Next updates monday morning.

We had the last of the family Christmases last night. So, no updates were planned. But, naturally during true middle of the party a corrupt file brought down the site. I properly ignored the problem and enjoyed myself anyway (as you can see below).

Everything is working correctly now. Even I am functioning pretty well 🙂

This weekend racers from the Pacfic Northwest will sharing their love of jeep racing with attendees of a monster truck event. He writes, the Pnw4wda competition has been invited to be part of the Monster jam show at the Tacoma Dome this weekend.  We will be part of the preshow doing barrels.  We will be having 12 race rigs in each show. 1 show Friday,  2 shows Saturday and 1 show Sunday. This will be our 4th year that we have been invited to race with them.

Here’s a look at a past race. They do a two barrel rather than a three barrel race for space reasons.

UPDATE:  **SOLD** Was $1500

May be worth a look.

My boys are in Seattle for the next week, so for me Christmas has finally arrived! However, this means postings will be erratic for the next week. I will continue to check emails.

Body needs finishing of some kind.

“High Performance Buick V6. Offenhauser High-Rise Four barrel intake, with a 700 Holley carb. Body off Refirbished frame, NO rust and fully painted. Body needs finished, Basic painted-primer.All original parts, with factory Power-Take Winch. Factory Transmission and Transfercase.”

http://cosprings.craigslist.org/cto/4818723998.html

Joe, a self-described eWillys addict (aka – Joe in Mesa), created this post about the reasons why some jeeps never seem to sell. He’s organized the problems into four categories: seller issues, ad issues, buyer behavior, or the jeep itself. His examples reflect what I’ve experienced. No doubt there are more . . . Perhaps you’ll find this instructive or amusing. Thanks to Joe for assembling it.

SELLER ISSUES:

• Unrealistic seller (thinks jeep is worthy of Barrett-Jackson price).
• Reluctant seller (doesn’t really want to part with his/her “baby”).
• Seller won’t respond (doesn’t answer phone or email). Could be jaded from the SPAM attempts. Some people get slammed with email SPAM when posting to craigslist. Others have received telemarketers after posting their phone number.
• Email responses from buyers are going into seller’s junk mail. Dave has run into this problem when replying to a Craigslist ad using a yahoo account.

AD ISSUES:

• Wrong contact info in ad (incorrect phone number or email address. Sometimes just a “type-O”).
• Misspelled “Willys” or other issue making ad hard to find (copy the spelling from your vehicle!). That’s why Dave uses a whole bunch of different spellings for “Willys” when searching Craigslist. He just got a great deal on a 25 page brochure off of eBay because the seller spelled misspelled the name WYLLIS. Sometimes Willys nor Jeep is used in an ad. One alternative some sellers use is “flat fender” as in “Flat Fender for Sale”.
• Old ads, seldom updated. Only gets reposted with the same price, pics, and description every time. Buyers quickly tire of old ads.
• Poor pics or lack of pics in ad. Have great pics can really help. Conversely having poor or no pics will turn off many potential buyers, that sometimes no-pic ads are fantastic deals. But, you have to investigate a lot of bad ads to find a good deal.

BUYER BEHAVIOR:

• Not local to buyers: too far from the major metro area. Some folks don’t want to deal with an absent buyer. Some want the money quick and don’t trust paypal. Others don’t trust absent buyers.
• Particular buyers. Many jeeps are worth the hard work but not everyone can afford the time it takes or don’t have the facilities to repair a mechanically challenging-jeep.
• Cheap local buyers (many people only want a deal, a “steal”, or a bargain).
• Scared, reluctant local buyers (see reasons for HARDER to sell, below)

JEEP ITSELF:

Technically the jeep itself should never be an issue that a low enough price can’t solve (a common example would be “no engine”: I bought one of those), but some jeeps are much HARDER to sell:

