My Willys 3A and 3B Community
3A, 3B, DJ Technical Knowledge Base => "Original"-- Technical Questions, Answers, Observations => Topic started by: stony on September 13, 2013, 02:44:05 PM
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You all know that I have been fooling around with my windshield vent, mainly because the windshield is the only part I have home to work on. Seems that my vent handle spring is showing its age, so I gave Walck's a call to see if a new one was available. Guess what? The spring is not sold separately from the handle, so back to the work bench! Had made a couple of springs in the past, so didn't seem like too hard of a project, and believe it or not it was pretty easy. First off was the wire for the spring. Music wire would probably be best but didn't have any the right size, then it hit me...bicycle spoke! Had a bunch from my wheel building days, stainless steel, springy and free. Perfect! So this is what I did: Cut and sharpened the end of a spoke. Put it in the vice and put a 90 bend about 1/4 inch long. Drilled a 1/2 inch hole in a block of wood and stuck the drill bit in the hole for a mandrel. Put the block in a vice. Drove the pointed end of the spoke into the block about 1 inch from the mandrel. Grip the end of the spoke (used vice grips), and keeping strong tension by pulling toward you take 2 1/2 turns around the mandrill in the counterclockwise direction. With the Dremel tool cut the short (nailed) leg to 1/2 inch. Removed the spring and test fit it to the handle. Used needle nose to put bend in the wire and cut off excess. In my case it was about 1 inch before the bend. Put er together and it seems to work fine.
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I did something very similar except instead of making the loop like you did I drilled a small hole in the latch and just just bent a 90 on end of wire and put through the hole. Got to keep the ventilation system working right!
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Any plans to make and some of these too?
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Sure, am still fooling around with mine to make sure it holds up OK, but if anyone wants to take a chance on one I can make some. Might try adding a third coil for a stronger spring.
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Here was my solution for the vent door latch. Yeah, it's not original but it sure works great.
(http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j276/yeathatshim/PB210001-1.jpg) (http://s82.photobucket.com/user/yeathatshim/media/PB210001-1.jpg.html)
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Sure, am still fooling around with mine to make sure it holds up OK, but if anyone wants to take a chance on one I can make some.� Might try adding a third coil for a stronger spring.
I need a spring. Won't be home for another week but if you make some extras I'd like to purchase one when I get back home.
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Well kinda intended this to be a DIY post but, sure I can make some. Still trying to figure out if 3 turns is better than 2 (correct for stock), but if you guys want to take the chance..... ;)
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Your method is better than what I did. I just checked mine to see If I did 2 turns or 3 and I did 2 turns. I also didn't have the correct part spring goes around so mine is just a bolt nut and flat washer but it still works. Nothing wrong with that gravity latch either Carl
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I didn't have the spring and didn't want to make one so I took the easy way out.
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The one Stoney made for us works great! We refer everyone to this forum because the help is great and so is the advice. Always glad to have help from the "experienced, been there, done that and it worked," folks.
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Stony and others,
If anybody has an original vent door handle sping, I would like to obtain some info about it in order to reproduce it.
I would like to know the diameter of the wire, how many coils are used and the diameter of the coil circle.
Thank you,
Fabricio
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The one that I made is pretty close to the original, two turns, about 1/2 inch id, the bike spoke is 14 ga (I think), 2 mm. I’m not sure if there is a hook on the end or a 90°, mine was long gone.
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Hi Stony, that info will be enough.
All the ones I’ve seen were reproductions and had a hook on one end. Not sure about the original ones.
I’ll probably do mine with a hook too.
Thanks,
Fabricio