Key started, late version of a CJ 3A, february 1953

[bmorgil]

How very true your rules of Willys are LarrBeard. Here is a good example. Though there may be some who insist a 1950 CJ3A never had a CJ2A Motor plate and an adapter for a drivers side motor mount from the factory, they are dead wrong. We now know quite a bit from talking directly to those who are still alive that actually worked there, about activity at Willys production. In 1950 the introduction of the 3A in a relatively slow market, left more than a few CJ2A parts and truck parts laying about. You absolutely will find CJ3A's with 2A motor plates, motor mount adapters on the drivers side, model 41 rear axles and various other parts, including truck motors in CJ2A's and 3A's. The trucks weren't selling very well, and some were disassembled, or never assembled, and their parts showed up in other vehicles. I have an 1950 CJ3A. I am the second owner and know for sure it is the original motor, and it used to have a 4T truck serial number stamped on the block (now machined off). The previous owner rebuilt it a few times and replaced a rod (with the wrong one), so I know it is the original motor, adapter and plate.

Whenever you find parts from a newer or prior year in a crossover model year, there is a very good chance that it came that way. Willys was definitely struggling after the war. They were incredibly frugal. As one old timer put it at the 2019 Toledo Jeep Fest, "when Korea ended, we used everything, nothing got scraped".