Old Jeep, new parts, what am I doing?

[EddieWalker]

Pat,

The original block had the head off and about 18 years of rust in the cylinders. I thought about rebuilding it and bought several books on authentic resorations when I lived in California. My plan then was to make it authentic and drive around town with it. Sort of a weekend car on nice days.

After moving here to Texas and buying some land, I got to rethinking the jeep and what I really wanted to do with it. More imporant to me then having an authentic old jeep was having something that was fun. I think you are the first person to tell me that the old engine was reliable. I've never heard that from anybody, especialy the guys who had them back in California when I went to the WWII rallies. They all have their stories about breakdowns and situations they were in because of those engines. Of course, 40 hp doesn't give me much motivation to keep the engien either.

I know the chevy 2.8 is a dog of an engine, but there are millions of them out there and I can go to Walmart for an oil filter.

Most all of the parts are readily available for it. In fact, there's quite an industry selling everything from New Original Stock that's been sitting around for 60 years, to reproduction and uses parts. Ebay has lots of parts too. It's just not something that I feel strongly about anymore.

My jeep was partially transformed 20 plus years ago to try and make it more like a 70's jeep with the seats, lights and chrome features. The original lights were gone, but I found a set on Ebay awhile ago. I have them on my shelf and will install them. I have only seen them at the shows, but consider the flip feature of them to see the engine compartment just as cool as can be!!!!

It's a beautiful day out and I'm gonna get back to it.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Peyton woke up early this morning and ready to go!!! He was excited because he had another set of camoflage to wear, JUST LIKE YESTERDAY

Steph and I weren't amused being woken up so early, but had to laugh at his energy and enthusiasm. I got up, but made him wait for me to finish my cup of coffee and surf TBN for a bit.

Then we got into the blazer. Off with the fenders, grill and hood, then off with everything that was in the way of getting the engine out. He was taking things off faster then I could keep up. He just loves that impact wrench!!

I really didn't think we'd get it out, but knew that if we didn't, I'd have to remove the cherry picker from my FEL bucket and put it back on again. Lazyness is the driving force for allot of things that I do. I'm too lazy to do it twice, so I just get it over with.

We have piles of stuff all over now and it's gonna be trails through the shop for awhile. At least we have some stuff to work on in the evenings and on rainy days.

Eddie

 

[RobertN]

It took some prep work, but fairly qickly, we had the frame in the shop and up on blocks.

Eddie,

What do you know about the frame? It looks odd to me; I though all the Jeep series before the '77 CJ5/CJ7 had "C" channel frames, not boxed in. My '70 CJ5 was boxed by the motor mounts, but the rest was "C" channel.

The rest of the frame looks sorta right; there is no cross member at the very front. I assume the steering column went to a box right under the driver floorboard, and then to a bell crank up front? And the master cylinder was under the driver floor board too?

It would be easier to find a Dana-30 with disc than to convert the Dana-25 closed knuckle to disc. And, it would have a little tighter turning radius.

My Dad got a '42 GPW when I was a kid. It had the machine gun mount("Desert Rat's"!) in back, and had the tool box/ammo storage at the wheel-well.

That GPW went and went and went. Little flathead four, 3spd, 4.88's. Don't remember details of the vehicle now though...

 

[RobJ]

Eddie,

Found an old picture of mine. It's a 1956 CJ3B with the F head engine. My uncle bought it ro run around the farm in Mississippi about 1975. Previous to that another farmer had it. My dad bought it about 1980 and used it at the beachhouse. I got it around 1988. Until I sold it it stayed in my neighbor ladys garage across the street. She is a widower and liked having 2 cars in the garage, epsecially a manly jeep! When I looked into restoring I found this model was not as desirable as many. Because of the F-head engine (intake valves in the head, exhaust in the block...made the engine taller), it was deemed and high hood, flat fender model. I think this model was sold as a civilian model to.

