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Merlin Visits the Top Kicks Museum

• CATEGORIES: Features, Museums This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

Anyone familiar with West Virginia’s Top Kicks Military Museum? If not, it’s worth a look. Merlin stopped by the other day and filed a detailed report on his blog. The museum has an extensive Jeep collection that even includes a copy of the CJ4 Jeep and a 6 wheeler.

https://hansonmechanical.wordpress.com/2015/07/18/a-million-jeeps/

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Joseph’s High School Project and His LED Taillight Kit

• CATEGORIES: Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

joseph-kickstarter-campaign2

Pete from the Old Willys Forum shared this news with me. Click on the links to learn more.

Joseph is working on his high school senior project this summer.  He is planning to build a CNC Mill machine that will mill wood, plastic, and aluminum.  He just launched a Kickstarter Campaign to sell his Willys Station Wagon LED tail lights as a kit, to fund the purchase of the CNC parts.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192462920/willys-station-wagon-led-tail-light-kit

Once he has the CNC machine together, he will use it to produce the circuit boards for the LED tail lights, and other small parts that he can sell to help fund his ’51 Willys Wagon build. 

http://www.oldwillysforum.com/forum/showthread.php?2989-Joseph-s-51-Wagon-Build

He is hoping to sell 25-30 sets of the lights to fund the CNC project.  It is an ambitious senior project for a 16 year old kid, but he has already raised 2/3 of the 30 day campaign goal in the first 10 days…  There has been lots of interest in these lights on www.oldwillysforum.com and hopefully from others who might not visit the forum to find the info on them.

Even folks don’t need a set of the lights, they can support Joseph’s Kickstarter campaign by pledging $25 or more and get a cool shirt he designed for the project.  If they are feeling philanthropic, they can donate any amout to the campaign… 

Here is what comes in the “kit”, for each tail light, which bolts in to the stock Willys tail light bezel.

joseph-kickstarter-campaign

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Glenn’s Accident in Miss Willy

• CATEGORIES: Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

A couple days ago Glenn Byron was driving to a local Parking Lot Hot Dog Stand Display in his DJ-3A “Miss Willy” when a 90 year old driver pulled a left turn right in front of his bright yellow Jeep. The driver claimed the sun was in his eyes and he didn’t see glenn. Glenn hit the brakes, leaving about 5 foot skid marks from all four wheels before impact.

A nearly new Subaru was the victim, hit on passenger side, side air bags deployed, and probably totaled. The impact caused Miss Willy to flip onto her drivers side and slide a very short distance.
Miss Willy has bent frame, broken windshield, whole nose screwed up, and who knows how much more.

Fortunately, Glenn seems to be okay, though he did get hit on the head pretty good, causing him to be a little foggy. He’s not sure, but he believes he was ejected. No one seems to know of for sure.

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Here’s the Subaru:2015-07-glenn-crash2

Miss Willys before the accident:

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Melbourne’s Thomas Blamey Monument

• CATEGORIES: Features, Monuments/Statues, Old News Articles • TAGS: This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

Field Marshall Sir Thomas Albert Blamey was memorialized in a monument in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Melbourne, Australia. It shows him standing while gripping part of a jeep windshield. The way a July 1955 Willys News described it, I thought there’d be a whole jeep!

Thomas_Blamey_statue_Melbourne

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Blamey_statue_Melbourne.jpg Blamey is mounted on a jeep instead of the traditional horse. This conveys Blamey’s role in the technological transformation of the Army that occurred during his years of service

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Model Jeep on Display at the Met in 1946

• CATEGORIES: Features, Models, Old Images, Old News Articles This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

Pfc. Harold B. Whiting of Plainfield, New Jersey, built an award-winning model jeep that in 1946 that landed temporarily on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This article was featured in the February 2, 1946, issue of the Afro-American. I wonder where that model is now??

1946-02-02-afro-american-small-jeep-metropolitan-museum

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Progress on Biscuit

• CATEGORIES: Biscuit, Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

Last week I dropped by my parents house to visit. Naturally, I also had some sonny-do chores to finish, including my annual ‘sweeping of the roof’. Their tall fir trees might look beautiful, but eventually fall from the limbs and have to land somewhere. How they all seem to reach the roof remains a mystery to me.

The good news is I did manage to get a little work done on Biscuit. After swapping rear leaf spring combinations more times than i care to count, I finally got a grouping that puts the jeep level and the pumpkin at the right angle. That completes the changes necessary for the rear. Now I just have to finish off the engine compartment, brake, and clutch changes. I’m in no rush as the next book is the priority project, but hopefully by years end the jeep will be running again.

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