My story is just another typical Jeep lusting adventure. It finally began to come together when I spotted what looked like a CJ-5 behind a barn in my home town. It turned out to be an M38A1 that somebody had dropped a V6 into. I bought it, got it back into it’s military colors and quickly learned that I really didn’t want to be sitting on all of that power on such a short wheel base.
A friend called one day and told me that he was going to look at a barn full of cars in a neighboring town and he believed that the collection included an old Jeep. I jumped at the chance in hopes that it was a “flat fender”. My hopes were confirmed and I found a 1946 CJ-2A in the owner’s basement where it had been sitting for the past 20 years. At sometime in its first 30 years of life somebody had repainted it red after doing some preservation work on the body.
The owner had installed an 8 foot, snow plow on the front and it had a vacuum operated lift system for the blade. Luckily the owner never used it much but it did take its toll as the front frame rails which had been reinforced with diamond plate. It had an interesting “Rube Goldberg” setup with a vacuum powered lift cylinder the size of a 5 gallon pail on the from running off manifold vacuum. Regardless of its uniqueness I had the man that hauled it back to my house stop at his shop and remove the plow from the Jeep. I was lucky that it still had the original top even though the canvas was in pretty poor shape. There were no holes in it but the canvas was pretty fragile. At least the frames were complete.
I was amazed that it started right up with little coaxing and with a new set of tires I drove it around for the next two years in all of it’s original “rough glory”. In spite of excellent oil pressure, it leaked or burned a tremendous amount of oil. An old timer told me “That’s a good sign because when it stops leaking you know your low on oil.” I did my best at chasing the leaks but finally realized it was time for a major mechanical rebuild. I tore it down, had the motor done and then it sat for the next 25 years as a “someday project”. After I retired, I figured it was time, now or never so I went back to work with my son and got her back on the road. I brought her back to almost original with a 12 volt system and a little extra padding in the seats. The body is rough but I wanted a driver and not a showboat. I did pick up another snow plow which I use for my own driveway only, as it will never see a salted road, a 6 footer, this time.
It has a big brother now with my son’s TJ and the grand kids love it.
Kaiser Willys Jeep Blog Story – David Moore
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