• – no title (in some states nearly impossible to resolve, and expensive in many others)
• – excessive rust
• – bad engine (cracked, seized, etc.. IMHO “no engine” jeeps sell better than “bad engine” ones).
• – horribly ugly (despite the current saying, there really isn’t a butt for EVERY seat)
• – similarly, “what the heck did Bubba do?… and why’d he do THAT?”
• – botched, incomplete “projects”
• – jeep covered by piles of misc. parts, furniture, dust, animal droppings, etc. (“barn find”? Really?)
• – jeep looks way better in the photos than in person.
• – seller places an ad without pics, but offers a description that doesn’t match with what a buyer finds when he or she sees the vehicle in person.
• – Bottom Line: insufficient value (cost too much to fix or restore… even if you gave it away for free)

Could there be other reasons? Poor economy (buyer issue), seller is a jerk, nearly impossible to move/get (tree growing up through frame, buried deep in a barn or basement, holding up the corner of the structure, in window of Banana Republic mall store…)?

So, buying a jeep can be an adventure!

UPDATE: **SOLD** Was $12,500.

Mark just listed this good looking M-38 over at warjeeps.com. Even includes a phone for that occasionally air strike you might need.

“M38 that drives great and is in great condition. Has always been garage kept and we’ll maintained. Everything works well and it has no rust or dents. Also has new tires.”

Photo from Trip Advisor post

The small Canadian town of Dawson Creek is home to several museums, including the Railway Station Museum and the Walter Wright Pioneer Museum. Because the town is considered the southern terminus of the ALCAN, or the Alaska – Canadian Highway, it’s also home to the Alaska Highway House, a small museum that chronicles the building of the highway. Inside the museum, is a jeep that participated in the building of the famous road.

EWillys has several photos and posts about the building of the highway, including this 1944 article by Herbert Lanks about a jeep trip up the new highway.

You may enjoy this humorous introduction to the museum (that includes the jeep):

Here are some still photos of the jeep:

I can’t wait to see this sign some day:

Photo from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Highway

The weekend is over and Kasia has returned to her ‘peeps’ at Fema Corps. On Saturday we braved the wind and rains for a trip to Roosevelt Field Mall. We did some shopping, then saw a movie (Interstellar – both liked it), and finally returned to Sea Cliff where we spent several hours talking. It was great!

Sunday morning we drove to the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, NY. On the plus side there were some great interactive exhibits, some interesting photos and stories. and, of course, lots of airplanes. I also even found an MB that was being used as a gift-shop display prop, though the jeep looked mostly complete.

On the down side we were approached by an exuberant docent ready to share all the information he could about Charles Lindberg, the museum and more (and more and more and … well, you get the picture). And, he did have some interesting tidbits and stories, but after a while he was just too much. Several times we thanked him for his help, turned and walked away, but then the guy would follow us and start up again! Finally, we just started walking away and he gave up.

Here’s some pics from the museum starting with two more of the jeep:

A sign marking the beginning of Lindbergh’s flight to Paris near the entrance to the museum:
Continue reading →

Starting my morning in Brooklyn at Barnes and Nobles. I’d misread the subway, so got off tow stops later than planned. At least I didn’t misread it all the way to Manhattan!

I ran out of time to update you on most of Wednesday’s adventures. However, Ann did post her version of my day on Facebook.

Traveler update. Poor David: it’s dangerous for him to travel without me… To start with, his plane got in at 7amish (an hour late), and included a woman passing out in the aisle next to him (hope it’s not Ebola). He’s gotten almost no sleep OR food in two days. His morning adventure was to visit a grave of a family friend and someone he’s done considerable research on. After a long walk from the train to hotel all the while dragging his bags he faced another long walk to the cemetery, only to find the cemetery much more vast than expected.

And that’s when IT START RAINING.

Undaunted he plodded-on but the grave wasn’t where that dang google map said it should be so he looked it up on the cemetery map, but then it started raining harder. Now my poor soaked traveler recognized an important fact: He should always listen to his wife, but more on that later.

Realizing his folly poor David tried to leave only to find a locked gate. Bewildered, cold, hungry, and soggy, and tired, he used his iPhone to look for an escape route…… but then, it died. In the end he had to trudge his way ALL the way back across the cemetery blinded by foggy rain splattered glasses, alone, all connection to the outside world lost, paranoid the cemetery was acting against him….wanting him to remain forever.

