1950 Jeep CJ-3A Rescued
1950 Jeep CJ-3A Rescued
Fred from Dirt Every Day wanted a 1950 Jeep CJ-3A that he could rescue from a junk yard, get it going and go have some fun.
He found this one in a private junkyard and he and his two friends set to work, struck a few problems but got it going and drove it.
If you are into Willys Jeeps wait till you see the yard behind the guys house, stacked with Jeeps and parts galore. Be heaven to a lot of enthusiasts.
First job is let’s get rid of that top, and the roll bar so it looks more the Jeep it is. Now we can start on the engine.
The engine is a V8 with some hot bits added to it, plus with a bonus in that this Jeep has overdrive. Being low geared and with a V8 engine up front overdrive would be an essential part of the drive-train.
Water ingression can be a problem with anything that is stored for a while outside, and this was the situation here. One cylinder was flooded resulting in a bad rust ring half way up the bore preventing the engine from turning over past this point.
Rough looking as it is this Jeep should be able to become a good runner with some basic tidy up work.
How to overcome this? One way is to strip the engine down, or first try what the guys did. You will see this all in the video.
Fred and his team have a lot of fun making these videos,
and it shows in the quality and dialog.
In 1945 when Willys released their civilian Jeep other manufacturers were quick to move into the 4 x 4 action also.
Landrover in the UK gained a big reputation for themselves and would have been Jeeps biggest competition when they moved into the American market.
In Japan Mitsubishi built Jeeps under licence, with Toyota, Nissan and Suzuki all developing their own models.
Austin in the UK made their Champ which was noted to perform well particularly in rough going having independent suspension on each wheel, bit like what was later used in the Mini as was designed by the same person.
But the Champ was expensive to buy, rather complex to maintain and simply just couldn’t compete with the Landrover.
Ford, GM, Chrysler and to a lesser extent International [and later Willys] were more into the 4 x 4 light truck market and developed 4 x 4 pickup trucks, as the Big 3 still do, with the Chevy Silverado and Colorado models being the market leaders today.
Special thanks for this video Motor Trend Channel. All screen shots from the video.
Thanks for info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_Champ
Links to more posts on Willys Jeep’s
http://4x4jpnews.com/willys-cheap-truck-challenge/
http://4x4jpnews.com/mud-slinging-hawian/
http://4x4jpnews.com/1961-willys-jeep-wagon/
http://4x4jpnews.com/willys-jeep-vs-jd-gator/
