I got a call from the guy I found to repair/clean my radiator. But first, some missing parts of the story. I took the radiator in last week to Broadway Radiator in Hesperia. After calling around to various radiator places, one name kept coming up as soon as I said “I have a radiator from a 1950 Willys that I need looked at” and that name was Charlie at Broadway. Charlie said he hadn’t seen a radiator like that in many years. Apparently, I have what is known as a v-cell radiator. Essentially, there are parallel channels that run vertically…
1 CommentAuthor: Kurtis
After all the cooling shenanigans this past week, time came to remove the radiator from Ike to be rebuilt. After pulling the hoses, the “liquid” that came out was the consistency of chocolate milk and had a nice bright orange rust color. After a little while of finagling, the fan shroud was discontented from the radiator and the radiator came out along with the shroud. Running water through the radiator revealed my problem this past week. Water flowed much faster out of the hole the water was going into than out the opposite side. Somewhere in that mass of metal…
1 Comment“Thar she blows!” Today was a “must drive the Jeep” day. Due to some minor issues on my primary car, I had my dad take it into the dealer for some warranty repairs. So, with the daily driver out of commission, I had a perfect excuse (as if I needed one) to drive Ike to work today. With the slightly warmer weather and longer daylight hours, today was the first drive to work where I didn’t need lights and gloves to get to work in one place. After work was done for the day, I decided to run to my…
Comments closedThere is nothing that annoys me more than when someone doesn’t fully understand the capabilities of the vehicle they are driving. Most of the time, this is someone in a little sub-compact or compact car attempting to outrun a light with an underpowered four-banger with a ridiculously loud muffler. However, there is a special class of people that drive trucks that have no idea what a truck is truly capable of. Rather than trying to do too much with their vehicle like the 17 year old attempting to redline a 20 year old Honda, they treat their trucks like a…
2 CommentsOne of the many reasons I want to rebuild Ike to its former glory is to preserve a truly unique vehicle. Back in the day, an automobile wasn’t just a way to get to work, it was a way of life. Cars defined our society, changing the way we ate, lived, and worked. Every so often I see a vehicle from the golden era of automobiles and think that is exactly the reason that I am rebuilding an “old Jeep.” A great resource for finding old Willys vehicles is eWillys. With nightly posts of nearly all the newly listed Willys…
Comments closedAfter doing as much research as possible on my Solex carb and coming up with almost nothing (@#$!@^%$&), I finally got Ike idling like he should. Again. My thought was that the choke was stuck open when the first adjustment to the idle was made by my dad (someone had to sit in the driver seat and keep the idle up while the adjustments were made), which caused the mixture to eventually lean out after the lever on the back of the carburetor began to drop back down. Turns out, the adjustment that needed to be done was on the…
1 CommentOn Sunday Ike got another treatment with the degreaser and power washer. I focused some more on the engine block, but also finally got to the transfer case and transmission. There is an old saying about Jeeps and their transfer cases/transmissions: “If it stops leaking, it’s out of oil.” Looking at the amount of crud on the skid plate, that couldn’t be more true. I had thought that the skid plate was almost flush with the transfer case, until I started removing some of the built up oil/grease/dirt, to find that was not the case. I was also met with…
2 CommentsToday Ike was taken out to the street to meet my new tool: a 1600 PSI power washer. After using a very strong de-greaser and letting it sit for a few minutes, the high-power jet went to work. Chunks of grease, dirt, and who knows what came off the block and the forward axle and running gear. Some of the chunks were surprising in size, about an inch thick and 4-5 inches square. Once this first wash (there will be many more) was completed, I was able to see more block markings, new bolts that I never saw before, and…
1 CommentGot a wonderful present on the doorstep today. My first parts order! Needless to say I was a little like a kid who woke up on Christmas Eve hearing Santa at the tree. After finishing digging up the sprinklers in the back yard, and going out to dinner, I got to go install my new parts. So, what did the old guy get? 1. I already put these on since they came a few days before the rest of the parts, but brand new hood blocks with proper screws as Toledo intended. The old blocks (original?) were very worn down.…
Comments closedOne of the items that was part of my first parts order was a new set of white oak hood blocks. They aren’t anything special really, just some blocks of wood attached to the front end of the hood. They serve two purposes on the CJ-3A. The first is to keep the hood sheet metal from rubbing against the windshield frame. The second is to keep the windshield frame, and sometimes more importantly the windshield wiper arms, from rubbing against and digging into the hood sheet metal. Now, keeping with my theme of going as original as possible, I also…
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