Put the canvas top back on the Jeep today. Morning temps in the 60’s now and that’s uncomfortably chilling without the top. Leaving the driver-side “door” off for now. The Jeep has a damned good heater so I might be able to drive this for another month or so.
This 10 minute drive doesn’t begin to capture the joy of driving my 1947 CJ 2A on a scorching summer day with the wind in my thinning hair.
Had a small brush pile to get rid of but the pickup was full of mulch. Tossed the brush on the back of the Jeep, put it in 4WD/low range and headed down the hill to a big pile. Doesn’t look like much of a hill in the photo above but it’s steep-ish. The Jeep pulled it with no problem.
Decided to add a bit of flair to the Jeep.
After a year of hand signals –which no one under the age of 65 has ever seen– the Jeep has turn signals. I wasn’t looking forward to a winter of unzipping the canvas door on the Jeep to stick my arm out for a signal. Why drive the Jeep in the winter? Like the pickup (1977) and the Land Rover (1979) it needs to be driven regularly. If I drive a different vehicle every day, that means each of them gets some exercise twice a week.
(Wikipedia) “A crankcase ventilation system removes unwanted gases from the crankcase of an internal combustion engine. The system usually consists of a tube, a one-way valve and a vacuum source (such as the inlet manifold).”
“The unwanted gases, called “blow-by”, are gases from the combustion chamber which have leaked past the piston rings. Early engines released these gases to the atmosphere simply by leaking them through the crankcase seals. […] Positive crankcase ventilation (PCV) systems— first used in the Second World War and present on most modern engines— send the crankcase gases back to the combustion chamber, as part of the vehicle emissions control, in order to reduce air pollution.”
The pickup got a little love today as well. Raising the hood was always a bit of struggle but the new hinges made it so stiff I had to use a tire iron to pry the hood up. A new hood spring fixed the problem.
The Jeep has been out of service for the last week or two so today we put it on a truck and took it to Dr. Paul’s Automotive Clinic. Took a hour or two but he figured it out.
The ignition switch failed and was feeding juice into the system even when the ignition was in the OFF position. That burned up the points and condenser in the distributor; the coil; and the tachometer. Paul replaced everything and she fired right up.
