Bill Jansen’s 1938 Willys Coupe Under Construction
New South Wales Australia

As you may have noticed the shape at the bottom of the Trunk or Boot lid has been changed to that of the USA Style Coupe, thanks to Carl Hagan in Kansas for the Templates, it will also strengthen The Lower Trunk Sides by getting more material in that area. The Down side of this is when the Lid was trimmed at the lower outer rust edge, it made the Lid look too short so I could either add metal at the bottom or slide the Lid down and ad it too the top.

This is some of the Timber that was removed from the Boot (Trunk) Lid and will be replaced with 1" RHS Also the Rain Gutter will be replaced by 3/4 RHS which will have a section removed to form a U Channel.

Here we see the Panel tack welded from the inside onto the existing Right Angle fold. The Corners will be filled in in due course.

This seemed to be the easier option so the lid was moved down 2 1/2" which made the Lid look a lot more in proportion to the width, much better.

A New 2 1/2" wide section was made and the corners shaped from the existing Lid corners A Right Angle fold 1 1/4" deep finishes the Panel.

All Done, we can now trial fit the Lid and start on the bottom end including the Beaver Panel.

This Panel was formed or modified from an old Panel that used to fit above the Windshield. It was almost the perfect fit for the rear Tail panel, just a bit of tweaking required.

This is where the panel will fit, I hope.

Here we see the Tail Panel partially welded in place and so far it is looking good. The White line is the Edge of the Boot or Trunk Lid.

A bit more trimming was required before being welded on.

A second trace line above the first shows where the panel will be trimmed allowing for the fold for the rain gutter.

The fold has now been accomplished, being finished of with a Planishing Hammer and Dolly A bit of reworking will be required at the ends to line up with the Trunk Sides.

The Boot or Trunk is Lid now placed back into position so that the corner sections can be added, so far so good.

After replacing a few more sections to neaten things up, it is done. This was partially done due to the amount of Lead that was in those corner sections As the Trunk Lid is a Custom or USA shape with out a bottom edge it can be trimmed to suit the opening, better this way then trying to fill in gaps on the bottom and sides if the opposite had been done.

The Panel is now trimmed and ready to be folded, this will be done using a large Shifting Spanner with deep jaws, gently does it, just a little bit at a time.

This Rear Window may look god from the outside but the inner frame was rusted out.

Here is the Window from the 39 Willys Sedan which although it had about 5 large Bullet holes in it was at least rust free, the Bullet Holes have been flattened so they will be hard to find

Here we see the Window trail fitted, notice the different shape to that of the Original Coupe one. This style appears to be close to the shape of the USA Willys Coupe.

It may be a bit hard to see but the outer frame was ver rusty It was easir to cut the whole window out and replace it with one from a 39 Sedan.

Time to cut close to the Edge of the old Window area. Plenty of visibility now !!

The finished Frame looks pretty good I think.

Time repair the RH Dog Leg section. New section were fabricated and fitted into place, the Hardest part was doing the outer section which involved making a doulble fold section as well as putting a curve into it, with only basic tools with which to do it.

Time to repair the LH Dog Leg , as you can see I decided to save as much of the original section as possible. It just made it easier on the first one, where as the RH needed a complete refabrication, see next page.

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