What Was I Thinking?
Before leaving our home in SoCal and moving to Texas I had accumulated a ton of stuff with lots of plans for another cool project. The project that I had stuck like crazy glue in my mind was a Willys Wagon, built specifically to haul the family and dogs, along with all of the must-haves that a home full of females…well… must have.
As luck would have it I had a friend with a Willys Wagon for sale in just about the condition that I wanted, but for some unexplainable reason the it had been partially disassembled for a detailed rebuild. Okay, I’ll admit that a purdy rig is all fine and dandy…but it’s just not for me. I like a rig with a little patina, kinda like a well-worn set of work boots, and before the owner ruined it by shooting spot primer over the tongue-dragging paint this Willys screamed PATINA.
Now, the first time a saw the Wagon it was a wonderful shade or possibly shades of green with just enough oh-so-sweet surface rust thrown in just to cause me to experience heart palpitations. It had a 289 Ford under the hood connected to a Dana 20 and NP435 with a Dana 30 up front and a 9-inch in the rear. A pretty good foundation for a sweet rig if I ever did see one. So what if you could see a little trail through the floorboards, the little Ford V8 ran like a single cylinder John Deere and the steering linkage had more oddball joints in it than a circus freak. Is that any reason to tear the old girl apart? Hardly. I mean shoot it didn’t need much. In fact after I laid down way too much cash for it I drove it on the trailer under it’s own power (or lack thereof.) Okay, truthfully it was in grannygear with the throttle flat on the floor. But it had so much potential that I could almost taste it.
As luck would have it about the same time I practically stole a Blazer with a warmed over 454 and Turbo 350 auto. It didn’t have any interior to speak of and the top had been cut off, but it ran really good. Good enough in fact to almost kill me when my 5-gallon bucket seat fell over while I was given it a little too much throttle. Hey, how was I to know that it would be so torquey?
Soon after I found a deal on a Dana 60 front end and an Eaton rear, a free full-width Dana 44, and then a couple of Dana 300 t/c’s fell into my lap too. Man, I was on a roll!
But…
Now I had all of this stuff and couldn’t decide whether to just get the Willys working, or the Blazer, or combine the two. Or maybe go full-width on the Cruiser? Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the Crew Cab 4x2 that was just begging me to throw a front axle and transfer case under it.
So I did what any red-blooded idiot would do…I did nothing. In fact, I did nothing for such a long time that I almost forgot about my original plan. And then we decided to move to another state. And then…I did the unthinkable.
I sold it all. I did mention the word ‘idiot’, right?
There’s an old saying that goes something like, “Of all the things I miss, I miss my mind most of all.” Well I miss the Willys Wagon the most, and I must have been out of my mind to sell it.
In other words, WHAT WAS I THINKING?
Captain Beadlock <><
As luck would have it I had a friend with a Willys Wagon for sale in just about the condition that I wanted, but for some unexplainable reason the it had been partially disassembled for a detailed rebuild. Okay, I’ll admit that a purdy rig is all fine and dandy…but it’s just not for me. I like a rig with a little patina, kinda like a well-worn set of work boots, and before the owner ruined it by shooting spot primer over the tongue-dragging paint this Willys screamed PATINA.
Now, the first time a saw the Wagon it was a wonderful shade or possibly shades of green with just enough oh-so-sweet surface rust thrown in just to cause me to experience heart palpitations. It had a 289 Ford under the hood connected to a Dana 20 and NP435 with a Dana 30 up front and a 9-inch in the rear. A pretty good foundation for a sweet rig if I ever did see one. So what if you could see a little trail through the floorboards, the little Ford V8 ran like a single cylinder John Deere and the steering linkage had more oddball joints in it than a circus freak. Is that any reason to tear the old girl apart? Hardly. I mean shoot it didn’t need much. In fact after I laid down way too much cash for it I drove it on the trailer under it’s own power (or lack thereof.) Okay, truthfully it was in grannygear with the throttle flat on the floor. But it had so much potential that I could almost taste it.
As luck would have it about the same time I practically stole a Blazer with a warmed over 454 and Turbo 350 auto. It didn’t have any interior to speak of and the top had been cut off, but it ran really good. Good enough in fact to almost kill me when my 5-gallon bucket seat fell over while I was given it a little too much throttle. Hey, how was I to know that it would be so torquey?
Soon after I found a deal on a Dana 60 front end and an Eaton rear, a free full-width Dana 44, and then a couple of Dana 300 t/c’s fell into my lap too. Man, I was on a roll!
But…
Now I had all of this stuff and couldn’t decide whether to just get the Willys working, or the Blazer, or combine the two. Or maybe go full-width on the Cruiser? Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the Crew Cab 4x2 that was just begging me to throw a front axle and transfer case under it.
So I did what any red-blooded idiot would do…I did nothing. In fact, I did nothing for such a long time that I almost forgot about my original plan. And then we decided to move to another state. And then…I did the unthinkable.
I sold it all. I did mention the word ‘idiot’, right?
There’s an old saying that goes something like, “Of all the things I miss, I miss my mind most of all.” Well I miss the Willys Wagon the most, and I must have been out of my mind to sell it.
In other words, WHAT WAS I THINKING?
Captain Beadlock <><
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