A student from Mississippi State University named Cliff contacted me yesterday.  He’s in the Aerospace program and also employed at the Raspet Flight Research Lab.  The lab owns and operates the M-38 Fire Jeep shown below. They have a problem with their jeep and need some help.

According to Cliff, the M-38 had developed a knock (after being loaned out temporarily), so Cliff and another co-worker tore the engine apart during some down time recently.

Cliff writes, “Here comes the bad news, once we got the motor on the stand and pulled the rod caps we find that the rod bearings on the 3rd and 4th cylinders have ground in to nothing, which was thought to be the case when a ton of metal shavings were found in the oil pan. The motor is not original to the jeep, it had been replaced in ’88 with an F-head and a hole cut in the hood to accommodate it, and seems to be a rebuilt engine because the crank has already been turned once. So here is the dilemma. The lab is low on money and is not wanting to pay a lot for repairs but many of us here would like to save the jeep from the scrap yard and return it to its duties as our fire truck. So I am here to ask for your help in saving this Jeep, we are in need of a new crank and badly need a new wiring harness and am asking for donations on these parts but am also willing to trade the entire F-head motor(which other then needing a new crank is in great shape) for a L-head motor.”

I responded to Cliff to see if I can get a little more information about this project and what else they might need (for example, bearings, seals, etc) to get this running again.

Unless someone wants to contact Cliff themselves (I’ll be happy to forward an addy) and provide assistance (maybe you live close or graduated from the Mississippi State or for some other reason), I will be happy to organize some help for Cliff and his project.

Here are some pics of the jeep before disassembly:

View more pics by clicking the link below —

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