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Welcome to eWillys.com, a website for vintage jeep enthusiasts. I update this website nearly every day with jeep deals, jeep history, interesting reader projects, jeep related info, and more.
These quick searches can help you find things on eBay. People list in the wrong categories all the time, so don't be surprised to see brochures in the parts area for example.
The links to posts below show jeeps grouped by models, condition, and other ways. Some of these jeeps are for sale and others have been sold. If you are unsure whether a vehicle is still for sale or not, email me at d [at] ewillys.com for more info.
There are plenty of interesting, unusual, historic and surprising stories related to Jeeps and their owners. In addition, some of these features have nothing to do with jeeps. This link will display all featured stories starting from the latest.
Looking for parts and not sure where to go? There are a variety of large and small new and used parts sellers both online and offline.
Importantly, the allure of buying a project jeep can be romantic. The reality of restoring a jeep can be quite different, expensive and overwhelming without the right tools and resources. So, tread carefully when purchasing a "project". If you have any concerns about buying a vintage jeep, or run across a scam, feel free to contact me for help, comments or concerns .
Ted has his CJ-2A dressed up for Christmas. You can see more pics of Ted’s CJ-2A here.
Hmm … I guess I should dress up Biscuit. If the rain abates, I will get him out and do something holidayish.
Len says he became a jeep fan while watching episodes of MASH. Despite being interested in jeeps, he waited to buy his first jeep. Finally, three years ago, he took the plunge and found a 1942 GPW in Eastern Oregon. He brought it back to his home near Seattle to start a rebuild. He thought it would take one year. But, as many jeep enthusiasts learn, it took him more time than expected. Now at the end of year three, he is almost done. Though he has learned a lot, he swears he will never do another jeep rebuild.
The jeep itself had a pretty rough body, probably because it was raced for a short while. However, the front of the frame and frame horns were in amazingly great shape and original. Every part of the jeep has been pulled apart and rebuilt. His goal has been to build a jeep out of original, rather than replacement parts. The engine runs well and sounds great.
Len believes the small pits and dents in the body and fenders adds a nice historical feel to the project. Amazingly, he has managed to locate a variety of parts out of junkyards around the Seattle area. For example, he has found two original pintle hitches from junk yards. He has found all kinds of F stamped bolts. He found a prototype, pre combat, rim. He found a headlight bucket. The list of parts he found was surprising!
One of the most amazing stories he told was that the jeep didn’t come with a hood that matched the original body. Since the hood was in poor shape, one of the things he began looking for was a better hood. One of his buddies mentioned that his father had a GPW hood. Len picked up the hood and was stunned to see it had striping similar to his jeep. When he got it back to his garage he discovered the hood matched the body exactly! After Len investigated things further, it turned out his friend’s father had sold the jeep to the guy in Oregon. So, Len now had the original hood of the jeep. Even better, the original hood numbers were still readable. Talk about a small world!
Len’s goal with his jeep is to complete the rebuild, drive it for a few years, and then donate it to Fort Lewis, because the Fort’s museum doesn’t have a WWII jeep in it, though it does have later models. Len still needs a few more items to complete his build, one being a ford script driver’s seat. I’ve got a lead on one for him, but if anyone knows of any others, please comment below.
Len mentioned that his wife has been a big support of his effort, though their agreement includes one demand by her: She gets to drive it first. Congrats on the great rebuild.
UPDATE: Price dropped to $10,900
(04/24/2011) This has some interesting mods, including the unusual approach to mounting the gauges. I wonder if those are custom headers. They appear to have an unusual slope (compared to the ones I’ve seen).
“1947 Willy Jeep V6 totally restore ground up, 1 mile, two set of wheels and tires, custom paint, call for more information. (269)629-5201”
http://swmi.craigslist.org/cto/2694203913.html
Seventeen year old James emailed me the other day asking if I’d like to stop by and see his jeep while I was in Denver. Of course, my answer was yes, so we arranged a time to visit yesterday.
