Getting close to finishing off the lower part of the cab for now.
I had a good pair of original Willys front cab mounts that were rust free after cleaning them up in the citric acid bath. Hoping to use them on the donor firewall.
But the fold on the donor firewall sits a lot lower than it was on the Willys. That rear brace support is supposed to touching the floor showing how low the whole mount is.
The angle is different as the Willys had two 45* bends in the toe board to firewall where the donor has three 33* ones.
Looked at modifying the originals a lot to fit but thought it would be better just to start from scratch. First need to workout how far back I need to go to get the bottom of the mount level with the bottom of the floor while still being behind that lip.
You might noticed too that the second fold is down on an angle. That is because the donor firewall is not flat straight across like the Willys was. I wanted the lower part to still be like that. I had to continue down the firewall until the lower part was vertical and square
Time to start converting cardboard into metal. I made it out of 3 mm instead of the original 2 mm so the extra stiffener on the outside edge could be left out.
The main stiffener which transfers the load to the stronger side of the cowl was still put in.
With the body mount sitting back it gives more room in the engine bay, but more importantly, centers the load under the firewall which is much stronger than in front of it.
Had another set of original floor to mount braces and thought I might as well reuse those.
The radius just needs to be tightened up in the corner to match the new mount.
Used a T dolly that I had made a while ago that had the same radius.
Hammered the brace over it and now it is ready to be welded on.