A Little Rebody: Making a Power Wheels Willys CJ2A

No major update at the moment, though I do now have over half of the sheet metal cut. Whats really starting to confuse me is how i'm going to attack the grill:

The bottom of the pattern has changed from that photo in ways i explained earlier, but that's not the issue. I'm confused about the slats. I plan on probably adding on pieces for the headlights and indicators, so the slats are really the only part that must be shaped in that sheet. For the center slats i'm thinking of drilling a hole top and bottom smaller than the opening, cutting a slot between the two holes, and folding the edge in to give it the curved inwards look of the original. It would probably look similar to this:

That's a corvair van i saw at a carshow, but i don't have a detail shot of CJ2 jeep grill slats, so it'll have to do.

The outer two slats, however, must conform around the headlight. Is this another case where a hammer form would work? I'm planning on doing this without cutting any holes for the headlights, so there would be sheet metal supporting the edge that i'm bending over. It doesn't look like something i could do with the bead roller i don't have, but if i cut out the shape in wood i might be able to carefully hammer it over the shape while avoiding hitting the narrow metal strip separating it from the inner slats...

Thoughts?

you'd need to make some sort of dimple die for the slats. Cut the hole slightly smaller than the necessary size and dimple it to get the correct shape.

Not much of an update, i just finally edited the footage of me cutting some pieces:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/B9FemMAzeHw

As i mention in the video, i'm not progressing very quickly because i have carpal tunnel. That's basically why I've been doing more foundry stuff, it doesn't seem to be messing with my hands as much as the tin snips. I'm going to build an actual good foundry soon and i'll make a build thread on that, so i guess there is an upside? Surgery incoming though

Your workplace is way too clean. You need to get a grinder and a welder to give the place some good grunge all over the place.

10 minutes of cleaning keeps the workplace more efficient for many hours

I rarely get more than a couple minutes to work during the week, so I spend it cleaning up. That way the few hour chunk on the weekend is packed with progress!

Also welder is incoming.

Here are some pictures, though it will mostly be repeat info:

I layed the sheet on the ground and cut big chunks (as measured out by the patterns) using my electric snips. I had to put the board under the panel to raise it off the ground so the snips would go through without the blade bouncing off the concrete.

Because the snips take a 1/4" wide strip out instead of just cutting, i had to leave a decent gap:

Then tape the pattern on the top, and mark it out:

Cutting it out was mostly the electric snips for straight lines, then hand snips for everything else. I had to take it pretty slow, one or two pieces a day, but it is mostly cut out. I think the only things left to cut are the rear pieces.

I didn't take a picture because i have only 2 hands, but in the video you can see me marking the panels with a scratch all and a mallet to form 'dents' to guide future bending. The small dings are actually seen on both sides of the metal which is kinda neat.

Stack waiting for bending:

I had an idea to use one of these springs:

to make a replica of this:

Good idea? stupid idea? I might do it for fun. if you tell me it's stupid, i'll definitely make it.

To transfer fold line through paper templates and on to the steel, I use an automatic center punch. Same idea, just a one handed operation.

I know $$$ is tight, but these things are great for a lot of what you are doing.

They start to get a bit uncomfortable when you go thicker than 20 gauge, but I have come to rely on mine.

That looks like a pretty useful tool. Money isn't actually as tight as I make it out to be, but we're in savings mode at the moment and I've been blowing all of my fun budget recently on the foundry project. Probably next year I'll get to upgrading metal working equipment. Likely after I go through the carpal tunnel surgeries.

Project Revival! I have recovered enough from the surgery that i can continue hammering stuff, so in the words of the early 90's, It's Hammer Time! Hammer form time, anyway.

Working on the fender, the front edge is a gentle curve. If you look in the middle of the bend, you'll see some crushed looking grain. I'm using pine. Pine hates wood working. Especially anything other than insanely sharp edges. Pine certainly hates the chisel and plane blades i haven't sharpened since 2015...

I assume a sharp edge like that will be extra difficult to shrink, so i added a bit of curve

And got the edge angle on the back side of the fender:

I rounded it over a bit, clamped the top part of the hammer form down on top, and started hammering. I think I made the mistake of trying to hammer that, and ran into some problems

I don't know if it was some kind of technique problem (probably) but i ended up cutting it, flattening it back out and then bending it around that way. i'll weld it later:

I used a bit too much torch when i tried annealing it. I had the super-mega-more-power tip on it. I doubt i even needed to anneal it, but i was able to shape it a little easier afterwards.

