I am a Swiss national living for the past 30 plus years all over South East and East Asia. I have now retired and settled in Thailand.
My CJ-3B is actually a Japan built Mitsubishi J-3, licensed by the Kaiser-Jeep Corporation. I do not know the exact year of production, but my best guesstimate is between 1960 and 1964. The engine is the original JH-4 (Japan Hurricane 4-Cylinder), F-head Hurricane motor. This vehicle was originally built for the Thai Military as a right hand drive.
I purchased my Jeep about 3 years ago from a retired paratroop instructor of the Thai military. I have been told that this particular vehicle was serving with the Thai troops in Vietnam during the war. This could well be as the US Forces too, were using the very same model in large numbers in Vietnam.
When I bought this Jeep, it was showing its age, but it was of very good substance. So I decided to do only soft refurbishing and leave it as authentic as possible. The instrumentation was in poor condition, thus I changed it with VDO instruments fitting the original cluster. The seat were redone with canvas. For safety reasons and to accommodate 3-point belts I added an rollover cage. I could locally buy new tires with the original Jeep profile produced for the Thai Military. I also required a new starter so a local auto electrician (a real savvy craftsman) fitted a Toyota starter with a Land Rover flange adapter in between, without making any changes to the Jeep.
Most other parts I have obtained from Kaiser Willys which fit my Japanese made Jeep perfectly. Recently, I have completely reconditioned by myself the T-90 transmission with your retrofit kit and my Jeep now shifts like dream. I am very pleased with this result.
On some of the attached pictures you see my youngest daughter and my son in law (a former US Navy pilot) enjoying the Jeep rides in the warm Thai climate.
The last picture shows 3 experts inspecting my Jeep thoroughly… They didn’t find anything wrong with it so they left…
These monkeys are just about everywhere and they become quite often a nuisance…