Thankfully, he made it out alive and was able to get a cab right away. He’s now back at his hotel and tucked into a warm bed to sleep while his sweater and only pair of jeans hopefully dry out. Now, I had to recommend a few times that he should:

1. Take more cabs and not kill himself walking all over hell and gone.
2. He should really really get a new phone since he’s been having so much trouble with his current one.
And 3! Take a darn coat. It’s winter and rain is expected in the forecast. My poor guy. While I love being right, heheheee, I don’t love it so much at his expense. Let’s hope the rest of his trip goes better then theses first few hours.

In her explanation, she missed one important encounter I’d forgotten to mention to her . . .

While walking in downtown Brooklyn this morning, some woman walking toward me stopped 20 yards in front of me, lifted her jacket, grabbed her crotch, and shouted “DO YOU WANT TO LICK MY P(female part)Y!?! WELL DO YOU!?! I was pretty shocked! So, was the middle aged woman pushing a stroller with a child in it just in front of me. Both of us froze while the eager, exuberant woman tried to convince us we should sample her wares, “C’MON, DO YA?”

Needless to say I and the stroller-pusshing woman both declined the generous offer and walked purposefully and briskly passed her.

On the bright side, I did have a fantastic burger at the Burger Bistro on 5th Street. They made burgers out of beef, Kobe beef, tuna, chicken, lamb, vegetables, and turkey! I splurged on a Medium rare Kobe burger. It was fantastic. Now, if only they’d made fresh fries.

Kobe beef, caramelized onion, chipotle (spicy!) sauce and hot pepper cheese. It was great!

Kaiser Willys has a special cyber Monday (Tuesday and Wednesday) deal! Check out the info here: Cyber Monday Promo Code Link:http://www.kaiserwillys.com/?p=THANKS

(Apparently not all the glitches are gone as I just had trouble re-logging into eWillys)

Some days just don’t go like I plan them. After being busy early this week with doctor appointments (for Ann), bread baking, and ewillys updating, I had set aside Friday morning to work on my next book.

But, life had other plans. First, Thursday’s night’s turkey (or maybe the glass of rum I had) upset my stomach, so I didn’t sleep well Thursday night. Then, at 9am while laying blissfully in bed with Ann, I received a call from Hobeken, New Jersey. I rarely receive calls anymore, let alone from numbers unknown. I told my wife that if there’s a message, it’s a bad sign.

There was a message. It was a bad sign.

A reader named Adam left a message informing me the site was down (and I do appreciate the message!). He noted that ewillys was defaulting to a domain renewal site. A few minutes later I got a follow up call and message from Roger in Ohio. Yep, there was definitely a problem.

After a few god-damnitts (not for the calls, but for the problem), I climbed out of bed and sat down at my computer desk. Only partly awake, I stared at the screen thinking ‘what do I do now‘? I was not quite firing on all cylinders (if any).  I pulled up eWillys. Sure enough, even in my half-awake state I could see that the wrong page appeared.

What was truly puzzling was that I HAD renewed eWillys.com eight days ago to avoid this very problem. To get to the bottom of it, I called the 1-800 number of the company (Midphase) that hosts my domain name (different than my web host). To my disbelief, I encountered three straight advertisements that required me to ‘exit’ the ads by clicking on the ‘star’ button of my phone. Worse, after the third ad I was redirected to Verizon (my phone provider). What the hell? I was really pissed.

So, I jumped back online. I entered a dizzying array of usernames and passwords before I remembered how to access my domain name management screen. I opened the billing section and saw that I had intact renewed my domain name. To get to the bottom of it, I entered an online help chat with a customer service support person who informed me I hadn’t renewed my domain name. But, yes I had, I wrote, and the evidence is on my billing statement!

The support person responded by exiting the chat and sending me to billing. Next thing I knew I was online chatting with a billing customer person. That person claimed I also hadn’t renewed my domain name. Again I wrote, But, yes I did and the evidence is on my billing statement!