The front bend was a bit more difficult. I tried hamming it around the form, i tried tuck shrinking again (incorrectly, i later discovered) and basically just kept going until it resembled the curve shape.

After a while i hit the outside with a file to see where the low spots were

Hammered out the underside a bit with the pick end

File it again

At this point I stopped. The fender needs a lot more work, but since this is body panel #1 I'm calling it a win. The fold along the outer edge of the fender (right side of that last photo) needs to be more of a gentle arch, but i think i can adjust that, and I really marred the crap out of the edge while shrinking it. I have plenty more steel, I can remake this if I need to. This took a long time but after much failing, the steel did eventually shrink and i think I learned a lot that i'll use on the next fender. Awesome.

I am going to read your future for you:

"You are going to make the second fender and it will be much easier with better results. You will want to re-do the first one."

Not that I see much wrong with the first one, but I know how this goes...

^he's probably right...

Rufledt wrote: No major update at the moment, though I do now have over half of the sheet metal cut. Whats really starting to confuse me is how i'm going to attack the grill: The bottom of the pattern has changed from that photo in ways i explained earlier, but that's not the issue. I'm confused about the slats. I plan on probably adding on pieces for the headlights and indicators, so the slats are really the only part that must be shaped in that sheet. For the center slats i'm thinking of drilling a hole top and bottom smaller than the opening, cutting a slot between the two holes, and folding the edge in to give it the curved inwards look of the original. It would probably look similar to this: That's a corvair van i saw at a carshow, but i don't have a detail shot of CJ2 jeep grill slats, so it'll have to do. The outer two slats, however, must conform around the headlight. Is this another case where a hammer form would work? I'm planning on doing this without cutting any holes for the headlights, so there would be sheet metal supporting the edge that i'm bending over. It doesn't look like something i could do with the bead roller i don't have, but if i cut out the shape in wood i might be able to carefully hammer it over the shape while avoiding hitting the narrow metal strip separating it from the inner slats... Thoughts?

It's time consuming but I have a pair of Snap On duck bill pliers for small bends like you want on the grill slats. I don't know if other brands are the same but the Snap On ones have smooth jaws so there are no serrations to make up the pieces. I used them a lot making the grill surrounds on stock cars. It's a slow process though so I'd cut them out and then sit in front of the tv and work my way around the openings to make a nice bevel. I would take a few passes around the hole bending a little more each time until I had a shape I liked.

Wall-e: thanks for the tip, that's a good idea. ill look into that.

NOHOME: I suspect you are right. I think I'll take another step back and remake the hammerform, too. It isn't thick enough and I rounded both sides so I could try to flip it around for the other fender. I think that seriously made hammerform-ing it really tough, resulting in trying to tuck shrink the edge from the inside with a high crown hammer. Live and learn I guess.

I think you are closer than you think. If you have a big socket or a large diameter metal tube (close to the radius you are making) you could clamp the piece in a vice and use the round form to tune up the edge.

You are correct that the hammer form with the double rounded edges is not going to be the answer.

Taking NOHOME's advice, I grabbed a big socket and a wooden dowel and gave it a shot. Here is what I started with:

I stuck the socket in the hole and started hammering down on the crease, trying to flatten it a bit:

For rounding it over, i tried this:

The vice grips hold the dowel in place, i support the dowel with my left hand, and hit it over the dowel. It kinda worked:

I kind of kept going up and down the fender, trying various dollies and improvised dollies:

Gave up here:

Success! The crease is now a bend! I'm still going to make a new hammer form for the other fender, and depending how it goes I might still redo this one, but thanks for the tip, nohome! On closer inspection this fender is pretty heavily marred where i did the most shrinking, not sure how much i want to get into high build primers and bondo and stuff for a powerwheels jeep. If i keep going with this fender i know I'll work the thing to death in the quest of making it perfect, so i'm going to stop messing with this one right now.

If you are going to paint it anyways, I would not be reluctant to use a skim of filler as needed.

If you are not going to paint, now would be a good time to switch to aluminum so that you can polish the finished Jeep!

Polished aluminum would be pretty sweet but nice flat polished fenders sound like a great way to blind everyone

I am going to paint it, probably red. I'm not going to get into full automotive paint set up just yet, probably primer/filler/rustoleum bright red. Don't want to go crazy with paint, a 3 year old will be driving it.

