Early Pivot

Early top bow pivots (A2901 and GPW 1151270).

I have one early Willys MB pivot, one early Ford GPW pivot, and one late Willys pivot. As I recall, I got the early Willys and early Ford pivots directly off of an MB that was just off the boat from Norway in 1990 or so.

I recently purchased a reproduction early Willys A2901 pivot, and while the firm making it made a valiant effort, from my perspective having one original to compare it with, I saw room for improvement. I do not want to discourage them, and don’t feel it is right for me to show the reproduction one here, but I could see right off that it was a reproduction. Compared to my original early Willys and Ford, the reproduction appeared to be patterned after a later pivot such as a A3719, but has been “enhanced”during the reproduction process with deeper clearer numbers, etc. In the pictures below I point out several areas where the reproduction fell short, and you could see it is a little different. Most notable was the rib, which was wider and very flat on top, a very significant step of on the order of 1/8 or so when it s/b almost flat, and the lack of taper on the C to form a crescent. I also felt the position and depth of the A2901 number s/b closer to the opening edge, and less pronounced.

I think one could fix most of these nit-picky differences by filling in the numbers a bit with silver solder, Dremeling the rib to be round, and turning the face down a bit in a lathe to get rid of the 1/8 step. One might also fake the crescent taper with some grinding I suppose, which might also reduce the depth of the numbers and make them appear closer to the edge too…..

Note, I have not shown the reproduction one in the pictures below, it is quite obviously different when you look at it, the one I evaluated was very much like the A3719 on the right, except that step was very pronounced, more than 1/8, and the rib was big and flat, like somebody ran a grinder over it. See the on-line parts web sites for pictures of those. It is an important part, as it is located in a very prominent spot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BTW, I am willing to trade my early GPW pivot for an early Willys A2901 if anybody is interested. It is not for sale however.