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iamtheari
06-11-2015, 11:00 AM
Howdy, everyone. I learned how to drive on a 1948 Willys Jeep that my dad had bought from some other relative, which one I can't remember today. The odometer never worked in my lifetime so I have no idea how many miles I put on driving around the family farm. The Jeep was always in the shack near our house until we built a pole barn, then it got to live in the pole barn. In the past few years, I've moved back to my home town and built a house. I sold my high-maintenance fun car and bought a lower-maintenance one, so all those wrenches are just going to get lonesome if I don't do something. My goal is to bring the Jeep back to where it can wear a license plate and I can drive it the 2 miles into town for work and someday teach my own kids how to drive in it.

The overall condition of the Jeep is very good. Paint is faded badly from the original green. Original wheels. Probably two original tires plus the spare, with two being a different style. Good windshield. No major rust the last time I had it in the sunlight to look at it. Engine always runs strong but doesn't get run often enough. When I was young, we drove it often through the summer and deer season. Now, we have four-wheelers so it has mostly sat for 15 years. It gets started up about one summer out of three now and driven a few times before going back into the barn for the long winter.

The engine is due for an oil change and general tune-up. I don't believe it needs an overhaul and I will not plan on doing one right away, although I would like to later on for the experience and to keep the Jeep on the road another 70 years. The brakes need some attention. They work but you have to get on them pretty hard and early. And the electrical system needs lots of love. I think the oil gauge worked and may still work and the ammeter seems to have worked at some point in the past, but overall I don't believe any of the gauges is in operable condition. There are a few broken lights around the vehicle, and some of the lights may or may not be original to the Jeep as I know a lot of people added lights in an ad hoc manner over the years on these vehicles. There is some kind of under-dash heater on the passenger side from when we had the metal cab, which was pretty junky so it got thrown out when the shack was torn down in the early 1990s.

I'm planning to replace the battery, gauges, gas tank, and lights as needed. I'll take out the heater as I don't believe it's original to the Jeep. I'll try to get new vacuum lines for the windshield wiper as well as new blades for both wipers, maybe they'll work although if it's raining the windshield isn't really your biggest concern--we just put it down unless there was a hail storm coming through. I need to get out to the farm, get the thing on a trailer, and get it to my garage before I start in on it. But I'll be here regularly with questions and, hopefully, success stories. Pictures to follow once I get the Jeep out of the barn. Maybe this weekend I'll get ambitious about that.