't conduct and radiate as much heat as regular steel, but it's a concern. It might make sense to shield or wrap that spot.

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I couldn't resist a glamour shot with the radiator sitting on the mounts. The mounts will have rubber pads, and the top mount will tie into a cage hoop behind the grill, outboard of the headlight buckets.

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Put the grill, anti-rocks, and winch on for fun, and to reclaim some floor space in the garage. I'd like to remove the radiator logo paint at some point- might see if dissolves in acetone without mechanically messing up the fins.

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Not sure what's next. Weighing whether to tackle the engine compartment cage/upper radiator mount, upper shock mounts and grill fan shroud in this area, or shift back to the floor area around the battery, transmission tunnel, and seat mounting as next step, or juggling between both areas for some variety...
 
Spray the radiator black and will be more period correct too. I hate seeing the alloy colour as takes away from the grille too. Everything behind the grille should 'disappear' as much as possible. Not exactly a pretty thing to be looking at anyway unless you are going for a boy racer look?
 
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