Big jeep mistake

Create a thread to track the progress of you MB/GPW restoration progress. Previously a General Discussion board.
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twinflyer17
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Re: Big jeep mistake

Post by twinflyer17 » Fri Oct 13, 2017 5:47 am

The Smithsonian doesn't provide much information on the one currently hanging, so it's difficult to known whether it's original, restored, etc. I'm very curious to know, though!
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Re: Big jeep mistake

Post by Joe Gopan » Fri Oct 13, 2017 8:09 am

It might be in the 8 1/2 X 11" Jeep, Jeep, Jeep.
I think the Paper back is "Indestructible Jeep". Haven't looked for 30 years.
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Re: Big jeep mistake

Post by Mark Jesic » Fri Oct 13, 2017 8:34 am

Ben, many people say Hotchkiss jeeps were better made, and i do agree with this, but its the ww2 stigma that brings the big bucks in over here. On saying that, i recently saw a Hotchkiss for sale over here in excess of £20,000. You also get a lot of ww2 jeeps with Hotchkiss bodies on them, my mate has one. I did hear though that as long as its a WW2 chassis and engine, it is still classed as a WW2 jeep, but any views or opinions on this would be welcome.

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Re: Big jeep mistake

Post by twinflyer17 » Fri Oct 13, 2017 10:57 am

Mark Jesic wrote:
Fri Oct 13, 2017 8:34 am
I did hear though that as long as its a WW2 chassis and engine, it is still classed as a WW2 jeep, but any views or opinions on this would be welcome.
I think everyone has their own opinions on what makes a WWII jeep a legitimate WWII jeep. Personally, I doubt many people, if any at all, have truly authentic WWII jeeps anymore, where all the parts/components are authentic originals. I think if you have the bulk of the original items, or at least the largest key items (body, wheels, engine, frame, tranny), then it can be considered a true WWII jeep. If those items begin turning into repro or post-war items, though, then I think the jeep becomes less and less true. In the 4 short years I've been in the hobby, if definitely seems to be getting harder and harder to find even those big items in good, restorable, or affordable condition. That said, I think any WOF item is better than a modern repro item!
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Re: Big jeep mistake

Post by Michael O. » Fri Oct 13, 2017 11:31 am

Mark Jesic wrote:
Fri Oct 13, 2017 8:34 am
I did hear though that as long as its a WW2 chassis and engine, it is still classed as a WW2 jeep, but any views or opinions on this would be welcome.
One has to be careful here. While nobody really has a true absolutely 100% original restored g503 (new gaskets, seals, seat cushions, wiring, etc) I think that if a jeep has all original major components such as tub (even restored original tubs), frame, engine and associated bolt-ons , transmission, transfer case, axles, seats, gauges, windshield...then your jeep should be considered "original", even if it's "motor pool original" using a mix of original MB and GPW parts....the overall age and history is there. Jeeps with reproduction tubs should be considered at least a partial replica even if most of the other components are original. A reproduction tub on a reproduction frame is definitely a replica. Jeeps with M201 bodies are something of a hibrid, but should not be classified as true "WWII" jeeps.

For my restorations, I strive for originality...not only in appearance but in the actual age of all of their major components. Yes, my '43 GPW's tub might be upwards of 25% "new" steel but it will still be an original "restored" tub...same for my Oct '44 MB which might end up having 10-15% new steel in it. This preserves what history and originality still remains and is a far better preference for me.

I realize true originality isn't an option or even a priority for a great many jeep owners on this site, but to each their own. In the end, I'm the one who has to be happy with my jeeps and this is how I approach my restorations.

Still, better to have a g503 with a repro tub but otherwise original on the road than in a scrap barge heading to be recycled in China or broken up and dismantled and it's parts spread to the winds....so to speak.
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Re: Big jeep mistake

Post by Mark Jesic » Fri Oct 13, 2017 1:25 pm

Some interesting points guys.

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Re: Big jeep mistake

Post by Graeffmb » Sat Oct 14, 2017 7:02 am

My biggest mistake was not researching more when i bought my jeep, thankfully my jeep's restoration is going slowly, so i actually had time to research and buy the correct parts, my father even bought a CJ-3A for parts, then we realized that it was all different and long story short we have 2 jeeps :D
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Re: Big jeep mistake

Post by stacey » Sat Oct 14, 2017 10:33 am

Selling not one but two Ford script jeeps. One with a Esslingen Germany rebuilt plate.

