I have been looking for tires that would scale for the front of the Willys. I recently picked up some tricycle tires I thought I could use, so on a cold day I made a wheel pattern similar to an American . I had to have a split rim like the rear Dragmaster so I made a follower and did a double roll so the face of the spokes would be down. I had a couple drops in the mold but since this was a test piece I went ahead and poured. It came out so nice after cleanup and bead blasting it's a keeper. To add to the HT1's furnace thread mine is a Gingery lifting body with a castable refactory lining inside an IFB outer insulation. From a cold start today I had 1350* aluminum in 14 minutes.
Good to see you back on the Willy's ESC. Whats the diameter and width? About 4" and 2" I'm guessing? Those are one of my favorite wheels, but unless my eyes are deceiving me, that picture of the rear wheel doesn't look like the front.......it has six windows compared to the 5-spoke front......and the sidewall height compared to diameter looks a bit different between the two. Are the fronts and rears different? Best, Kelly
Yep Kelly. Big and little, not meant to match. I am tending towards building it as a gasser similar to Big John Masmanian 's '41. The rears are 8" x 4" go kart tires and would equate to 32" slicks on a 16" wheel. They are mounted on American Dragmasters that were a 6 window wheel. The fronts would also be a 16" rim since the ID of the tire is 4". This is not quite correct but it is the closest I have found. I have another blank that I might use to make a Halibrand Mag but it would also be a five window. My buddy made his own tires for his 1/8 scale Duesenberg but I'll pass on that for now.
I did a test machining on a Halibrand sample and mounted the rear tires and wheels on the 9" rear end. The Halibrand is a cull wheel. I ended up with a melt of contaminated aluminum that had some pot metal in it and it gassed in the molds and ruined my last pour.
