So my ol' man handed down to me his ol' man's 1951 CJ3A. First thing I did was gather a backstory and find out as much background as I could. What I have been able to gather so far is my grandfather use to work for an avocado distributing company called Index Mutual (now Index Fresh). He also was a grower for Index mutual and owned several jeeps throughout the years to use on the ranch and haul avocados down to the packing house. Apparently this was his last and nicest willys he had. From what I've been able to tell so far, it appears fairly unmolested and original. At least for being a 51 Willys. A few details I was able to gather from my father was that my grandpa had the motor rebuilt (unsure how long ago this was), fuel tank replaced, and seats reupholstered. The body was resprayed by my father back in the mid 70s. At some point after the motor had been rebuilt it stopped running. It got torn apart, had a seized piston, and between lack of internet for parts and research and other projects coming up, the jeep got pushed to the back of the line in priority. So it has been sitting torn apart for the last 20-30 years. Initially it was garaged, then it was stored outside under a harbor freight tent, then the tent got torn down from the horrible weather here in San Diego
, and so it sat outside for maybe the last couple years.
When it got signed over to me I wanted to find out as much history of the vehicle as possible, and soon realized how difficult of a task that is. It did come with the original body serial tag, but when I looked above the water pump for the engine serial number it appeared it had been ground off most likely from the engine rebuild... However, I am fairly confident the VIN number used on the pink slip is the engine serial number as it is the same format as engine serial numbers of that time period. (I had read somewhere this could be pretty common as well) Also the VIN number (i think) makes sense for what the original engine serial number would be with my body tag serial number. If anyone wants to confirm or correct that last sentence please do. (Body tag serial number 451-GB1-41091 and engine serial number 3J93843). So then came the question "was there ever a different motor swapped into it before the rebuild?" The way everything is looking, I am fairly confident the engine serial number to this motor is the VIN number. I don't suppose there is any way of knowing for sure is there?
Anyway I'll stop chatting and post up some picture. BTW it hasn't changed much from how it looked when I got it. That is because the first thing I did was build a shop for it to keep it out of the rain. Then I gathered all the parts that were scattered around and started doing some very rough cleaning, including vacating a rat out of the fuel tank... I did get the steering wheel and steering box/column out, and the body is all unbolted ready to be lifted off. Just need to figure out how and where to store it while I go through frame and drivetrain components.
Here is how it sat when i received it...