She put me on hold so she could do research. A few minutes later she came back and told me that yes, I had renewed. They (who this mysterious they is remains a mystery) just hadn’t updated the domain name. She then apologized and said I’d have to wait a few hours for the domain name to propagate. I told her that wasn’t good enough. I wanted to know why it happened so that it wouldn’t happen next time. She responded that it could have happened for a variety of reasons. I asked how we keep this from happening next year. She offered to inform the admins of the problem . . . yeah, some admin at another location is going to listen to a call center person tell them they screwed up … I was not happy.

At this point I tried reaching through the screen to choke the person on the other end, but my hand bounced off my screen. To protect myself from virtually assaulting anyone, I left the chat room.

So, sorry for the drop in service Friday morning. While the domain seems to be fixed now, my faith Midphase’s domain service is most definitely broken.

UPDATE: Thanks to Josh for alerting me that Sunday night Craigslist was hacked, which brought down the site. Therefore not many posts this morning.

UPDATE: Still Available

(08/11/2014) Motor may run.

“1948 JEEP WILLYS PANEL 
NEEDS RESTORATION ( has rust all over the car)
MOTOR IS ORIGINAL WAS RUNNING GOOD 
ELECTRIC SYSTEM WORKS 
NEW BRAKES
IF INTERESTED”

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lgb/cto/4763042419.html

UPDATE: Price dropped to $6500.

(09/17/2014) This may have a replacement body. It looks like the gas inlet is large enough for a M-38 tank.

“1948 willys 
67 chevy Camaro v8
3 speed
New tires
Lift
new top with new doors 
very clean and garage kept”

http://scranton.craigslist.org/cto/4751088300.html

UPDATE: **SOLD** Was make offer

Boy, that license plate has been hammered.

“1951 Willy Jeep, needs a lot of work or to use as salvage. Will run but motor and transmission need work and transfer case has a crack in it. Make an offer.”

As you might have noticed recently, eWillys was offline. This was as much a surprise to me as it was to everyone else.

What happened? Last Wednesday eWillys’ web server stopped functioning correctly. When rebooted the server would function correctly for a minute or two, before becoming overwhelmed. Successive reboots proved useless.

What caused the problem? We still don’t know. After fiddling around with the server, we (meaning the McDonagh Brothers .. not much I could do) determined that the web server ran fine if it was not allowed to communicate with the wilds of the internet. What we concluded was that something might have been injected onto the server that was feeding back onto the web, consuming the resources of the web server. But, truthfully, we don’t know, because it didn’t work long enough to dissect.

The solution? After discussing the problem, I learned the McDonagh’s had built a cloud platform and were moving clients to it. I made the call to move eWillys to their cloud sooner than planned and move it onto the latest installation of a clean version of WordPress.

Why did that take 5 days? The problem was that they were already in the middle of moving other clients, so I needed to wait. While we waited, they tried restarting the server from time-to-time, but the same thing kept happening.

So, the good news is that eWillys is now on a faster platform. And, the move would have occurred anyway, so we have that out of the way!

UPDATES: During the downtime I created the code for a couple updates (which I still need to install). One is a bit of code that auto-marks post older than 6 months.

The second changes the way eWillys functions. When you click on a post’s comment or title link from the front page, a new browser tab will open. I am hoping this reduces the need to jump back and forth between the front page and individual posts. I will get that pertinent files installed in the next day or two.

UPDATE: **SOLD** Was $15000

Some more pics would be great.

“Built it myself in 1998. Original owner its got 16,000 miles with a small block Chevy motor 327. Asking $15,000 obo”

Looks solid.

“This jeep is awesome. Selling because I have my eye on another military item. This jeep is clean and runs. We are firm on the price so if you want it for less, do not bother.”

http://siouxfalls.craigslist.org/cto/4693573115.html

That’s one tough gate!

“This is a vintage full-page paper print ad from a magazine. Date is listed in the item’s title. This ad has been clipped from a vintage magazine and each page measures about 8″ x 11.”

View all the information on eBay

Roberto spotted this fun video from Dirt Every Day (DED) and Motor Trend showing Director of Four Wheeler Network, Rick Pewe and Hot Rod editor David Freiburger helping Fred fix a 1950 CJ-3A.