New Willys owner - 1946 CJ2A

Hi everyone, new Willys owner here. A friend of mine got me into the Willys hobby, we've been wrenching on his jeep for a while... Then I see this ebay auction, the jeep was less than 10 miles from my house, so of course I had to get it.

Edited by konstan - 22 Aug. 2016 at 3:26am

Spent today taking things off, trying to see what it would take to get her started... Here are my findings, in no particular order:

Edited by konstan - 22 Aug. 2016 at 3:58am

mike in oregon wrote: The left side lug nuts are left hand thread if you did not know that.

Edited by konstan - 22 Aug. 2016 at 5:18am

Thanks! I am pouring ATF and Mineral spirits into the SP holes but I am also kind of committed to taking the head off, so I can clean things up; i want to see how bad the rust is in the cylinders.

Fwiw, I soaked the head bolts on my last adventure in atf/acetone for two weeks or more before any attempt to budge things... most nuts came off, some studs came out with the nuts, but what finally popped the head itself loose was the old soft rope through the sp hole and turning the crank by the nut method.

Lol, can take no credit, learned it here, but it does work if you can get things turning. Soaking and patience is key. Any chance you can figure o
ut which cylinder is on the compression stroke and get some compressed air in there? (My luck it'll be all the way up just befor tdc and would be pushing through the crank centerline anyway)

Edited by mbullism - 23 Aug. 2016 at 12:19pm

I dont have enough of them under my belt to say universally, but can say that even after the gasket let go I was a full half hour alternating wooden wedges around just getting the head off the remaining studs-

Edited by mbullism - 23 Aug. 2016 at 3:42pm

I'll add that if you go the wedges route, be extremely mindful working around the valves until you get a good feeling for what you're banging on.  I had one exhaust valve stuck wide open that would have been easy to damage further had I been using steel wedges early on, and the valves are proud of the deck even when closed... at least the wood split easily when it contacted anything unseen.

Ended up making those wedges from aluminum. Didnt have any brass pieces; aluminum is softer but turned out to be sufficient:

rust probably from the head bolts, just let it soak, i used a 2x4 and a BFH to jar the rings to get them to brake loose from the bores. sop up the oil in  cyl before hammering or wear safety glasses. key word is dont get in a hurry.

Edited by jeeper50 - 24 Aug. 2016 at 11:06pm