School me on old "willys". Which one is abundant, where to look, what not to buy, where to get parts, where not to get parts, ih8mud for willys, etc etc..
I like these... which one is my best bet to find:
GPW
MB
CJ2
CJ2A
M38
CJ3A
in my searches... I ran across the statement that the purist hate the CJ2A and CJ3A. Is that true?
GPW stands for General Purpose Willys, they were of WW2 vintage, not many intact survivors. Manufactured from 1941-1945, 277,896 produced. Most survivors have been cut up or heavily modified and are no longer in their OEM condition, if they are in OEM condition, they are probably sitting in a museum, same goes for MBs.
MB, manufactured from 1941-1945, they had recessed headlights like the GPWs, slat grills, 368,714 produced. Again, not many left that are intact.
CJ2 was Willys first effort at civilianizing the jeep with an eye toward post war use. There weren't many made and some were designed to replace the farm tractor, "Agri jeeps".
CJ2A was the evolution of the CJ-2, manufactured from 1945 to 1949. IIRC up until 1946, they had Dana 41 rear and Dana 25 front axles. After that the rear was upgraded to Dana 44. The CJ-2A has a split windshield, looks like your standard flat fender jeep, had a 134 ci L head engine that was slow but dependable, 60 hp. Several different transmissions were used, transfer case, I am not sure of but I think it was a Dana 18 or 20.
M38 manufactured from 1950-51, replaced with M38A1 manufactured from 1951-1963. These had a 24 volt elctrical system, 4 cylinder engine, 60,345 produced.
The M38 was the military version of the CJ-3, was flat fender and had a 1 piece windshield
The M38A1 was the military version of the CJ-5.
M38s had better frames, drive train and are a little more plentiful.
Actually, I think purists hate the CJ-3B aka the high hood jeep. They look funky but the hood height was necessary to accomodate an ohc engine. The CJ-2A and 3A are well thought of by the Jeep community with knowledge of Jeep's history.
The CJ-3A is almost identical to the CJ-2A with the exception being CJ-3A's had a one piece windshield. They were manufactured from 1948-1953.
The CJ-3B was manufactured from 1953 to 1966. The later 60s CJ-3Bs were made for foreign militaries, but some managed to stay in the states also.
I think your best bet is to locate a CJ-2A or CJ-3A, there were plenty manufactured of both models, parts are easy to get, even vintage parts. Don't base your model decision on the windshield attached to the Jeep. Due to CJ-2s and 3s being so similar, a popular mod is to swap the 1 piece windshield from the 3 for the 2 piece from the 2A. They are out there, you just have to look. Another thing is they come with 9" brakes, a popular swap is to get 10" brakes from a later model jeep, usually a CJ-5 and swap them onto the older jeep.
I have a 1948 CJ-2A I bought in high school that has only 38,000 actual miles on it. It is all original except for the seats, and the engine. The engine that is in it, came out of a CJ-3. I still have the original engine and will get it overhauled and put back in one of these days. I mention this to illustrate the ease of swapping parts between these two models.
For better info, go to the Jeep Forum by vbulletin they have a category for early CJs. There is another site, called early CJ-5.com which has some but not a lot of info on flat fenders, they are more oriented to early Cj-5s.
Should you buy one and the body is rusted or shot, you can buy new panels or go through a company called Willys Overland and buy a tub that is factory correct, and has all of the right holes punched for mounting the body and attachments.
Honestly, if you wanted too, you could build one from scratch, there are companies that make frames, body parts, gages etc. There is a lot of aftermarket support for flatfender civilian jeeps.
If you have any specific questions you can pm me.
