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Gimme some advice
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Merl
I've found what looks like a decent price on an old Jeep and I'd like
a little advice. Its a 1953 M38A1 with all the modern conveniences, all the upgrades were installed about 20 years ago... - 231 V6, heavy flywheel, new when installed. Runs good, manual choke, unknown actual miles, broken speedometer reads 80K. - New battery, attached to firewall under the hood - Muffler on each side under rocker panels, exits in front of rear wheels. - Commando radiator - 10" brakes all around, new when installed, Commando type. Original type master cylinder. - foot operated Commando emergency brake, rear wheels - Saginaw steering - Tilt wheel (with turn signals), Oldsmobile - Rancho overdrive (rear wheels only) - T90 trans and Spicer-18 xfer case recently "gone through" by the owner (who should know what he's doing). - Original D25 front and D44 rear diffs. Rebuilt a few years ago. - Factory roll-bar (CJ-5) - Factory steel hard top (CJ-5?) with lockable doors and crank up/down windows. The The top seems to be in good shape, very little rust. - No obvious problems with rust on the windshield frame. - Rear seat, seat belts all around. All seats need new apolstry. - 12 volt - heater, works - radio, doesn't work - dual vacuum wipers (both work) - Fuses! <g> - decent off-road tires on white wagon spoke wheels, tires were something like P23575R15 (?) - spare tire, on the back - Frame looks good, no obvious problems there. - battery holder in the cowl has been cut out from underneath to make room for the heater and radio - Everything seems to work, should be able to pass state safety inspection with no work necessary. I drove the thing around the 1 acre lot, and I *love* that saginaw steering (first Jeep I've driven with it). No detectable slop in the steering. Plenty of power in that V6. Seems to run at about 200 degrees (is that normal?), I let it idle for a long time sitting still and it got up to about 205 or 210 but never hotter. Seemed to stop *very* well, couldn't get up fast enough to try out the overdrive. The only things I didn't like were that the clutch seemed to have a hair trigger (I'd imagine it could be adjusted), the gas pedal might give me a serious cramp because its so close, and the rear drive line is REALLY short due to that overdrive (I'm guessing maybe a foot from u-joint to u-joint). The bad part is...the tub and right front fender are shot. It would hold together as is, but the body is really in such bad shape its not even worth messing with. The owner does have a good M38A1 body that he'll throw in if I give him the full price that he's asking. If it wasn't for that I'd shy away from this deal, but the "free" body makes it real appealing. Whats he asking? $2450 with the hard top, $2000 without. Mechanically I really like this Jeep. How hard is it to replace a body? Anybody know anything about Rancho overdrives? Anything I should know about M38A1s before I take the plunge and start a second ongoing project? Any good web sites with comparable projects I should review? Any advice is appreciated. -- "Never pound on the threaded **** end of *anything*!" ** ** ** mailto:hollowel@... ** Merl **** |
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Usnick, Mark
Hiya Merl-
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My $0.02: Sounds like a decent deal. I'm pretty sure that there weren't any factory roll bars or tops in the 50's. My '56 CJ5 had a hard top when I bought it (Koenig aftermarket). Still need to make a roll bar. I paid $2,000 for my good running CJ5 without the mods this one has, with a nice, clean body. Buying a second jeep. Man, that's a toughie. For what it's worth, a few months ago, I came across a cherry '49 CJ3A that I could buy for $1800, and I had difficulty making a decision - it was such a good deal - who could turn it down??? In the end, I passed, and am now glad that I did. I already have more things to keep me busy than I have time for. For me, I don't think that two jeeps would be twice the fun of one - instead, it'd just be twice the money, twice the time, twice the garage/driveway space and twice the guilt (for not completing all the work they deserve). The world is full of Todd Paisley's that can juggle multiple restores at once, but I am not one of them. On the other hand, if you want to annoy the neighbors, another piece of crap jeep in the driveway and another junker parts jeep/body in the back yard would be a good thing! 8-) I welcome you to totally disregard my advice. I just wanted to let you know that you won't necessarily be the first guy to turn down a "great deal on an old jeep", and be glad he did! LotsaLuck! Mark ps: Since I've already consumed some bandwidth with this note, I'll throw in one more comment: Us guys sure owe a lot of thanks to our better halfs for allowing us to even consider something like this! When I found that 3A and went to look at it with my wife, she pretended to be interested, and ever so nicely said that if I want it, I should buy it! What a sweetheart! If tells me that she wants to buy yet another horse (that's her thing), I'm not sure I could do such a convincing job of acting excited! -----Original Message----- |
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