Kit Car

The California Hauler Part VI - Willys Truck

The tailgate-a basic metal frame hinged at the base of both bedsides-comes with a fiberglass skin from Auto Classics with a large Willys logo in the middle of it. Thinking a steel skin would survive longer, we opted to custom-fabricate a special skin for the tailgate, but that will be covered in the next issue. The tailgate should look great when finished, as we went to Marcel's Custom Metal, which hand-fabricates all those great award-winning hot rods for TV's Chip Foose and Boyd Coddington, to get the expert welding help we needed.

With work started on the bed, we were able to set the cab on the chassis. It, too, fit right in place, though there is nothing on the cab or the frame to tell you exactly where it goes. The best you can do is move it an inch or so away from the bed and go from there. That done, you can get a general feeling for how much space you have in what will become the engine compartment.

If you are going to run the stock S-10 engine and trans, then you'll have a lot of space between the new firewall and the engine. But we're going for a V-8, as all good Willys projects should! Ben Smeding at Smeding Performance will provide one of his expertly built, dyno-tested powerplants backed to an automatic transmission from Total Cost Involved Automotive.

The original S-10 motor sat far forward in the chassis, but because of the way this new body sits, there is a lot of space to slide in a small-block or big-block V-8, or even a blown Hemi. The best bit we discovered is the new powertrain will sit farther back of the front crossmember than the stock motor, so the new engine's center of gravity will be moved toward the middle of the chassis, aiding handling as well as steering. Plus, we used a plastic replica engine block from P-Ayr (www.payr.com) to get an idea on how everything laid out in the engine compartment, so you can reach in and easily move it around with one hand!

But all that engine and trans talk is jumping ahead from where we are, so for now we'll show you what we did with the bed, and in the next issue we'll show the tailgate work. And as always, if you've missed any part of the California Hauler buildup, you can check it out on KIT CAR's Web site (under Project Vehicles) at www.kitcarmag.com.

I was really tired of looking at what seemed to be a junk trunk with different-sized wheels (some that were always flat)

so I bought some steel rollers from a junkyard, painted them up, and mounted some big 'n' little tires so the hauler wouldn't look so bad.

There was some space between the stock bed mounts and the new bed, so I fabbed these spacers using thick-wall tubing and some washers, then drilled out the bed, installed them, and tightened them down.

I needed more magnets so the rear bed piece wouldn't fall off while working with it.

I then marked the rear bed piece's lip in three spots...

...then drilled them out for the mounting screws.

After marking where the holes met up on the bed, it gets drilled, too.

I used carriage bolts because they won't twist when tightened, and I didn't want to distort the bed, either. When the bed is covered in wood, you won't see them.

Here's the piece all bolted up.

The front section goes on the same way. The open square area in the top left will be covered with the custom bed pockets I still have to make.

With both pieces bolted to the bed, this is what it should look like when you're done.

There's also a piece supplied by Auto Classics under the tailgate-a sort of rear pan to cover the chassis ends.

But the pan won't fit flat because the edge of the stock rear frame crossmember's lip sticks out.

After eyeballing how much was sticking out, I marked it and removed it with a cut-off wheel.

The great thing about welding the rear pan piece to the two outer bed sections is it can now come off as one piece-which will be easy for painting or future repairs.

The top edge of the truck bedbox is actually the bedside folded over with thick-wall tubing on the outside edge. It's stitch-welded to keep warpage down and lower the cost of welding and grinding it smooth.