Leo's Willy!

[K Riccardi]

Any fresh pix?

 

[slowstang88]

wow,that is a-mazing!! awesome work, you need job!! lol j/k, if youre not already, you have a very promising career as a fabricator!

 

[jaygvert57]

any updates?

 

[Col. Sanders]

This has to be the coolest build I have ever seen any where! And a old willys? Thats the coolest truck ever! Great Job! (understatement!)

 

[Offroader5]

F'ing A man....what do you do for a living? You hit it out of the park with this thing...completely awesome job "thumbsup"

 

[shadowrejects]

awesome rigg

 

[midship909]

i want one good job

 

[Metal Masher]

Well I'm sorry that i haven't updated this in so long but it got sidelined by Leo for the end of last year. I finally got back working on it after Christmas but haven't been able to update the thread so i'll be playing catch-up on what i've done over the last couple months as it's actually almost done.

Ok, after i got it running and did some testing I decided to make mounts for the front shocks so i fabbed up a U bolt plate with the lower shock mount on it

Then to clock the axle up a bit i shaved the top of the axle into a wedge

and installed the plate

Next I made All-pro style hoops for the top mounts

and tacked them in place

Then test fit the shocks

Satisfied with the front shocks I turned my attention to the steering. Leo didn't like how the servo mounted behind the grill so we came up with an idea to mount it up on the firewall and use a bell crank to reach the axle.

I started by making the servo mount. A simple plate with 2 arms to mount the servo and a hole to clear the servo horn

Here is how it will look against the firewall

Nice and tight but i'll need to clearance the firewall for the horn.

the servo will mount upside down like this

You can see here how the horn pokes through the back

and finally how it will look with the cab in place

it's nice and up out of the way. Also it can barely be seen from the side

then to get the steering to the axle i machined up a bell crank using some bar stock and some bearing i had lying around

Here it is assembled

Next i cut some square tubing and braised it to the outside and bolted it to the chassis

Works great and there is no play what-so-ever

Time for bed. I'll update more later

 

[K Riccardi]

Love the update. Glad to see you are still working on this one."thumbsup"

 

[jrkilburn]

Outstanding work. I (for the tenth time) just went through from start to finish on this thread. Love it, Love it, Love it.

I think you may have another project when this is wrapped up. I have had an idea in my head for a while (involves my Fracture V8 ) and to have you work on it while I am deployed next year would be awsome to watch from overseas.

We will talk at the next comp!

 

[ugly duck]

This thing is a ma zing. I like and have been following the Toyota build, but this one is a really nice blend of bodywork and chassis engineering.

I'm collecting ideas for my first build, when I get a bit of time to pull it off. I love the servo mount, and the drill assembly. Awesome!

Hats off to you, sir!

 

[Metal Masher]

Outstanding work. I (for the tenth time) just went through from start to finish on this thread. Love it, Love it, Love it.

I think you may have another project when this is wrapped up. I have had an idea in my head for a while (involves my Fracture V8 ) and to have you work on it while I am deployed next year would be awsome to watch from overseas.

We will talk at the next comp!

Yep, You know where to find me8)

This thing is a ma zing. I like and have been following the Toyota build, but this one is a really nice blend of bodywork and chassis engineering.

I'm collecting ideas for my first build, when I get a bit of time to pull it off. I love the servo mount, and the drill assembly. Awesome!

Hats off to you, sir!

Thanks! I'm glad to be an inspiration.


With the steering complete I next finished up the skid plate by cutting and bending a center section

and tacking it in place

then finish welded it and cleaned it up a bit

The next thing was something that Leo requested. He wanted a way to creatively hide the switches and we came up with the idea of making the shifters turn the car and lights on. but since the shifter would need to be pretty long, and the floor of the aluminum tub is not all that strong by itself, it wasn't as simple as just mounting a chrome toggle switch. to remedy the problem I started by making a mount to attach to the T-case

then i made some brackets to act a shifter linkage

then welded some tubing to the top of the T-case mount to hold the linkage

and fit it in place

then to make it all work I welded shifter handles to the top of the linkage, added tabs to hold the switches, and mounted ball assemblies to the linkage and the top of the switch.

a close-up shot

Here is a test fit with the body on

switched off

Switched on

I really liked how it turned out and I'm defiantly going to use that method on another build.

with the shifters done i was finally able to finish up the tub so I glued on the firewall, cowl, dash and made a tranny tunnel

More later!

 

[Jester666]

Moving shifters:shock:! Thats over the top, well this whole build is over the top. Great work"thumbsup"

 

[jrkilburn]

Great idea's on the shifters. This and your yota build need to be sticky'd as how to do it right when building a scale rig!

 

[Mr.Joshua]

All I can say is Wow! Great attention to detail...can't wait to see the finishied product.

 

[Metal Masher]

Moving shifters:shock:! Thats over the top, well this whole build is over the top. Great work"thumbsup"

I wasn't trying to be over the top, It just seemed like the most logical solution;-)

Great idea's on the shifters. This and your yota build need to be sticky'd as how to do it right when building a scale rig!

I wouldn't say that, there are some outstanding builds on this sight that are far more detailed in other ways. I'm just a nut that likes metal :lol:

More progress!

with the shifters done it was time to wrap up the chassis. I added a stinger on the front and brazed in a winch plate then sand blasted the whole thing

unfortunatly i still can't braze for crap so the winch plate didn't turn out so good

but after some clean-up it didn't look so bad and should cover fine when painted

finally i added a bar to tie the fender into the slider

and brazed the shock hoops

The chassis is now ready for paint


with the chassis done I finished the final touches to the body

I needed a long hinge for the hood and since I couldn't find anything I liked, I made one

with the hinge made i added it to the body attaching the hood on

the last item was the grill. I added support to the inside

along with hood pins made from nails rounded off and cross drilled for micro-T pins

Now the body is finished and ready for paint

Oh yah, one last thing i did before i blew it apart for paint was to swap out the 550 motor for a 7T puller. it was an easy swap, I just pulled the pinion off the 550 and pressed it on the puller. I did some test driving and although it's not much faster it will pull a house off it's foundation!

Next update is paint!

 

[Code454]

i cant wait to see some paint on this bad boy, its really comming together now hurry up with the paint..
.
...
....
.....

is the paint done yet...lol

 

[readytocrawl]

Looks sweet so far! Can't wait for the paint!

 

[trophyrctrucks]

addicted!

im addicted to this site!evertime i turn around theres another sweet build!! i cant even sleep all i want to do is read and look through all the pages of this website!! nice build!! A+++"thumbsup"

 

[AlmstEvil665]

I did some test driving and although it's not much faster it will pull a house off it's foundation!

So its basically like the real thing. Slow as hell but enough torque to climb a block wall if it wouldn't fall off. "thumbsup"