A Willys Jeep Family – Working Together to Restore

I have been around these old Willys Jeeps all my life. My dad and his brother, my uncle, had acquired quite a few old Willys Jeeps by the time I was born in 1998. My parents own a nice chunk of land in rural upstate New York, and I spent a good chunk of my youth there. My dad always drove me around the property in his red 1946 Willys CJ-2A. Some of my earliest memories are riding around in that old Jeep with him. Even at the time, I just thought that Jeep was the coolest thing ever. In addition to his trusty red CJ-2A, he had acquired a white 1946 Willys CJ-2A with the original Willys half cab. He had the engine rebuilt and drove it for a couple of years before I was born, but parked it for unknown reasons. To this day, I have yet to see that Jeep run. He gave it to me in 2010, when I turned eleven. More on that a little later. He also purchased two 1953 Willys DJ-3As in 1997. One of the DJ-3As was missing the engine, and the other’s engine was seized. Just like the CJ-2A with the half cab, I have yet to see either of the DJ-3As run. That same year, in addition to the classic Willys Jeeps, he had also acquired a 1948 Willys pickup with the “go-devil” engine, and three Jeep FC-150s. In 1997, my uncle purchased his 1948 Willys CJ-2A, along with a 1949 Willys CJ-3A, and a 1956 Willys pickup with the Hurricane engine. My dad’s final acquisition to date came in 2004, when he purchased a green 1948 Willys CJ-2A, which he would also give to me in 2012. He gave my younger brother the 1948 pickup in 2012 as well. 

In 2010, after having turned eleven, I tried to talk my dad out of scrapping his 1973 Jeep Cherokee Chief that was his daily driver when I was younger. It was of no use. He scrapped it anyway. I was upset with him, but to make it up to me, he gave me his 1946 CJ-2A with the half cab. I was ecstatic. The following weekend, we tried to get it running. Unfortunately, it had sat for the last decade. We immediately noticed that the clutch was stuck. We hooked the jumper pack to it, engaged the starter, and the engine turned over. That was a plus. We checked for spark and it had it. Next up was gas. We ran the fuel line to an external gas can and went about trying to get it to start. All we were getting was the occasional pop. We checked the plug wires to ensure everything was correct, pulled the plugs, and everything checked out. We gave up. The following weekend, my uncle assisted us in trying to get it running. He eventually determined that it was lacking compression, and suggested that the culprit was probably a stuck valve. We had to pull the head. He showed me what to do, and assisted me in removing the fifteen head bolts, most with the studs, and then we laid them out in cardboard to ensure they went back to their correct spots. When we pulled the head, I was fascinated at what I saw. This was my very first time inside an engine, and my uncle explained to me how it all worked. I decided right then and there that I really enjoyed working on these old Jeeps. Sure enough, there was a stuck valve. It refused to close. We tried tapping it lightly with a block of wood, to no avail. My dad came over and hit it slightly more aggressively, which ended up bending the valve. That was the end of that. My uncle told my dad what to order, and he ordered new intake and exhaust valves, springs, and retainers. The following weekend I got started removing the manifold bolts, but unfortunately did not have the right tools to get to some of them. I was defeated. My uncle told me that we would ultimately have to pull the motor to free the clutch, and told me we would replace the valves then. School came back around, and then the winter, and that was the end of that project. I remember just sitting in that old Willys Jeep many times that winter, imagining that I was driving it.

Summer of 2011 came around and I did not resume working on my Jeep. The rear differential on my beloved 1987 Honda TRX350 went out of it, and my summer was devoted to fixing it. The following summer, I wanted to continue with my Jeep project. I went into the cab of the Jeep to find that mice had chewed all the cardboard keeping all of my bolts organized. What a bummer. My dad, feeling sorry for me, told me that I could have his green 1948 CJ-2A. Once again I was ecstatic. That very day, he pulled it out of the woods with his tractor and we got to work on it. We first noticed that the shifter was not shifting into gear properly. We pulled the shift tower and adjusted the forks, and that problem was solved. My uncle arrived in the nick of time and hooked his jumper pack on my Jeep to see if it would turn over. After all, it had been sitting for eight years at this point. Fortunately, it did turn over. We checked for spark, but there was none. After cleaning the points with a nickel, there was spark. We ran the fuel line to an external gas tank and tried to start it. No luck. It was late in the day at this point, so we called it a day. The next day, I pulled and replaced the plugs. We then tried firing it up again. We only got the occasional pop. We checked the plug wires, and everything checked out. We tried turning it over again. My uncle spotted the problem, or should I say he felt the problem. On the left side of the go devil engine, right between the head and the block, was a huge compression leak. I thought, okay, head gasket. But he warned me it could be much worse. He thought the block may have cracked or warped. That was the end of that project for the day. He ordered a new head gasket for me that week.

The following weekend, I pulled the head, and spent all day cleaning the top of the block. I checked the valves and everything functioned just as it should have. My uncle told my I had to super clean the block to so that the head gasket had the best chance of sealing, so you’d better believe that block was clean as a whistle. The next day, we installed the new head gasket, and let it sit for an entire week. I was so eager to see if it would run, and could hardly wait for the next weekend. The next weekend came, and it was the moment of truth. We checked for spark, which it still had, and poured a little fuel in the carb. My uncle jumped the starter and my Jeep fired right up. I was beyond excited. I fed the fuel line to the external gas can, and choked the Jeep until the bowl began to fill with fuel. Once the bowl was full, my Jeep fired up and stayed running! What a feeling! I’ll never forget it. The next day, I drove it for the very first time. I’ll say it again. What a feeling! I’ll never forget it! The transmission emitted some horrendous sounds, but I did not care. Nothing was stopping me from driving my Jeep. My uncle told me the transmission wasn’t long for the world, but reassured me that he had a spare transmission from his CJ-3A that I could have. The transmission would last a little over three years, until it finally gave up the ghost in early 2015.

I graduated from High School in 2016, and just didn’t have any time to work on my Jeep. In summer of 2017, I removed the transmission. Three years have passed and I’ve only recently found the time to get back to work on my Jeep. My whole family has been slacking on their Jeeps, but that has changed this summer, due to the fact that we all have had a little more free time on our hands. We are all back to working on our Jeeps, and thanks to Kaiser Willys, it won’t be long until every last one of our old Willys Jeeps are up and running. 

Kaiser Willys Jeep Blog Story – Morgan Donovan

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