After meeting him and his father, I learned that this was James’ first vehicle project. After deciding he wanted an old flat fender, he looked around some before he found a great deal on a 1950 CJ-3A with an overdrive, a sound body and frame, and a running engine. Unfortunately, after buying the jeep, he quickly discovered his 6’8″ body was a little lanky for a flattie. Since he is a little big for it, his goal is to give it a light restoration, get it running good, and then sell it. It looks oike a great father/son project and I wish them the best of luck with it! So, expect to see this CJ-3A available on eWillys at some future point. Thanks goes to James for emailing me and sharing his jeep.
Readers will remember that at age 17, Nate finished his first flat fender build, a 1953 CJ-3A. Not content to spend 2011 driving his jeep, Nate emailed me today sharing with me that he spent the past year building a second jeep with a custom suspension. He’s been sharing his project with the folks over at earlycj5 site and has a variety of pictures that show build from start to finish. Well done again Nate! (Some readers might also remember Nate’s ideas)
I only posted one pic below. Here are all the pictures: http://www.earlycj5.com/forums/showthread.php?88481-Building-a-new-and-improved-Jalopy-frame
Dan forwarded me some pics of his new tires from TDS. He notes these are particularly appropriate for this jeep, because all his grandfather bought for it were retreads. Dan did note how surprised he was at how difficult finding retreads was, especially since they are supposed to be so environmentally friendly.
“Here is my jeep with five new re-tread tires. I cleaned and painted the wheels too. The tires are 215/85R16 all terrain by TDS in Spokane. That was about the smallest radial I could find and the widest tire that would fit on the old 16×4.5 rims. My only other option was to go with a bias-ply and tubes. I saved about $340 by going with re-treads vs the cost of new. I think that they are the perfect height and width for what I was wanting.”
There haven’t been updates at Paul’s Jeep blog since 2009, but there’s still plenty of information and images. You can visit it here. There are also a couple videos, too.
Dan continues to make good progress on the reconstruction of his grandfather’s CJ-5. Below, Dan shares both the latest images and images from 20 years ago, with him driving. If you don’t remember the non running, poor condition of the jeep, you can view the early restoration pics here. Thanks Dan and keep going! And, I promise I’ll up there sometime this summer to collect the beer you offered 🙂
Over a period of 9 years, between 1993 and 2002, this 1944 MB saw two major restorations. The first, done by owner Richard Grace, was a partial restore, returning the jeep to its MB roots. The second, done by Brian Mead, refined and corrected some of the previous shortcomings.
Click here to learn how the jeep went from this:
Into this:
UPDATE: I’m running short of time tonight, so here’s a post from a couple years ago.
Here’s Frank’s flattie and some friends of his who have flatties as well. The picture with multiple jeeps was from a run last October. The next time you are vacationing in Hawaii, keep an eye out for these good looking jeeps.
After initially purchasing this CJ-2A, Diego shared some pictures with me. It was pretty rough and I knew he was had plenty of work ahead of him. He recently completed it, especially considering the rough condition of the original, has turned out really nice.
Diego write, ‘I finally finished my project after almost two years. It has sometimes been a pleasure and sometimes a pain in the neck, but at least I’m pretty happy with the results. And even though is CJ2A post war jeep, I gave it a military theme. I always like the military style.”
Well done Diego!
You can see the entire transformation here.
Before:
After:
Back in January of 2010, Dan contacted me saying he and his fiancee wanted to trade their Willys wagon for a flattie (wagon is to the left). After patiently waiting four months, they finally found someone to make the trade. Their goal was to do a low budget build with more modern running gear. Even more ambitiously, they wanted to complete the project by the end of summer. Here is their story of creating version 1. There is plenty of additional work left, but it runs and drives well, so congrats to the newlyweds (may you have many more great adventures together)! And, let me know when the second iteration is complete 🙂
Dan also notes he still has the complete 1946 Willys chassis and drivetrain available for sale if anybody wants it. (He’s in central Idaho).
