I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep
theautopian.com
theautopian.com
I'm wondering if there'll be any follow up:
Thats a lot of metal in the engine oil. Whats the source? is there a fix? or is it just 'breaking in' a new motor?
Did he ever solve the overheating problems?
Did he ever finish the headlights and other small items?
and now what does he do with all the duplicate/spare parts?
I've done a couple extremely high stress road trips, so I fully empathize with him passing out every time he had to pull over. What a fun read; I love these ultra-long-form articles.
About the only mechanical component you can't buy is the gearbox "bucket", presumably because nobody ever breaks those. You can actually get various gearbox upgrades for them which is worth it if you daily one, because the mainshaft nut can slacken off and get you jammed in gear.
Terrifying prospect. What are your options in that situation? Would turning off the ignition have any effect?
Unscrew the bolts holding the top of the gearbox where the selector mechanism goes, lever the main gear back into place with a long screwdriver, and then use the screwdriver to tap the mainshaft nut around until it's reasonably tight again. Then drive it home where you can fix it properly.
At least, that's what I did.
No biggie. Just knock it into neutral, brake to a stop, and figure out what to do after that.
Both times once I got it stopped, determined that nothing really bad was happening, and that it was safe-ish to proceed, I just put it in 1st, started it up, and went up through the gears carefully without using the now no longer disengageable clutch until I got home and could look at it properly.
When you put it in first, the brass collar locks the biggest output gear to the shaft, which is driven by the smallest input gear, so you've got a big reduction, and so on - look at the derailleur on your bike, it's the same idea.
There's a semicircular fork that slides on a rod and that rod has notches cut in it, that a ball bearing on a spring clicks into. When you put the gearbox into gear, the click you feel is it jumping into that notch.
But that notch and that pea-sized ball bearing is all that holds it in place!
So you can lift off the throttle a little so the gearbox isn't under tension, push gently on the shaft, and it'll pop into neutral.
If you start it in first gear, you can get some speed up, pop it into neutral, and then if you carefully get the right amount of revs, you can just pop it into second. I don't recommend trying this in a car you plan to keep for a long time, it wears the gearbox quite heavily, but you will be able to do this - with some horrible noises the first few times until you get used to it - and keep your starting and stopping and changing gear to a minimum all the way home, or to a garage.
So now if your clutch cable breaks, you know you can actually get out of the snowstorm and home, or at least somewhere safer.
Seriously though you'll get it figured out in no time, and while you'll probably never need it, one day you might.
If you were stuck in a certain gear you couldn't shift down to go much slower without stalling (but you can let it stall, if you were trying to stop anyway. You wouldn't be the first car to break down on the highway) and you couldn't shift up to go much faster (but in an emergency you could still floor the accelerator, wasting gas and wearing out your engine much faster).
The amount of equipment left over from WW2 was staggering.
I remember him saying that the RAF buried Spitfire engines, so it's definitely a real practice.
You may be shocked to learn that practices such as this exist in the modern US military as well.
Although 9 days later:
> Archaeologists believe no Spitfires buried in Burma
People collect these things just because, almost like pokemon cards, another example would be the rarity of finding a specific year of East German Makarov in pristine/factory new condition.
Super article. Something to actually read, great photos. "How I Got Myself In This Predicament" is just the sort of subheading I like to read.
How do you go about titling and registering a brand new body + frame?
You end up with a special "Q" (as in James Bond?) number plate. There's a whole bunch of different processes depending on how Car of Theseus the vehicle is. Apparently this has recently been streamlined for rebuilds of classics from original parts (which is _not_ what the Jeep is). The system is still intended to prevent the re-use of crashed or otherwise written off frames, though.
For military equipment you usually need the original frame (or part of it with stamps) because it has serial numbers stamped on it for the DMV to go by when registering.
That's a temporary operating permit, colloquially called a moving permit. I've not built a car, so I dunno what happens there... but I've gotten moving permits for cars that have expired registration and need an emissions test to get registered. Can't have wheels on the public road unless it's registered or you have a movimg permit.
Afaik, all of our states have a process to get a VIN for a car without one... although it's common to take a VIN from a similar donor vehicle because it's less effort and vehicle safety and emissions requirements are de facto tied to the model year on the title. Legally, they're tied to the year of manufacture --- emissions ties to the year of the engine, not sure about safety.
You see all sorts of shenanigans if you look though. VW ended sales of Beetles in the US by the early 80s but still manufactured and sold them in Mexico through the 90s... it was not uncommon to send your US titled beetle to Mexico for "repair" and get back something very different. Sometimes just an engine transplant, sometimes only some key component from the US vehicle like the frame or the floor pan would remain, sometimes just the VIN plate. Putting a newer engine legally triggers newer emissions standards, but if you don't tell anybody and nobody notices, you can get away with it for a long time.
pic: https://images-stag.jazelc.com/uploads/theautopian-m2en/Scre...
Another example would be the dude who used a chainsaw on some lead acid batteries, for reasons.
https://www.theautopian.com/how-i-used-a-chainsaw-to-remove-...
That dude's also an owner of the company, so maybe giving himself lead poisoning for clicks is worth it?
(Owner of two old german cars, one which has seen a partial engine rebuild, the other significant chassis welding. No formal training doing either.)
I bought a couple and I've already had to do a lot of work.
It turns out, it's not that difficult. The systems are simple, each on their own, with few exceptions. When you isolate systems, you can just learn one at a time without pressure to be a whole mechanic. I still reserve the right to send it to the shop if needed.
I haven't had to rebuild an engine yet, but I've been all around the wheels, tires, axels, AC, fuel system, timing, vacuum lines, trailer wiring, brakes, coolant system, and of course I service all my own fluids.
I put it off way too long. My advice is to start now, if you think you'll like it. And you can start with mowers...a whole lot of the tools and concepts transfer.
Find an older VW (or similar) and that's the basics and a bit more. Definitely replace the fuel lines on an old VW, but otherwise drive it and let it tell you what needs doing. IMHO, fuel injection is nicer than carburetion, but you some early injection systems have a bad reputation; Bosch L-jetronic seems pretty reasonable. Some people really like carbs though, so up to you.
Lots and lots of forums, some of them helpful even.
When it's an extra car that you have for fun, you don't have as much of the 'needs to work asap' stress and you can also get one that's more questionable cosmetically to save some money.
And how much I love that this is an article instead of an youtube video.