Bubba Repairs - Genius at work

Looking forward to this. I wish I had keep some photo history.

I really thought the chain w/spring attached to dash then attached to shift lever to keep from popping out second was great. I guess he drank hot coffee and liked second gear.

Edited by johnnybravo - 20 Aug. 2014 at 2:41am

micjen wrote: I have always been intrigued by the genius of the Bubba backyard repairs that appear from time to time. My CJ2A project seems to have more than its fair share. Please share all those wonderful repair stories and pictures most of us seem to come across in the process of restoring their CJ2A ride. Things like why change a tierod when you can tie it into place with fishing line? Or why repair a frame when a railway sleeper works just as well? Or how about a wooden body frame? I will start the ball rolling with one. Why repair a broken spring when you can simply bolt a piece of canvas strap to a shock and tie it to the frame? Genius. In the spring photo one can see the broken eye of the spring. It would have been quicker to change the leaf than make up the shock-spring combo.

If the bloke was way off the beaten track, this may have been a "get me home fix" that lasted waaay longer then Bubba planned. In the Outback (does this get capitalized?) the needed springs just might not have been available. Here in the western part of the U.S. thing get fixed enough to get us home and then gets repaired properly when we get home. For some ranchers it helps to find time, the parts, and the $$ at the same time.

I have seen lots of odd stuff. I once found an oak beam installed in the frame of a 2.5 ton farm truck. It kept the two broken pieces of the frame together. I found an exploded U-joint repaired with about 10 feet of barbed wire. The ranch hand had just wrapped the barbed wire around the joint until he felt it would get him home. When it broke, he just wrapped in some more! It was a major PITA to repair. Yes it was barbed wire, not baling wire! I have the scars to prove it. Oh, I just looked, the scars have faded over the years. I can still see them if I look close.

Not a Willys, but I found the wing spar on a Cessna 185 from Alaska repaired with an axe-cut & shaped piece of Douglas Fir. It was not approved by the FAA. The pilot said it had been that way for as long as he had owned the airplane. I estimate that it had been installed for at least 25 years. It was well done, so I tried to get a one-time field approval from the FAA. They did not see it the owners way. We installed a new-to-us wing and the old one went on the pilots wall with the Fir beam prominently displayed! Now that I am studying to become an engineer, I can see that it would probably work, but I can not prove it (too many variables). Twenty five years of "testing" does not count with the Feds, nor should it.  

My '51 M38 had a home made switch plate installed over the military oval hole for the three lever light switch. Upon removal I found they torched clearance for the switches instead of just arranging them vertically. That took a day to weld up and grind out nice. They also just drilled out the captive threads for the original switch instead of using them to hold the bubba plate. Mental Giants!  John

I had a 1948 CJ2A when I was just out of high school that had rusted out so bad, the previous owner had made the back half of the body from 3/4 plywood. They followed the body lines pretty well and it looked like a Jeep. :)

Years ago, my Dad and I worked on an old Jeep that we bought fairly cheap. They said it was rewired...it was...with solid core house wire and about 300 wire nuts! 

My name is Ben Mckinny I live in Nyssa OR. I purchased a 1946 cj2a from a bubba. I know a picture is worth a thousand words so here's a few thousands worth. ALT mount.

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Edited by Flatfender Ben - 02 Sep. 2014 at 12:17am

Years of bubba welding stuff to bumper

Anywhere bubba saw a loose body bolt he added a plastic body shim. There must be 30-40 of them on this old jeep. I guess it keeps all the loose bolts from rattling. Ha ha.    

I don't know if bubba jumped this jeep or what but the frame has had a hard life to say the least. [URL=http://s67.photobucket.com/user/bensseamlessgutters/media/52E68D9F-C720-4431-9CC3-E988C14ACB20_zps37sgmrt6.jpg.html][/URL]