56 Willys to 93 S-10

Alex Lloyd wrote:

It's ALWAYS more than we can chew. You just learn to chew harder & faster. ;)

Yes. The Willys truck front fenders are open in front and allow some wiggle room, but can make it hard to guess where things are supposed to line up. They also actually sit forward of the axle centers, I think that's where your difference is. Work from the axle centers out (that's what the stats are measured from). Read on for more important stuff. S-10 chassis are great platforms for repowers. You might be surprised how many S-10 hotrod coupes there are running around. I'll be talking from the perspective of a Toyota chassis under a Willys body, but the concepts are the same no matter who made what.

The cab mounts between the two truck is almost irrelevant. They might line up, but you'll likely have to do some serious fabricating to mount the bed & chassis and have everyting line up right. Measure the difference between the front axle and your seating position in the cab to get your starting point for everything that you have to put your hands on and what you need to do as far as your shifter, pedals and steering column. You have to drive this thing, so make sure all the controls are in good position or you'll hate it when you're done. You can re-engineer almost anything except the seating position by more than an inch or two or you'll be looking out of the wing window, unable to rest your arm on the window or something goofy like that. This is the single biggest reason you see so many projects for sale that aren't done

- not taking the operator into account when building it. Start bolting bucket seats in a cab that has original seats mounted on platforms and it gets real interesting. I've seen some real messes that started with the best intentions, but would take 3 or 4 times as much money/time to fix as it would have to do it right the first time.

Most modern trucks have the firewall WAY forward of where the Willys firewall is. On my project (a 50 Willys Wagon on an 88 Toyota 4x4 chassis), the Wagon firewall is around 8" forward of where the Toyota firewall is with the seating position being the point of reference. Everything has to be measured from there. Old truck have you sitting upright with your feet right under your knees like you did as a kid on Grandma's couch, compared to modern vehicles where you're stretched out on the seat and your shins are at a 45 degree or lower angle. That means you (like I) might have to have a custom made shifter for the transfer case and tranny that reaches back 9", and comes up almost a foot. The Toyota steering column (if mounted back on the same chassis geometry) puts the steering wheel right against the windshield on the Wagon, so the column needs to be lengthened almost a foot. The front cab mounts on the Willys are almost exactly where the front cab mounts are on the Toyota chassis, but those mounts are about a foot behind the firewall on the donor and are actually outside & in front of the Willys firewall. This might be where you're getting confused as far as your mounts & chassis are concerned. One good thing about that is it will make servicing the truck very easy with all that room around the V6 EFI engine. Keep in mind that you'll also have to make sure you don't end up getting in the way of the radiator core support with your engine. Shouldn't be much of a problem as old straight 6 Willys motors are actually much longer than a modern V6.

DON'T put a V8 in a Willys truck - you'll regret it. Read about it at

and read the stuff about repowering Willys trucks. The shape of the engine compartment doesn't get rid of the heat a V8 makes very well with that big a block in that little square box under your hood. The only way to increase the amount of air you can get OUT of the engine bay is to cut open your front inner wheel wells, and on the Willys trucks they're crucial for structural support of the entire front end. My Wagon came with a SBC in it, and it's a total mess. Also, you might be shocked at how much of a body lift you'll end up with putting an old body on a modern chassis unless you're doing some serious fabricating. You might decide that the best way to go would be to 'stub' the chassis together the way older race cars & some hotrods are built. That's what I'm doing. I'm using the front 1/3 of the Toyota chassis (for it's superior suspension & steering geometry that I won't have to mess with) and the rear 1/3 of the Willys frame (with the Toyota axle) to get almost all of the body mounts from the original without messing with my Wagon's floor. This will give me almost stock height - only about a 1.5" body lift which is fine with the Toyota chassis. Beefy looks with good road manners. I will of course have to box in the flimsy

50 year old "C" shaped Willys frame portion (the Toyo frame is completely boxed stock).

Keep us all posted on how you're doing. Repowering a Willys isn't for the faint of heart, but it's worth it to have something that cool that you can also rely on every day AND safely drive at 75 mph. That's why I'm doing it. No generic 'bubble truck' for us! ;D

Good luck, - Jeff G