Dan writes, “My fiancée (at the time) and i decided to get ourselves a Willys since both of us had always wanted one ever since we were little…
We thought that we would spend our weekends working on it in the months preceding our wedding and then use it as our getaway car for the ceremony (I even suggested a 4×4 trail out into the hills for the wedding but that was pushing it a little bit too far 🙂
We found our specimen (see below) on eWillys and traded our ’62 wagon for it. *sniff sniff*
The motor was shot, but that didn’t bother me as i was planning on putting a toyota chassis and running gear under it. The original plan was to put all of our time into the chassis and suspension and engine to make it SOLID and drivable. Then, later, restore the body at our leisure. However, once i started stripping down the body it became apparent that the body wouldn’t hold together without immediate work; the floors had galvanized metal screwed over them to give them an appearance of -something- but underneath was just rust held together by an occasional shred of metal. So, diamond plate and 18g metal were quickly purchased to make new floorpans with and the welding and grinding started.
For 2 months of weekends all we did was cut, grind, weld, grind and assemble (see pics). As we wanted to keep the budget tight, we gathered a variety of parts, including:
1965 toyota 4runner chassis
1983 toyota pickup axles
Completely rebuilt 22r motor
1987 5sp tranny/t-case
Rear driveshaft shorted to 11″
Front driveshaft lenghtened aprox 14″
Bought an m38 arctic top from an ewillys user over the hill in montana
We were pushing the limits trying to get it done in time for our wedding in august of 2010, but then a week before our wedding K got in a serious car accident and all work on the Willys stopped (of course) as we attended to her broken bones.
We still got married the next week -her with her jaw wired shut and on pain meds but, sadly, the Willys wasn’t able to attend the wedding. The following months we focussed our energies on work ($$) and working on our house. After Christmas passed I again had some free time available and set about finishing the project which was mostly connecting the new engine, building a clutch/brake pedal assembly and creating a wiring harness.
Finally, after many long weekends, last week she ran! We took a weekend trip up to see the in-laws in it the very next day. Other than a clogged fuel filter (old tank) and the brakes being sticky from disuse, he did awesome! The power steering is nice; K says that he’s even easier for her to drive than my toyota pickup.
Today i built a rear bumper for him and put in some better (hopefully) seats. There is still much to do like a complete front bumper, custom fuel tank (today i spied an air-compressor tank that looks like it might be perfect to modify and bolt underneath the back end.) and create a new tailgate. Sometime this summer we hope to get around to doing some body work but for now maybe we can just try our different colors with rattle cans to see what we like (hey, we could have a different color every week!)
Can’t wait ’til the warm weather comes and we can take off the hardtop!
David wrote to me today to tell me about his first wagon project. He got a great deal on it, especially for an eastern wagon, and has a restoration plan in place.
He writes, “My rough plan is sort of a rolling resto on a budget at first. Specifically, get motor running first…then brakes. Next will be things that need to be done for safe driving (signals, lights, windows fixed, emergency brake etc.).
After that I’d like to sand/blast to metal the worst of the unprotected areas (hood, roof paint pretty much gone) and epoxy paint and primer them, then gradually work on other issues. But first things first, have to get running and driveable cuz the wife is not gonna be very tolerant of it taking space in the garage if I can’t move it easily, lol.
On down the road I’d like to do a frame off. I’m not one of those chop em up and put a v-8 in it kinda guys, but not opposed to some mods like a brake upgrade or electric wipers to improve driveability. My overall goal of restoration will be to keep it as original as possible but I plan to use and drive it, not restore to mint or show condition (but who knows what the future will hold? I don’t plan to change anything that couldn’t be changed back to 100% original easily)”
Best of luck David!
If you’ve never really looked at a map of Idaho, pull one out (or, I suppose you could use Google Maps). Between where I live in Boise and Coeur D’ Alene in the North is one significant route — US 95. Look to the East of US 95 and you’ll see National Forest after National Forest. Then look about halfway between in central Idaho and, if you look close, you’ll see the town of Kamiah. That’s where a reader named Randy and his boys, Devon and Dusty, call home. And, at their doorstep are endless National Forests they can explore with their friends. It is a regular jeeptopia.
Before you get to Randy’s story, keep in mind, that each of these jeeps started as basket cases, so there is still hope for your project! Also, a big thanks to Randy for taking the time to put together detailed descriptions of their rigs. Finally, check out the last pic … I think Biscuit would fit in just fine there :-).
