Ham's 48: A Nice Road Trip
Yesterday turned out to be one of those early Spring Days that just makes you go out and work on the Jeep. I fixed the horn wire problem and then I turned my attention to the differential oil leak. It looks like I’ve found a good/simple solution to that problem – but I had to check it out to see if it really was as good an idea as I thought it was; kind of a Post-Maintenance Check Drive.
I drove down the local dead-end road about a half mile, stopped and crawled up under the back end to check things. No oil! I went a bit further, about a mile this time, stopped and checked again. Still dry!! SO – off we went for a local road trip. I wandered around the local backroads – I wanted to get the truck out and run it – but not get too far from home just in case.
We’ve commented before that it takes about five miles to get an old Jeep (Truck, CJ or MB/GPW) really ready to run. I believe that it takes that long for the transmission and differential gunk to get warmed up and flowing well. I turned back east on Hoagland Road and, WOW, did she want to run! We were up to almost 45 MPH just purring along – then I realized that I had a 20 MPH wind coming from about my 5 o’clock direction. I had a pusher!
About halfway around the circuit, I stopped in Hoagland to take another look. When I got back out from under the truck (still clean and dry) I found myself confronted by the local Bikers. No it wasn’t a bunch of Harley Riders, it was a pack of thirteen year old boys on bicycles who were out celebrating the nice day.
One of the young men asked me; “Is anything wrong?” I explained what I had been looking at and then one of the bikers asked; “What is that?” I did the standard ’48 Jeep Truck story – that I had been driving it since I was their age. I had to explain that Jeep did indeed build trucks back then, that it had been totally restored and the rest of the tale.
One young man was especially taken with the truck, his comment was; “Boy, I would really like to have that as my first truck.” But, I think the neatest comment, as the crew rode away was;
“I can’t wait to tell Dad about that truck!”
If you are shy – don’t drive an old Jeep. Just be ready to tell your story; people will stop you and want to talk.
