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Thread: 1952 M38-CDN in VT

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  1. #1
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2024
    Location
    Vermont
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    4

    Post 1952 M38-CDN in VT

    Hello! I’m back in the club! Been following this forum on and off. I originally had a 1946 CJ2A which I pulled out of the woods. I unfortunately had to give up due to life. Anyways, I have always had the bug to get another. So here I am with a Jeep I have the space and time (hahahaha) to work on. I picked it up in an auction, sight unseen, 7 hours away, in Canada. (How I convinced to my wife this was a good idea.. I’ll never know.) The auction house had pictures and videos of it running. It looked good. So I bought it, picked it up, got it through customs. All of which is a long story for anyone who is interested in purchasing from
    Canada. I have since made multiple trips to Canada to buy 1970 CT70’s but I digress.
    While picking up the jeep from the PO I learned more about this “1952 CJ3A”. It’s a sad story but the short of it is the family was selling everything on the farm after the father passed away and moving on. The father spent years working on the Jeep and had big plans. He found it on the neighbors property as a lawn ornament and brought it back to life. As his health declined, the project was rushed to a finish so he could take his only ride around the farm in it. He bought all correct lights, seats, tires, data plates for the dash with “CDN”, some minor brake work, converted the 24v to 12v, all new (but rough) wiring. I’ve seen a lot of primer red colored panels throughout that have a heavy rushed coat of olive drab. It is full of tack/bubble gum welds and a handful of self tappers. At first I was a little disappointed with my purchase. But it is 72 years old and I’m sure the military wasn’t kind to it to begin with. Its weathered. When I picked the jeep up the son told me it had some carb issues at higher speeds. I thought that was a strange statement because wouldn’t that just be high RPM’s? Anyways, I had bought the Jeep already and I wasn’t in any spot to negotiate. It was coming home with me carb issues or not. I transported the jeep home 7 hours in the pouring rain all the way to later find out the air filter to carb hose was not attached properly. No milkyness to the oil bath but later would come back to this thought. I took it on its first ride 5 minutes down the road (50mph road) and the thing would death wobble at 25, and if you could get it to 30-35 you would hear all sorts of studdering, loss of power. This concerned me bad. It ran rough at higher speeds. But chugging along at 5-10mph it was awesome. So over the next weeks I replaced all the steering joints, spark plugs and took it for another ride. It had removed all the death wobble. I even hit 45mph which is when the engine really lost power. I limped it all the way home where it finally died and wouldn’t start back up. I had it turn over and stutter but wouldn’t stay running. I checked the oil (which I had never changed but it looked good previously) and it was milky… I had left the jeep outside in the rain one day and that hood funneled water right on top of the engine. So that mixed with the day I transported it I figured was the milkyness. Let me also clarify, it is not chunky milky, just a slight slight color. I thought the nonstarting was gas related so I cleaned the fuel pump, replaced the filter. I thought the powerloss was maybe the coil wasn’t working properly when warmed up so I replaced that too. I replaced the thermostat just because. Now to today. Still not running. I can’t get any gas into the fuel pump. I changed the oil and it is more milky now than before. More concerning. I just picked up a compression tester and I have 114/120/0/110 psi respectively. My next move is head gasket.

    Side notes to the work I did. When replacing thermostat, water was very rusty. Thermostat housing on the female end has a bowl shape inside the head where they screw into. Well I can feel that at some point a too long of a bolt was used and it has broken off the bowl inside of the head. Just an observation, not something I did and it may have always been there. That same day I did the thermostat. I unbolted the housing which got water everywhere. I underestimated how much water was left in the low radiator. Water covered the head and spark plugs with water. I didn’t totally remove all the water while I was turning it over and could see bubbles in cylinder 1 coming from under the plug. There is a crack in the exhaust manifold. And everything leaks except the gas tank.

    I am all ears. Especially if you live in northern Vermont. I have attempted to upload pictures. Most of which are from before I picked it up.
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