The original expedition vehicle...

[Desert Dan]

Thanks Dr. Moab

Those Willys Wagons were great trucks. It brings back many good memories

My Dad bought one new in 1962 and we had it for years.

 

[Viggen]

Here are a few pics of my fathers old Jeeps.

This was in Canyonlands...before it was even a park.

On the way to Alice Lake in Wyoming...when you could still drive to Alice Lake.

This is my grandfather (never got to meet him, died before I was born) and my uncle with my uncles Jeep. You can almost feel what my granddad was saying.

Later in life my dad "upgraded" to this FC-170. He threw in a Dodge 318 with a 727 auto tranny.

I don't know where this was taken. My dad doesn't even remember but it's one of my favorite shots of him. Taken around 1958-59

These are worth showing again. These are great pictures. Itd be great to get a decent, most Ive found are completely rotten, Jeepster wagon to build up. Awesome stuff. My dad had a Jeepster pickup and would drive it out to the oil rigs in Texas and Oklahoma and always talks about how he would get it stuck all the time. If I won the lottery, thatd be the first thing Id spend the money on and give it to him.

 

[Black Dog]

Its really cool looking at pictures of old jeeps and seeing what they could do even back then with almost no after market parts and stuff. These days its so scientific with all the high tech lift kits and transfer cases and stuff, back they did really cool things without all the fluff we have now.

 

[BIGdaddy]

awesome. what a great set of photo's.

I'd love to have one, but I wonder if I'd get tired of driving an old truck like that. It makes me think that my Cherokee might be the best, simplest anachronism I can manage while still being capable of daily driving.

 

[DrMoab]

My dream truck. Not so much as a wheeler or an expo rig but maybe a sunday driver and light mountain cruiser would be one of those old wagons with a completely modern drive train. 6.1L Hemi, 6 speed manual, modern axles with coil springs front and rear. Then the same treatment on the interior. Leather, AC, good heat and sound deadening everywhere.

 

[LilKJ]

Booya!

Knocked out a big piece of the puzzle today... got the little tank running well and went for my first drive of any real length (2-3 miles)... I think the distributor shaft bushing needs to be replaced though... it makes a lot of racket (almost sounds like a rod bearing, but I can feel it in the distributor cap)

Installed a new alternator after the old one tested poo... turned out the old one wasn't installed or wired correctly.

The previous owner also fried the original ammeter when they hooked it up to the new 12V alternator so I replaced that gauge with a voltmeter. Still need to fix speedometer and install a new temperature gauge...

Getting there...

 

[mountainsoul]

Those old Jeep photos are awesome.

 

[jeepmedic46]

Those Jeep photos are awesome, Thank you for sharing.

 

[alexfm]

My dream truck. Not so much as a wheeler or an expo rig but maybe a sunday driver and light mountain cruiser would be one of those old wagons with a completely modern drive train. 6.1L Hemi, 6 speed manual, modern axles with coil springs front and rear. Then the same treatment on the interior. Leather, AC, good heat and sound deadening everywhere.

Kinda like this one?

http://www.truckinweb.com/features/1005tr_1953_willys_wagon/index.html

Minus the lowering components of course.

 

[The Swiss]

Booya!

Knocked out a big piece of the puzzle today... got the little tank running well and went for my first drive of any real length (2-3 miles)...

Congratulations on your progress. Starts coming together nicely.

 

[AmericaOverland]

Its really cool looking at pictures of old jeeps and seeing what they could do even back then with almost no after market parts and stuff. These days its so scientific with all the high tech lift kits and transfer cases and stuff, back they did really cool things without all the fluff we have now.

I have to agree with you. Just seeing those photos take me back to childhood with Mom and Dad camping in Brooks county from about '69 to '72, up north of San Antonio to '74, and then back down south, much closer to the border a few months later in '75. In the Corpus area and around it, I saw a lot of older vehicles from the 50s and early 60s. Dad had a Scout 80, just exactly like the 3rd from the right vehicle behind the pickup in the second of Viggen's photos. That is a Scout 80 because of the grille and the windshield wipers hung from the top of the windshield (the 800 series started in the second half of the sixties moved them to the more modern location). Now, the windows might have differed because the early, early ones came with sliding door windows, but Dad's Scout had rollup windows.

Sigh... I remember the days as we "progressed" from the yellow/green canvas tent to the teeny-tiny camping trailer (didn't even have a bathroom or stove) to the first camping trailer with a bathroom in it while using the Brooks county hunting leases. The evenings after gutting and storing animals were spent in the lodge where people lied to each other about the one that got away, cracked beers and shots between them, played cards, and had lots of food prepped in the kitchen. I had to be 3, 4, 5, and 6, but I have a lot of good memories. One particular painful memory I have is stepping on the fine-needle cactus right by the pond and Mom having to stop her target practice to get the tweezers out and convince me that it was better to get them out than to walk with that in my foot (must have been 20-30 needles!).

I thank you for the photos, Viggen, as it brings back memories of a long-gone era. I hope that I can bring it back to a degree when my own truck gets through restoration.

Stephanie

 

[DrMoab]

Kinda like this one?

http://www.truckinweb.com/features/1005tr_1953_willys_wagon/index.html

Minus the lowering components of course.

Honestly...I could handle having one 2 wheel drive. I've got my newer jeeps to go beat up in the sticks.

 

[coded 1 and 0s]

Love this post. I am going to start looking for a cj2a next year.


Would you happen to be the same Dr moab from the atv site bluetraxx.com....this was like...10 years ago...I just remember I loved "dr moabs" jeep grand cherokee on those forums.

 

[LilKJ]

Got a couple things done today and one new project got started....

Fabbed up a timing peephole cover out of some aluminum scrap...

Found a spring at Lowe's that works beautifully to replace my worn throttle return spring...

Then I felt like having some fun with the project... I poked around online and found some old army pics of the "deep water fording" package they used to put on the Jeeps... so I thought I'd start making my own.

My motivation:

Here's where I got with it today until I ran out of daylight...

Under the hood I used the factory carb horn and 2" tubing. Still have to install a fitting for the crankcase breather.

This hole in the firewall was put there by a previous owner to run a heater into the cab. I thought I'd put it to better use.

Adapter plate made to cover hole in firewall... similar plate on other side will bolt together using factory holes. I'm going to re-mount the VIN tag on this plate just below the intake tube.

Routing out to the windshield...

From the front...

A quick-coupling will be used to extend tubing to the top of the windshield when it's up... that way I can shorten it when the window's down... little air cleaner added just cuz it was sitting around.

From the front...

Lots of work still to be done with this thing... the purists might hate it but I think it'll be sweet when it's done. Plus I'm doing the whole thing without cutting anything

 

[jeepdreamer]

Just some random thoughts...

Not sure if your planning on "swimming" this thing but I'd like to offer that unless you fully seal the ignition and all other electrical connections you will have some issues. While these in military form were available to ford water...as they get older the little rubber seals for connectors crack and can lead to a huge electrical nightmare.
Also, don't forget to extend the exhaust...if you eat to much the gas has to go somewhere!:sombrero: If you don't get some extendz for your rear and you let off the gas...it will die. Usually right in the middle of a water source.!.