Mentioned earlier for forming the grille bar return flanges was a set of duck bill pliers.
I use a pretty simple tool made of a piece of round steel bar stock. Hacksaw a groove into the end to the depth of the flange you want to bend and then use that over the edge to bend a little at a time. The depth of the groove sets the flange depth and you can radius the inside edge of the groove a little to make smoother bends. Lots of small overlapping steps and at least three complete passes across an edge will get very good results. The advantage of using this type of tool is that the depth of the bend is consistent and you can get into relatively tight corners.

Someone else's version pictured below:

In reply to stafford1500:

That's a much better idea.

OK, trying to do the other fender, i made a video:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_RPtXt8l0zI

Here's what happened. I was going to make a new hammer form like i discussed. I then ended up making.... the left hammer form again. D'OH. Then i made the right fender hammer form. I then proceeded to hammer along the form. I don't think pine is hard enough... i ran into some issues there, also i don't have the mean to clamp particularly well at the moment.

It didn't quite go well, but (hear me out) i reverted to the old hammer form with the rounding all the way around. I pounded the edge around and under the bottom of the hammer form. This created wavy looking tucks pointing inward- curved far too much around. Then, i hammered the tucks down from the inside of the fender on my vice. It kinda worked. Does that make sense?

It's not the normal way to use a hammer form, i think, and using the stump i had literally feet away from me would have been better than hammering on my vice, but i got results at least.

The only downside is that i occasionally stretched the very edge when i hit it with the crowned hammer on my steel vice. Fortunately i cut a lot of that off when i trimmed to size...

Any tips on my hammering technique would be nice, I realize i probably used the wrong hammer there, too...

So this is a bit awkward...  been a while and I never did update this thread.  Now most of the photos are lost (phone literally got crushed) and there is a huge gap.  Also my memory fades in like 5 minutes, so the process is LONG gone from memory.  Best I can do are these photos:

Pieces blow apart, some skim filler to try it out (don't like doing that much).  Readying for paint.

Rustoleum red.  from what I remember, I don't like the surface I got.  seemed to lose a bit of the vividness when it dried.  Don't know why.

For the lights, I broke out the 3D printer.  Metal-ish colored surrounds, translucent clear and clearish red for the "lights".  I selected grid infill to try to replicate the pattern on glass lights:

Assembled looks pretty nice, except for the aformentioned paint looking "meh" upon drying: 

You can really see the bad finish on the paint in this last image, but most importantly check out the steel bumper.  Seems like a bad idea, right?  Well, those are attached to the steel body via spring clamps hidden underneath.  Why spring clamps?  So it slides back when it gets driven straight into my shins, that's why.  It works well enough to "cushion" the blow.  The spring clamps are pretty tight and have rubber on the contact surfaces, almost like a little brake.  This thing doesn't move very fast, so it seems adequate.

Sorry for the pathetic send off to a once fun project, this is why i shouldn't stop posting for years on end.  The previous videos embedded here (forgot how to do that) lead to more videos of the whole process if you are interested, but these photos show that I didn't end up stalling on a kid's car project.  Well, i did, but i got back on it and finished it.  It is now collecting dust in the garage  but it CAN move when my kids want to use it!  Now onto that van i was working on some time ago...

Welcome back Paul.

Seen you have a lot of projects going on the channel. Like the rest of us, you're gonna need a bigger garage. Jeep looks good.

Often wondered where this went off to since it was going so well and then just vanished.

I believe there was a conversion van project also that started off fast and furious? Or am I mixing up my missing projects?

Pete

fasted58 said:

Welcome back Paul.

Seen you have a lot of projects going on the channel. Like the rest of us, you're gonna need a bigger garage. Jeep looks good.

You and I agree there, I think I need an industrial sized warehouse.  Then another one right next to it for when I inevitably fill the first one with unfinished projects.

NOHOME said:

Often wondered where this went off to since it was going so well and then just vanished.

I believe there was a conversion van project also that started off fast and furious? Or am I mixing up my missing projects?

 

Pete

Yeah theres a conversion van too.  Unlike this jeep, I didnt finish that one behind the scenes.  I've done more work on it than I posted in the build thread for sure, but it still has more rust hole than it has rust patch.  Its missing most of its driver side inner sill at the moment and is totally blocked by an 8' chunk of bowling alley right now.