1937-1942 WILLYS SUN VISORS-MAKE THEM TO FIT YOUR WILLYS!

Mike Brattland-author mgbrattland@gerlecreek.com

 

As many of you know, finding the correct original sun visors for your Willys is next to impossible. Usually, when you do find them, they are in less than usable condition, with the chrome gone, movement of the visor such that even grease will not make it work right and the original board materials rotten. I had found an all original visor for the the passenger side which was in wonderful original condition, but I could never find another one that was in anything close to this condition, nor in a color or interior treatment which would work with my eventual interior covering plan.

 

                                                                                                                 

 

 

 

As you can see, my assortment of visors was a combination of a good and bad original sun visors.

If you notice, the mount and setup for the Willys visor looks remarkably like the stock visor found on a 1935-1948 Ford.....and they are. The triangular mount with spring and swing rod are identical to the Willys mount. It would appear that the vehicle manufacturers shared a number of items which helped keep costs down. The good news is these reproduction sun visors are readily available from any of a number of reproduction early Ford parts sellers. I bought mine from C&G Early Ford Parts in Escondido www.cgfordparts.com. They cost about $50.  The original Ford ones are much larger than the stock Willys sun viros........Compare the picture of my chocolate brown original Willys visor   and a new '35 to 48 Ford sun visor mount and visor frame    ...As you can see, the original Ford one is larger, both in length and width. If you mount two of these original Ford visors in the Willys pickup, they will both fit with about 1 inch of clearance between the visor frames, but due to the width, they will hang down much farther than is probably necessary in most Willys, particularly in the small cab of the pickup. Additionally with any kind of center hung rear view mirror, they will not work either. So I decided to cut them down...resize them for my application. I decided to cut them down till the visor frame was approximately 11 1/4 inches in length and about 4 1/2 inches wide. The following pictures illustrate the process I went through to complete this action for both sides. I cut the upper main bracket. The bracket on top is tubular so in order to re-attach it once it was sectioned or shortened, I found an obliging bolt of the right diameter to fit into the frame tube. I cut it down to about 2 inches in length and inserted it in the small piece and tack welded it into the end so it would not move, ground it a bit and then fitted the two shortened frame pieces together and tack welded them............the bolt which fits halfway into each piece gives the original frame structure the strength necessary after shortening it and rewelding.......finishing up by grinding the weld.

From there, I used my remaining pieces of the visor rod to cut down and resize the visor to get to the rough 11 1/4 inches by 4 1/2 inches. You may find depending on your center mirror, you would like a slighter larger one....merely changing the dimensions is easy to do and completely possible....revise your cuts and welds.  In the above picture, I cut the visor frame rod on each end at approximately 2 inches length and then cut and fitted the longest piece of cutoff rod to give me the basic shape and the final piece to make the visor complete once again. After welding, I smoothed up the welds.

So here is a picture of the finished sun visor custom fit to work in my '38 Willys pickup. Now to do the other side. Once you have done one, the other is easier and faster.

 

 Here are both sun visor frames, complete, modifications of the original re-pop '35 to '48 Ford Sun Visors which now fit the '37 to 42 Willys, ready to be sent to the trim shop for coverings to suit.

 

The above pictures show the installed sun visors in my Willys pickup all completed. I gave the finished and modified sun visor frames to Raymond Miller. The upholstery work was done to match my seat by Raymond Miller of Raymond Miller's Custom Upholstery, Ontario, California, 909 937-3990. Raymond does much of the upholstery work for Chip Foose and the 'Overhaulin Television Show