1964 cj5

after all this, i had to have another jeep. this one was found a few miles down the road from me, sitting out in a guys yard with a plow for 500 bucks. she was in pretty good shape, a rusty, dingy red that i painted over. i never thought that i'd own a red jeep... so i wanted to go with a plain battleship grey. spent a summer again, like the dj painting her with a brush. i tried using a sort of attachment for spraycans that let you put it on the can and it had a trigger that depressed the button. alot less tiring than using a spraycan straight, but i got tired of it and didn't like the results, so i turned back to the brush. a few dozen cans of paint later i had a grey bodied jeep with a red grill. (i couldn't get away entirely from sort of liking the red somewhere in the back of my head...). she also had a homemade hardtop that i had left on. if i could have afforded a soft top at the time to replace it, i would have torn off the pop riveted mess away, but i liked it and the hard doors that even locked.
i drove this for a few summers mostly to work. she was geared so high, like all early 5's that i decided to stick to backroads where i could stick to a 40mph speed limit. the only problem that i had (after getting a set of hercules terra tracs on and the old bias plys off...) was that the t90 popped out of gear going down hills. i've heard this is a common thing with t90s and worn out synchronizers or shift rails or something that i could never wrap my mind around in that humming mystery that is a transmission. i also, completely foolishly, smoked at the time. despite the fact that she had a small pinpoint gas leak in the top seam of the tank that as you know, i was sitting on top of... it really only sloshed gas out while it was full and so i rarely filled the tank. to be young and foolish again!

the 1953 m38a1

...and her accompanying sister, the later acquired 1964 cj5 that i drove for a few summers. the m38a1 came from a contact that i made who so loved the dj that he offered to buy her from many a time, though of course, i declined his offers. so once again, my dad helped me drag her home and i had another old iron project in the fire. this was all in the days before the internet but i managed to find about a half dozen sources for the pricey waterproof 24 volt parts. willys motors, soon to be kaiser at this point, over-engineered everything about the m38a1 for the army...special plugs and wires, points and condenser in their own sealed case, a huge 24 volt generator and a double large battery box in the cowl.
i could hardly afford anything and sadly never got her running for an extended period of time. i bought a set of plugs and regapped the points and got her to turn over. but that was it. the gas feed line from the tank was rusted through, so that was a big part of her not running. she was also lacking a front driveshaft, but had all her data plates on the dash and a set of solid seat frames (rear seat too!) and toolbox, even. i really miss this jeep, but i know where she still is locally where i grew up. i had to sell her to a friend of the family's and then he sold her again. i can still dream of re-acquiring her one day!

a little ancient history study

since last year, i've found alot of old notes and old oil filter box end flaps and studied up on my history of jeeps. luckily, i was (and still am... mostly,) a studious keeper of THINGS. i am also a lover of notes. the problem is, is that, while i keep these notes and THINGS, i don't have a precise filing system, so that i find them in old paper bags or plastic shopping bags or boxes in a pile. i have since ascertained that i brought home the first little jeep thursday, july 28th 1994. the previous day, i had paid a 100 dollar down payment, probably on my initial visit. the final 400 dollars was paid the day that she came home with me.
my dad had an old brown chevy van at that time and he towed me home. she ran, but without being insured or with plates, my dad and i hooked up a tow strap and i steered trying to judiciously apply the brakes driving through the hilly farmland that my jeep had spent the prior years of her life. as we got closer to home, crossing into more farmland and out of the tiny town of fort plain, we unhooked the jeep and i drove her slowly behind my fathers van with the four way flashers on, looking out for the state trooper or any other hazards. as luck would have it, of course, we passed a state trooper going in the opposite direction. i tried not to blink.
she came home and i began making plans for what i was going to do next. the projects were lined up and i had plenty of them to do. the following week after a good going over, i discovered that the radiator had a few small pinhole leaks. first job, repair the radiator. i, with my dad, figured out how to remove the radiator. i was flustered and nearly driven to inaction, because it was foreign. if this were my car, it would be a major operation with removal of heat shields and hoses and other mysterious wiring and i would undoubtedly destroy something or blow the car up under me. but this was a jeep! something like six bolts, not including the fan shroud (which was already missing...) and the coolant overflow bottle.
the one thing that stymied me, but not my dad was the automatic transmission hoses that linked up with the cooler core on the bottom of the radiator. the first hose, rubber and brass fitting came off like a gem. the next one came off, all off, including the dry rotted rubber that tore. not liking the prospect of finding a replacement at the parts store, my dad helped my fabricate a replacement out of brake tubing. a piece of rubber hose was hose clamped onto the metal tube that went to the tranny and the other end was clamped to the metal tubing. we bent the tubing to fit and found a fitting that worked and on it went to the radiator bottom. meanwhile the radiator went to a repair shop, where it was painted and sealed and for 30 bucks, i had a shiny new looking black radiator under the hood. my notes indicate that this took place on thursday, august 4th along with a piece of window screen that served as an impromptu bug screen in front of the radiator. at this time, she had only 71,167.7 miles. just a baby!