I sold it around 1999 for $1800 to help buy a 4-wheeler. It was street legal and towed easy. My dad and I ringed it in the early 80's and that was it. It always ran sort of crappy (it loaded up badly) until I spent about $150 and a NEW (not rebuilt) carb. Ran like a top with the new carb. I changed out the front axles from the ball bearing to a u-joint. Prior to that this was our only problem besides the hard starting, turn to sharp and the worn ball bearings would fall out of the knuckle...it would not roll after that. The hard starting was cured when I converted it to 12v. I left the 6v starter in there. Even after sitting for a month or 2 with the new 12v system it would crank in about 2 seconds with the choke. With the top and doors it made the old jeep very desirable. Tops alone are real pricey.

I put some money into this jeep but I got it for free. I got many parts from JC Whitney. These days you have to be careful on a restore or fix it upper. You can get a 70's or 80's jeep pretty cheap. I found a mid 80's in Elkhart for $4000. Look good and ran good.

 

[ASGAR]

This is late in the post but I wanted to share my jeep experience.

I bought a basket case jeep in similar condition to what you started with when my daughter was just born, the deal was I would sell my motorcycles when she was born so I put the money into this jeep.

A few years later, you can see my daughter in the drivable jeep. This one is a 1952 M38 Willys Jeep. The pics show the engine/tranny/trans in all their rebuilt glory. I rebuilt the axels, engine, tranny, transfercase, steering box, full brake system, distributer, oilpump, carb, fuel lines etc all myself. These are really easy to work on and reliable if you know how to work on 40's technology. I have never broken down etc and put about 1000 miles a year on it. My kids drive this in low/low around the woods but I will probably never let them drive it on road, they really do filp too easily. Every part is availiable overnight, every day the parts are easier to come by because most are back in production on or offshore. I have about $2K into it for parts for all the rebulding etc... I am sure I could get 6-8K in today's market for it.

My daughter was small but she could start the bolts and hold / turn things for me so it was a good experience spending time with her. Now I am 'refreshing' a 1985 6.2L detroit diesel engine so she is helping a bit on that as well. She can't seem to torque the headbolts buts that's ok.

So.. have fun. Consider putting all the old parts on Ebay, most will sell to guys looking for missing original parts.

The combination of large tires, narrow wheelbase,hieght and light wieght make them fantastic offroad in stock condition. Add more weight and they become dogs. It is fun to park next to a CJ7/YJ Wrangler / Current Jeeps to see how much they have changed from utility trucks to chick cars.

Military truck manuals are in the public domaign and do not carry a copywrite. These can be downloaded for free on sites like, Steel Soldiers :: Military Vehicles Supersite. My jeep had 3 manuals that covered how to rebuild every single part in it.

 

[mjncad]

That is one nice Jeep Asgar!

 

[EddieWalker]

Eddie,

What do you know about the frame? It looks odd to me; I though all the Jeep series before the '77 CJ5/CJ7 had "C" channel frames, not boxed in. My '70 CJ5 was boxed by the motor mounts, but the rest was "C" channel.

The rest of the frame looks sorta right; there is no cross member at the very front. I assume the steering column went to a box right under the driver floorboard, and then to a bell crank up front? And the master cylinder was under the driver floor board too?

It would be easier to find a Dana-30 with disc than to convert the Dana-25 closed knuckle to disc. And, it would have a little tighter turning radius.

My Dad got a '42 GPW when I was a kid. It had the machine gun mount("Desert Rat's"!) in back, and had the tool box/ammo storage at the wheel-well.

That GPW went and went and went. Little flathead four, 3spd, 4.88's. Don't remember details of the vehicle now though...

Robert,

For the war effort, Willys wasn't able to meet demand, so even though Ford lost the bid with their design, the were awarded a bid to build the Willys version. Ford through in a few changes and added the letter "F" to allot of their parts. The Fords are called GPW while the Willys are called MB. One of the biggest differences are in the frame. For replaced the round tube cross member that Willy's used under the engine with a C Channel cross member. All parts are interchangable, it's mostly the F on the Ford parts that distiguish them.

The frame has been slightly modified to accomodate a steering box from something else. The cut the frame to fit it together, but otherwise, it's intact. The bumper goes on the very front of the bumper and is probably structural in adding overall strength to it. Remember, part of the requirements for it was to be able to transport it on 1940's aircraft and also to be able to drop it from a plane with parachutes. Every pound they could save was crucial.