Randy’s Blue 1946 CJ2A: This Jeep was purchased new by my wife’s grandfather in 1946 and was used for decades on the family farm. After her grandparents passed away we were able to purchase it from the estate for $200 in 1993; it was about $199 to much considering the shape it was in.
We completely rebuilt it from the ground up with a new steel tub and repaired fenders, grill and windshield. The tub is for an M38 but was all that we could locate at the time. I did most of the body work and my brother in law painted it in our garage. The motor, transmission and transfer case were all rebuilt and 11” brakes were installed, we also installed a rollbar, stereo, CB and a back seat.
I built a spare tire/gas can carrier/cooler rack on the back and we also have both a bikini and full soft top. I run 32×11.50 tires in the summer and fall; 33×12.50 tires in the spring when running in the snow for better flotation. The low range 2 wheel drive pill has been taken out of the transfer case and lock rights have been installed in both axles. A Warn M8000 winch was installed a few years ago.
Dusty’s Green 1946 CJ2A: I (Randy) purchased this Jeep for spare parts around the year 2000. It was a total basket case with a rusted up headless motor and most of the back of the tub missing.
We decided to rebuild and modify it for my two sons to share; at the time Dusty was a sophomore in high school and Devon was in junior high. We started the project in November of 2004 and completed it for its first run on Memorial Day weekend of 2005. The 4 banger was removed and a Buick 231 V6 was put in its place, the T90, Dana 18 and stock axles were all refurbished and reinstalled as were 11” brakes.
New front and rear floorboards along with new wheel wells were welded in and we decided to take out what was left of the tailgate area and welded a flat back MB style back panel in its place. The lift is all from a spring over and we installed Saginaw power steering up front. Racing seats and harnesses along with a full rollcage were installed for safety and a rear seat was put in for passengers. A console contains a stereo and a CB is mounted to the front of it.
The tires and wheels are 35×14.50×15 TSL Boggers mounted on 15×12 Mickey Thompson wheels. I did all of the body work myself and my brother in law painted it Olive drab in our garage, a star was put on the hood just for fun. A Warn M8000 winch along with a winch mount and bumpers that we built ourselves were installed as well. The Jeep stayed pretty much this way for 5 years until after we found another Jeep for Devon that had bigger and better components than were in this one.
Once it became Dusty’s Jeep alone, he decide to box the frame and install a warmed up 350 Chevy with an sm465 transmission, Dana 20 transfer case that has been twin sticked and axles from 1975 CJ5. The axles are Dana 44 in the rear and Dana 30 in the front 3.73 gear ratios. New gears and ARB air lockers have also been installed in both ends in the past year. He currently has a set of wider Dana 44 axles to be installed some time in the future. Dusty did the entire drive train swap himself with only minor advice from me. He has since built a spare tire/gas can carrier/cooler rack for the back and plans on putting on a set of 40 inch tires after some fender trimming behind the back tires is done.
Devon’s Green 1942 MB: I purchased this Jeep off of E-bay for too much money but it already had the running gear that I was looking for which included a small block Chevy (283 not a 327 as advertised), sm420 transmission (no ceramic clutch as advertised), a twin sticked Dana 20 transfer case and Scout II axles; Dana 44 rear, Dana 30 front with 4.27 ratios.
The body was pretty rough and it had a thin skin of sheet metal installed all of the way around the tub that hid lots of holes and rust. A home built gas tank was in the back where a seat normally goes and a heavy spare tire carrier/cooler rack was mounted on the back. We started rebuilding this one on November of 2007 and had it mostly finished by Memorial Day weekend of 2008.
A warmed up 350 Chevy built to the same exact specs as Dusty’s was installed along with the refurbished running gear that came in the Jeep. All new spring hangers and reversed shackle mounts were built and welded on the outside of the frame in the front because of the wider Scout II axles, a new mount for the Saginaw power steering unit was installed and the frame rails were boxed.