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Re: Big jeep mistake

Post by Fortyeight2A » Sun Oct 22, 2017 2:53 pm

In 1978 I made a huge Jeep mistake. I replaced the body of my severely demilitarized M-38 with an Acme Truck Parts replacement body. It was made of crappy steel and it rusted away very quickly. Being in Ohio didn't help. I would have been better off to have thrown away $1,000 then and just kept the original body.
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Re: Big jeep mistake

Post by roblenzz » Wed Oct 25, 2017 7:04 am

I too have pulled the trigger too fast on a flat fender thinking it was WWII. My first one was a 2a with MB grill and side handles. Advertised on craigslist as a 1945 Willys Jeep, I was 22 fresh out of the service and wanted a war time jeep. Now it is all too obvious to tell the difference but I dropped good money. Thankfully I sold it and got on the right track.
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Re: Big jeep mistake

Post by Mark Jesic » Wed Oct 25, 2017 12:03 pm

Guys, your comments have made me feel a WHOLE lot better, you never stop learning with a jeep. :D

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Re: Big jeep mistake

Post by Arnoud » Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:59 am

my dad and I bought a box full of t84 transmission parts for a good price we thought, but when we came home and clean al the gears and pieces they where either worn out or they where marked WOF :roll:. Let say it was a good learning moment for us and now we look twice before buying something. (although we still did buy some wof parts unfortunately)

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Re: Big jeep mistake

Post by htc » Mon Oct 30, 2017 12:31 pm

Arnoud wrote:
Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:59 am
or they where marked WOF :roll:.
WOF is better than repro, so maybe no such a big mistake :-)

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Re: Big jeep mistake

Post by twinflyer17 » Tue Oct 31, 2017 4:11 am

htc wrote:
Mon Oct 30, 2017 12:31 pm
Arnoud wrote:
Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:59 am
or they where marked WOF :roll:.
WOF is better than repro, so maybe no such a big mistake :-)

Greetings
Hans
Agreed!!
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Re: Big jeep mistake

Post by horrocks » Sat Nov 11, 2017 5:29 am

I've made plenty of Jeep mistakes.

The first one was buying my first Jeep. The second one was, years later, selling it.

I bought it from a fellow in Exeter in Devon in about 1982, drove it home through the October night to Essex, north of London. I learned about being cold that night. In the ensuing months and years I discovered that it was a basket case. The drivers-side wheel well had been cut back so the seat could be moved backwards to accomodate a big man. The petrol tank had been relocated to the passenger side, and the exhaust re-routed to the drivers side. The rear panel had been cut out at some point, and replaced by sheet metal without the reinforcements, which you couldn't get in those days. The engine was in a bad way, the gearboxes worn out, and so on. Over the years I did it up, with little by way of reference, no resources such as G503. It ended up a decent Jeep. I sold it after 10 years as I was starting a business and needed some money. A strange old boy in south London bought it, he was an apothecary, sold witch-doctor medicines. I don't imagine he ever drove it, and its number plate doesn't register on the UK government's insurance database, so it's either lost or still in the lock up into which I delivered it 25 years ago. Some years after I sold it I realised that it had been a Feb or March 42 Willys, a post slat/glovebox/Willys stamped rear panel. It had 5 early single piece rims, and was all-original matching engine/chassis/Type 1 tub/hood deflector and so on. It had a Northern Irish registration number, and had almost certainly served with the US forces in that province, the earliest to come over to the UK. I wish I still had it.

A third one related to a petrol tank. It was one of the type used by the SAS in NW Europe, one on each rear wheelarch. They were adapted from Morris or Chevrolet truck tanks I think. It still had its covering of thick rubber, presumably designed to self-seal. Now here's the rub - it had been given to me by Johnnie Cooper's wife. Cooper was one of the SAS originals, who served under David Stirling in North Africa, and was with the SAS throughout their wartime existence, rejoining them after they were reformed in the 1950s. The tank came from his Jeep 'Constance' (named after his then wife, the donor of the tank). Wartime photos of Constance exist. I had this petrol tank for years, sitting in a shed. However, I was never going to recreate an SAS Jeep, and I mentioned it to a guy on an SAS living history stand one day at Beltring War & Peace Show. He told me that he had always intended to recreate a Jeep as Cooper's 'Constance', and I said that in that case he should have the petrol tank, on the condition that he kept in touch with me, and kept me updated as to the restoration. He came one day, and left with the tank.

I have never heard from him since. Not a word. At some point I lost his contact details.

Perhaps if someone is reading this, and knows of the fate of Constance's petrol tank, or of an SAS Jeep with an original wartime auxiliary tank mounted on the rear wheelarch, he might drop me a PM. I would love to know that it had been used, and was still out there, better still on a recreated 'Constance'.

Constance Cooper, incidentally, died in 2002. She had served in the WRAC as a driver during the war, and had many stories to tell. She met John Cooper when the SAS were based at Hylands House in Chelmsford in 1944, just prior to the Houndsworth and Bulbasket operations in France, and he and many of the other SAS originals used to visit the village pub that her family ran in the little village of Moreton. Both she and John Cooper now lie in the village churchyard.
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