Three old pics

A very old picture not long after the jeep was finished and on the road...



Probably from around '97 or '98... the first few paint chips starting to show.



Even in a college graduation picture...1999 The Cherokee next to her was my dad's.

the first modifications

painting the jeep with hunter green over a coat of primer inside and out took something akin to forever, or most of that first summer. inside was a battleship grey with a light tan trim. i removed the driver's seat and cannibalized another seat from an '83 that i bought for parts. now i had two front seats with the removal of the left side mail tray. it was a neat feature, a large flat tray with raised edges that could hold mail for the delivery driver, but i wanted to have a passenger side seat more.
it was also the first summer that my dad and i worked on a vehicle together. he started to teach me everything that i knew about automobile mechanics then. i gave the engine a complete tune up, changed the plugs and the wires, distributor, points and condensor. a few summers later i rebuilt the carter yf carburetor, which was a huge undertaking for me at the time. a new battery went in, new wiper blades and oil changes (no longer had i to worry about a vehicle falling off from ramps crushing my chest...). the radiator sprung a leak too and i removed that and had it recored at a local shop. my dad started to teach me about cobbing parts or fabbing things as needed. the original atf cooler hoses were dry rotted and tore when i removed them from the radiator and i fabbed a little piece of metal brake line to replace one. all in all, i got to know that guys over at the adap (later napa...) parts counter pretty well.

the first jeep

my love of jeeps began accidentally. my first car was a 1983 oldsmobile hatchback that i never really had any interest in working on. my dad, who did all of his own maintenance and repair work, had to talk me through my first oil change, but the transverse 1.8 liter's oil filter, accessible only by crawling under the car parked on ramps was akin to a death defying sticking your head in the lion's mouth sort of stunt. i liked that car, but knew that it was a matter of time before it rolled off the ramps and crushed my chest, not from an impulse created by animosity, but a misplaced sense of comradery. laying beneath a car trying to get to an oily, dirty, greasy undercarriage that looked as alien to me as any sci-fi movie spaceship wasn't a comforting experience.
i was about 23 or 24 when i began thinking about what it would be like to work on and get to know a vehicle that i really was curious about. but how would that fascination take form? i thought briefly about a volkswagen beetle, simple, old, geeky and probably alot simpler to work on than the cramped engine compartment of the olds. but living in the great northeast produced no beetles that were not rusted and rotted out. most were of the vintage that had gaping holes where the floorboards should have been. thirty years of rust and salt over the winters take their toll.
and then one day, i found an ad for a jeep. not just any jeep, but a cheap one. 500 dollars and get this, it was a right hand drive postal jeep. it was on a farm about thirty miles from where i lived and i went to see it. two farm boys were driving it around the farm, but one was getting married and wanted the money, so they were selling it. it was a retired postal jeep, still in its red, white and blue factory configured paint scheme with one major exception- the farm boys had painted a crude large white skull and crossbones onto the hood. years after i painted the whole jeep that outline of the skull and crossbones still showed through.