Happy to report that I am the proud owner of a 1950 Willys CJ-3A ‘Universal Jeep’.
On March 28th I made the 100 mile drive with my dad, brother, and nephew to take a look at a Willys that has been posted for about a month on Craigslist. It certainly needs work, but is functioning well, seems nice and solid, and is a perfect candidate for a restore. I wasn’t able to bring it home yesterday like I had planned, however. The starter was beginning to fail on Saturday and failed completely yesterday. Fortunately, the seller, who is an all around good guy, was willing to get the starter rebuilt and we have scheduled for me to come down again and pick it up this coming Saturday.
So what’s first?
Well, I am planning on driving the thing around as much as possible and as much as makes sense for a couple of weeks. I want to get a good feel for the old vehicle, figure out what needs urgent attention and what can wait. Eventually I want to do a complete rebuild and make the thing perfect, as if it was just purchased form the dealer.
I’ve already identified some body parts that will need to be replaced, mainly the floor boards and the passenger side tool box will need replacement. They are rusted through in those areas, so that will need to be done at some point.
Update: I removed all the other posts from the blog. They just didn’t seem to fit with what I want it to be now.