The rollbar was cut apart and welded back together then installed in the correct place. The floor boards front and back were all replaced and the area between the rear fenders was increased by using narrower rear inner fender wells, as a result we were able to put in some comfortable small bucket seats. The rear fenders were opened up 2 inches and the rear axle was moved back an inch to make room for bigger tires.
Racing seats and harnesses were also installed in the front along with a stereo and CB radio. I had injured my shoulder during the winter and was dreading the thought of all of the sanding that would need to be done getting the body ready for paint when a friend of ours that owns a body shop (Orofino Body Shop) volunteered to do all of the body work and paint the Jeep as a graduation present for Devon; what a fantastic gift. We also had a star put on the hood and Devon built a rear bumper with a spare tire/gas can/cooler rack mounted on it.
A Warn M8000 winch was mounted on a winch plate and front bumper that Devon built as well. This winter he upgraded the axles to newer Scout II Dana 44’s in both ends with disc brakes in the front. We turned the front knuckles 15 degrees which gave it 6 degrees of caster and turned the back of the pumpkin up 9 degrees for a better drive line angle, new perches were welded on to get the angles correct. The axles now have 4.10 ratios with OX cable actuated lockers. He built a center console that houses the locker shifters and cutting brake handles for each rear brake. New shock mounts were welded on the axles and he built new shock hoops for the front, he added Bilstein 5150 shocks on both ends and a heavy duty tie rod and drag link set that is designed for Dana 60 axles was also installed, the tubing is 1.5 inch OD with .250 wall thickness and huge tie rod ends.
The tires and wheels are 13.50x37x15 TSL Boggers on Mickey Thompson wheels; 40 inch tires will be coming in the next year or two. All most all of the work done recently has been done by Devon, I helped him with turning the knuckles and installing the lockers but he did everything else himself.
Here are the boys Jeeps at the inlaws cabin in OroGrande which is near Elk City and Dixie as well. Every time the boys take their windshields off it rains, we got caught in a nice shower on this trip.
And, finally, this is a Jeep run with friends of ours that have cabins in the old mining town of Dixie (near Elk City) about 100 miles from Kamiah.
Chet contacted me today, telling me about the restoration he recently completed on his 1965 CJ-3B that was once owned by his Grandfather. He clearly suffers from the Willy’s sickness, as he’s got the restoration bug again and is thinking Surrey this time (but don’t tell his wife just yet). His CJ-3B is evidence that any project he tackles will benefit from his good work. You can read all about his restoration at the CJ-3B Page. (Make sure to read about the bottle opener.)
During Mark’s last update, he got a steal on some Mitsubishi seats that fit perfectly into “Her Royal Highness”. He’s made some additional progress since then.
Mark writes, “You may recall phase I consisted of making her safe, legal and roll down the road without leaking out all the fluids. Phase II for me was to make it reliable and comfortable. Phase III is body & appearance and that one may take awhile. I’m rather fond of the aged patina look (alright I’m lazy).
After sitting in a barn for 18 years I’ve been leary of opening up the 265 on the highway because I was afraid the gaskets would fail so I replaced both diff. gaskets, the t-18 cover gasket and the oil pan gasket on the SBC. Once I got in there I was amazed at the pristine condition of the gears, they looked new. I installed a sound system and finished off with some sweet tan leather seats. Replacing the orginal split bench with modern buckets changes the whole driving experience for the better.
One neat idea was to mount the seats with 1lb. rubber mallets cut and drilled to compensate for the uneven floor board. I’ve included some pictures.”
UPDATE: You can see the final build here.
A citizen of Uruguay, Hugo recently contacted me to appropriately correct me from confusing a town, Londrinha, that doesn’t exist in Puerto Rico with one that does exist in Brazil (In this case, I believe I can blame Google Maps for my error!).
Because of this error, I got to know a little more about Uruguay, which it turns out I didn’t really know that much about. One cool thing I learned is a hand was installed on (or more accurately into) the Punta del Este Beach in 1982 by Chilean artist Mario Irarrazabal. He titled it the Monumento al Ahogado (Monument to the Drowned). Apparently, he did another, different hand in a Chilean desert.