As for boxing versus C channel, I can only guess. Boxed frames are stronger, so they can be smaller. I don't know the trade off on weight comparing one to the other, so it could also be a structual consideration. Off road racers don't even use factory frames anymore. They used to box them in, but now just build their own with rectangular tubing for the added strength.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

... It's a 1956 CJ3B with the F head engine. ... I think this model was sold as a civilian model to.

Rob,

CJ stands for Civilian Jeep. Nobody really knows where the term Jeep comes from for sure. There are a few guesses, but nothing is documented. M stands for Military. Mine is a GPW which stands for General Purpose, Wheeled. The Military later just used M for everything.

I realy like the CJ2's and 3's, but I'm not a big fan of the tall hood on the B's. It would hold more engine, but to me, it just looks odd.

I like the picture of yours, especially the white spoke rims. They remind me of my first jeep and all the fun I had with it in high school.

My first Jeep was a 1973 CJ5 that I also relied on JC Whitney for parts. They had allot to chose from at a price I could afford. Now it seems they are one the high end of pricing without any better quality. I have several catalogs and don't see anything that I'd buy from them.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Asgar,

Awesome story and a great looking Jeep!!!! I'm sure your daughter will have some great memories of it for the rest of her life. Thanks for sharing.

Eddie

 

[patrick_g]

Eddie, A while into running the heck out of my 1943 Ford which was my daily commuter when SOCAL weather permitted and all the time after I got a cloth top, I did some work on it. I put out $6.50 for a new carb and pulled the head so a neighbor who worked as machinist at the FLAPS could drop by on the way home for lunch with the "stones" to clean up my valve seats.

I had the Jeep for several years and that was all the engine work I ever did or needed. It started easy, ran good, and didn't use oil between changes. It was not fast, not a FREEWAY FLYER by any stretch of the imagination. Some guys had more maint problems because they pushed too much RPM trying to keep up with traffic. It could be boring to drive round trip to/from San Diego all the way to the Chocolate Mountains. Certain sections of concrete freeway hit a resonance on the suspension at a certain speed and the thing would buck fore and aft and nearly leave the ground. I changed the springs to new surplus HD springs and the resonance point changed but was nearly as violent.

I drove the thing pretty much like a mad man sometimes off road. I used to drive it so hard it would give me a headache. I only had two experiences where I was concerned with the CG and roll over potential.

One of these was turning around on the side of a steep hill where my two buddies hiked out on the high side as counter weights and one time I was driving up Cowles Mountain road, a winding dirt road up a mountain near San Diego State University when I met a road grader roaring down the hill with his blade a foot or so above the surface. I suspect he was done for the day and hurrying to get away.

My choices were: 1. ram him head on as there was no way for either of us to slow appreciably in the short distance we were apart when we sightd each other on the bend. 2. I could drive off the cliff and take quite a fall to the bottom, or 3. try to drive up the steep hill to my right which I knew was too steep to climb but was not a sure fire suicide move (maybe only 90%.) Anyway I cranked the wheel into the hill and the Jeep went up far enough for the grader to miss us and then the Jeep slid sideways back to the road and rolled onto its side.

My buddy, riding shotgun, was on the high side and trying to grab at me to keep me from hanging out and getting crushed. We had a really good set of roll bars and they are what kept us from rolling over, they stopped the roll. The two Afghan hounds in the back seat found themselves sitting side by side but on the road not the seat (they were quiet and transfixed.) My buddy and I unstrapped our seat belts and climbed out. The grader guy had stopped and came back to check on us. The three of us set the Jeep upright. The front left fender got bent pretty good but my bud and I grabbed it and pulled it back into shape with hardly any residual kink.

We had lost some oil out the filler tube while laying on our side so we fired it up, drove down the hill bought oil, added it and drove back up the hill, knowing the grader was gone.

I can't really blame the Jeep for laying on its side in this situation and didn't find it to be all that unstable in most semi-sane situations.

Pat