A 'Willy's' Jeep

Today I drove past this 4x4 Willy's Jeep(GP) from 1959. This sucker is a year older than me. It was clean, no rust through on the body, frame IDK. It had a little mud underneath but it looked nice. They were asking $12,000, a bit steep for my taste, but they showed a Blue Book range in price. $1,800 was low, $23,000 was high. They went for the middle.

Would you buy it if you could?

BTW, odometer reading was 23,000+ miles.

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If it flies, I can crash it!

Too many modifications to it. The seats, the roll bar, and while I could live w/o the Olive Drab color, what's with the Fire Engine Red??

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Bernard J. Herman Ohio RLS

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Heck yeah, if the numbers matched and it was original. For that price, I'd want it to be. If it's been modified with more modern engine and equipment, then I wouldn't pay that much for it.

Looks like a nice jeep. What was good about those things, none of the stupid computers and all the other garbage they put on new vehicles that doesn't work right for long and when it quits or goes wonky your out big bucks and usually up a certain creek. Also, they were designed to work and built to last-- not like modern day crap that's got all kinds of "gotchas" designed in specifically to fail so that they can clean your plow fixing it or selling you parts later on.

I'd jump on it if I could. Good old Nellybelle...

Later! OL J R

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The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

I would be all over it. May try and talk them down to $10,00 to see what they would go down to.
Mr. Bob
Countyline Hobbies
Grovertown, IN574-540-1123
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While I don't care for all the plastic on modern vehicles, computer controlled EFI is awesome. My current F150 5.0L, 302 ci coyote engine puts out nearly 400 hp on 87 octane (and does get over 400 in the Mustang with slightly different tuning). The last carburated 302 ci engine didin't put out half that over 30 years ago unless you threw parts at it. My 2000 F150 5.4L engine produces less horsepower than the new 5.0, but has never had an issue in its 16 years other than replacing the COPs and plugs, which will likely never need to be done again. I trust it with my daughter's life, as she's driving it now.

In addition, the engines start first time every time without any manual or automatic chokes. There are no vacuum leaks causing retarded timing or preventing secondaries from kicking in. There are no fouled plugs or burned up points. There's no flooding, nor is there an issue with gummed up jets or varnish in the float bowls. You can leave an EFI car sitting for a year and get it cranked by putting on a fresh battery and throwing in some fresh gas. The injectors aren't like carbs and seldom get clogged.

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I love sanding.

I've owned Fords most of my life. Each and every one including my 2000 Ranger all blew the head gasket when it went over 100,000 miles. I had to have the tranny rebuilt on my Ranger at 60,000 miles. Two years later, I had the motor rebuilt because of head gaskets. I love Fords but I don't think I'll buy another one again.

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If it flies, I can crash it!

I'll take a MODERN car with all it's plastic and computers with double the horsepower out of half the displacement that gets 20-30mpg at 80mpg over any old carbureted crapola.
New stuff is easy to tune with a simple laptop.
A new stock Corvette destroys ALL big-block Corvettes from the muscle-car era while getting 27-28mpg on the freeway. Yeah, it costs a LOT more, but will do a LOT more.

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When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !

Hmmm....never had that happen. Makes me wonder if you don't talk nicely to your vehicles.

I know some folks that have blown head gaskets on different makes, but after doing a little bit of investigating, they had all overheated their vehicles within the last couple of months due to breaking a serpentine belt, which stops the water pump. You sometimes get an immediate blown gasket, but often times it happens later.



.

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I love sanding.

Yeah, sure...

I've been through enough with electronically controlled engines to know that you're just swapping one set of problems for another. At least with the old systems you could clean it up yourself and replace some parts and be going again. These electronic systems, not so much.

If you don't think the vacuum systems on these new computerized engines can't bring you to your knees, wait til you have a problem with them. Old man's van went to the shop more times than he could count under the extended warranty and then he spent another $1200 bucks on it to pass emissions, and the light is STILL on. Dodge couldn't fix it, mechanic couldn't fix it... some stupid leak somewhere in the evap system. Thankfully he moved to a non-regulated county and just drives it with the light on. I just went through a bunch of crap with my truck-- threw a code last year that the delta pressure sensor was bad and had to replace that (tattletale sensor in the EGR flow circuit). Then more problems showed up later- first it was showing a vacuum leak, after fixing all the usual suspects and having it smoke tested "smoke was pouring out from under the intake (the lower half of which is plastic, BTW). Got that fixed, light wouldn't stay off, had them keep it and do more work on it. $1100 bucks got it to pass inspection last year, but it still "wasn't fixed"-- the mechanic told me the light would come back on because I needed new catalytic converters. Replaced them and the O2 sensors, and STILL had codes. Had another mechanic in Indiana my BIL used to work for look at it, after testing it out all it showed was needing plugs-- which the other guy had already done and I'd only put about 3,000 miles on it after that because it was running like sh!t. Replaced the plugs, light stayed off a week, came back on, different code, went from "lean on bank 1" to "rich on bank 2". His computer said the most common fix was "replacing the timing chain and tracks/tighteners". After reading up on that, we decided WTH, go for it and I had him take it apart. Found the driver's side timing chain limiter track (plastic POS that Ford puts under the timing chain to prevent whip/sagging at low speed) was in four pieces at the bottom of the oil return channel in the timing cover, and the passenger side one was broken off the bolt (plastic boss bolt goes through) at the bottom and slipped back against the timing cover, so it was basically so far away from the chain it was doing nothing. $1300 bucks later it was like a new truck.

I'm about sick and tired of all these computer controlled nightmares. My old 454 '77 Suburban was absolutely bulletproof and the only problem I ever had with it was an occasional alternator and replace the HEI ignition module, both of which were cheap fixes. I'm seriously considering just getting an old late 70's 3/4 ton Ford or Chevy with a non-computerized, non-emission engine for my next farm truck-- sick and tired of all the expensive BS on the newer stuff... not to mention I can put a new crate motor in it and do a frame-off restoration of the thing if I want to for a FRACTION of the cost of a newer used POS electronic wonder that will doubtlessly need as many if not more repairs than an old truck ever will. $1,000 bucks here, $1,000 bucks there, pretty soon your talking about real money. $1,000 bucks will do a LOT of work on an old pickup-- on these newer ones it barely gets you out the friggin' shop door.

No emissions inspection either-- after 26 years they're exempt in Texas. You can buy a newer vehicle, heck even brand new if you're willing to pay more for it than I did for my house, but that's STILL no guarantee you won't have a bunch of expensive repair bills or aren't buying "someone else's problem". The auto manufacturers make a lot of cheap sh!t now anyway, IMHO.

Later! OL J R

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The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

I blew the passenger side head gasket on my '88 Ford Mustang GT 5.0 (302) H.O./T5 trans twice.
Never overheated it, but drove it hard.
The second time it blew I had the heads decked/ported/polished and valves ground.
Never had that problem again; the shop said they needed to be decked as they were out of spec for 'flatness'.

__________________
When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !