Gerald recently sold his snow plow.  Through a few email exchanges, I learned snow plowing was always an adventure, but not always fun ….

Geralds writes, “Plowing was fun as long as it was just for me. The Jeep did a great job. One of the odder experiences occured when plowing long lanes and roads:  the jeep would go silent.  After spending some time wondering why this occurred, I finally figured out that so much water was coming into the engine compartment that the belt would just slip and then the motor would go quiet.  It seems that most of the noise from a stock Willys comes from the fan, especially in low range it is the steel blade that makes the most noise.

Seems like everyone would call and want me to plow their places out with “that Jeep” I had.  It was hairy out on the road with the plow.  The weight would come off the back wheels and the jeep wanted to turn around.  And the roads would always be bad since that is when the snow came.  I ended up putting about 300 pounds of sand bags in the bed.  Here is a pic of me plowing one day.

The biggest frustrations I had was that sometimes old ladies (and men) would bitch about how I pushed the snow and ask if I could move it over about 2 feet or so, or complain that I was digging up the grass at the edges of their yard and driveways; all this after almost killing myself getting to their place to make a couple bucks.  And I wasn’t the only ones who had a problem with the slick roads, as you can see from the picture I took below …

Also, it would be hard on the old girl;  when going to the neighbors or misc old folks who needed a plow, salt on the road became the enemy.  It isn’t even the plowing so much as the tons of salt that would find there ways into every nook and cranny on the jeep.  Since there was no chance to wash a jeep in freezing temperatures, the salt caused rust to invade the original body on my 3B.  So, when I rebuilt her I had to replace the body.

But, like the picture above shows, it was fun some times too.  My jeep was a plow jeep its whole life until the restoration in 2006.  No more work for it as my driveway is only about 300 feet; So, if I need to plow, I just get out in the snow with my 84 John Deere 318 (or my neighbors bobcat when things get really bad). (See more pics of Gerald’s 3B, before and after the rebuild)”

Well, I wont’ be sending my kids to college with all my earnings from the sale of the 3 Champs, but I made a little money on the deal and did a good deed for the Champ community.

I have to say that getting a chance to poke around them, seeing how they were built, etc, was an interesting experience.  And, with more time and money, I think they would have been a fun rebuild; however, I am quite pleased to be rid of them!

No updates tonight (monday night)!

I’m sorry to say that I experienced a death recently, a close friend with whom I have shared close calls and turbulent times.  While my friend was there most times, there were times that this friend was nowhere to be found.  For this reason, I don’t wholly miss my friend.  In fact, though I buried my friend, rather than entombing my friend 6ft under ground, my friend is entombed in my computer bag.

Yes, my Samsung Instinct died; Or more accurately, I put him to death.  He was behaving badly over the last week, so I punished his disloyalty by purchasing a new phone with a new provider — a Samsung Captivate with the Andriod OS with AT&T. So, though my old friend is gone and buried, he is not missed … not in the slightest.

With my new phone, I can now text again, dial phone numbers, surf the web and even download APPS.  Oh happy days!

Since I am now back in the age of modern phones, I felt it was time to implement a ‘mobile edition’ of eWillys.  For now, it is simply a mobile browser addition, meaning it is a little friendlier for the phone — at least it is on my android phone.

Let me know if it works or doesn’t work.  You can always turn it off by scrolling all the way down and clicking on “turn mobile off”.  Once you turn it off, you can view the regular site.  To reinstate the mobile view, you’ll need to clear the cookies in your mobile phone browser.

Here’s a good link you can use to find Willys Parts

This seller wants to make a deal.

“I would like to trade my 4×4 ATV’s for a Jeep Wrangler, CJ or Willys in good condition. Each of the ATV’s have working wenches and are 4 wheel drives. They run great and don’t need anything that I know of. One of them is a Yamaha Grizzly 400 and the other is a Kawasaki Prarie 360. Send some pic’s, describe your trade and let’s do business. I need a vehicle and don’t have the cash. Let me know what your thinking!! Send your emails to your autopro@rocketmail.com Thanks for the interest…”

http://cosprings.craigslist.org/cto/1955878452.html

This truly deserves a longer story, but the coffee shop will close soon and I need to eat & to get back on the road to Boise. A Big THANKS to Josh for alerting me to this opportunity!

Yes, tonight I bought 3 Austin Champs.  It turns out one of them is a Royal Marines RN Champ.  There are only 3 of these know in existence (it’s the gray one). You can see some big pics here.

Looking for something else, I encountered these two treasures from treasurenet.com.