Hugo reports that the jeeping is excellent in Uruguay, though he hasn’t had much of a chance to jeep this summer (it is summer there of course right now), because his CJ-3A is currently dismantled in his garage for repair. However, he did forward this picture. Thanks for sharing!
Goose wrote me an email today, announcing he had finished the restoration of his CJ-3B. Not only did he complete his budget-conscious restoration in only 4 months, but he also documented it in two different locations (see links below); not a trivial task! He’s done a good amount of work in a short time and I think he’ll be happy with it for quite a while. Well done Goose!
Goose writes, “Hey Dave. I finally got my jeep finished and wanted to share the story. I’ll include a couple pics with this email but feel free to pull any others down from the links below too. The first link is from thisoldjeep, which I discovered here and the second is from a site where I frequent due to my dirtbike passion.
http://thisoldjeep.21.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=578&highlight
http://www.thumpertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=949807
Here are a couple before images:
Here’s a midway point photo:
And a couple completed photos:
Jeremy discovered just the project he was hoping to find. Congrats! You can see he has already recruited an enthusiastic assistant!
Jeremy writes, I “Found this on eWillys.com – was listed as a 1942 GPW. Sent my wife down yesterday and got it today. Turns out to be a 1943, but the frame and engine match – I am really happy with this jeep. Lots of original parts and the owner James was super nice. James was insistant that he sell the jeep as a whole unit to someone who will restore it rather than part it out. I guess he just had to wait for the right buyer. Looking forward to a long restoration.”
While out playing in the snow, Gary took some shots to share with us. Looks beautiful Gary!
A reader named Ron wrote me the other day. He spotted a great deal on a restorable truck at a great price and now has a website with pics of the early work (I’ve included a couple pics below). Click on the photogallery to see all the pics. Ron already has a 1971 CJ-5 and his son a 84 CJ-8; you can see pics of those vehicles in the photogallery as well. Congrats on the find and good luck with the rebuild!
Ron writes, “We are in the middle of the off frame restoration of the 61 Willys. It was purchased new in 61 by a lady with a farm in Connecticut. She ordered it with a snow plow and a hydraulic dump bed. It only has 22,000 miles. I bought it from her grandson.”
Here’s the truck before restoration. It looks like a good starting point.
Here’s a look at how the rear of the dump bed frame looks.
And here’s a closeup of the dump mechanism.
Over the past year and a half Chris (from Mossy Rock, Wa) and I have been trading emails every-so-often as he works his way through his flat fender project. He recently figured out how to work with some bondo; he also tried his hand at using Herculiner. You can see the results below. It’s a bit of a trial and error process for him, but he’s making good progress.
January 1st is his birthday, so have a great birthday Chris and keep the pics coming!
Colin provided a couple updates. He’s got a new top for his Surrey and his son, Lee, got their CJ-2A project running for the first time.
Colin writes, “I had a new top put on the Surrey. Here are a couple of photos of it. I also attached a couple of photos of our project 1952 CJ3A that is nearing completion. It has a CJ2A windshield and is now 12V with upgraded larger 11″ brakes.It still has the L-134 4 banger, but also sports an electric winch, custom built rollbar and custom bikini top. These were taken the first time we fired it up..it ran like a Swiss watch!”
A reader named Stephen is feeling quite Merry about this year’s Christmas after purchasing a CJ-2A project. Good luck and keep us updated!
Jim recently purchased this nice looking CJ-2A.
He writes, “Here are a few pictures of my 1947 Willys CJ2A. It has had a ground up restoration several years ago. I bought it out of Kansas and now it is in the California Sierra Nevada Mountains where I use it at our cabin.
The Willys has a new tub body but original hood and tail gate. It has all the original plaques and auto numbers. All other parts reflect the period except a roll bar and a steering stabilizer. The engine runs like a sewing machine.
I am still working on it to make it better and original. The paint job also reflects the year. If I could find a restored flat fender with the original body and in this good of shape I might jump ship. Meanwhile I enjoy driving this vehicle where everything works like it did 63 years ago, which by the way is my age!”
Congrats Jim. It looks like fun 🙂
