1948 CJ2A restoration

Removed the head bolts - three different sizes:

Quite the variety of thread engagement and condition.

Removed the head - something's missing:

Um, there's no gasket! 

One more pic of where I left off tonight.

LOTS of rust and corrosion in the cooling passageways, and a ton of carbon buildup on the valves.  Needs a complete teardown and overhaul.  Water pump has some corrosion on the impeller, but might be salvageable.

Comments and suggestions are always welcome.  This is my first teardown and rebuild ... on anything.  

Once I get the engine out and disassembled, what's the first step to get the engine cleaned and overhauled?  Should I take it to a shop (wish we had a 'metal shaper' in Houston), and just let them go through it?  Or do I take it to one shop for cleaning, another shop for boring and honing ... ? ... you get the idea.

I am definitely going to have the machine work done, but until I get it torn apart, I’m not sure what is needed. After watching Brian‘s videos, I was thinking that I’d try reconditioning the valve seats myself. I don’t know what kind of work is involved in cleaning the engine block and re-honing the cylinders. I also don’t know if they will need to be bored oversize. 

This next one has me concerned.  The rear diff. was so dirty and covered with a dirt/oil pancake that I didn't see the hole.  It looks like the differential cover has been punctured, and not from the outside.  I haven't pulled off the cover yet, but this doesn't look good.  I can only guess that a tooth broke off and impacted the cover.  It must have been wedged between the cover and a rotating element to drive it through like that.  Otherwise, the cover was damaged when it was off, and it was installed like this.  

The next pic is the passenger side leaf spring hanger.  You can see that it's broken, and there's not much metal left.  Mostly likely, I'll have these ground off and new gusset plates welded on.  If anyone has any frame details on these, comments are more than welcome.

This one is the driver side frame rail near the rear bumper where the wiring harness exits the frame rail.  You can see the hole that has rusted through the bottom of the frame rail (look inside the frame - under the wiring harness).  The material is pretty thin in this area.  There will be a lot of small areas like this that need to be patched or repaired.

I'm planning to strip the frame bare, and have it sand blasted and weld-repaired.  I still don't have a shop lined up yet, but any suggestions are welcome.  

I'm in the Houston area.

Merry Christmas to all, and best wishes for a Happy New Year!

Handy access hole for installing the clutch fork sometimes.  

There are very good drawings with measurements in section “R”, page 239, of the Service Manual for Universal Jeep Vehicles. You DO have a service manual, don’t you?  There’s also a very good drawing on page 96 of the Parts List - Jeep Models CJ-2A and 3A.

You should have one of them too. 

  Tell ya what I’ll do - I have a very nice original frame without its body right now. If you’ll post pictures of the areas in question, I’ll post pictures of the same areas on my frame. 

BW 

It's alright Bruce, it's the holidays and I think we can give you a pass