GROSS Yard Find '52 Jeep! Will It Run? | Roadkill Garage | MotorTrend

[Music] dulcich bought a new vehicle which is like a monthly occurrence around here and as is normal he's texting me photos of it he's like dude look what I got and everything it's kind of a junkyard find kind of feel to it he's already talking about like putting a stroker motor in it let's do this let's do that what I'm going to do is try and talk him into just making it run and drive so I'm gonna go see this thing for the very first time and uh hopefully he's gullible I had no idea that your new Jeep was this good wow well yeah look at this that is the hard top man that's like homemade it's a production piece as crude as it looks this bumper is awesome I don't like the bumper oh come on I can't guarantee you that's gonna stay but it's got these hatches it's kind of like a submarine bridge I love it you got Saginaw steering looks like it's mounted a little strangely but yeah it's not bad but effective look at the stack of washers there this thing looks like it has old maybe Rancho lift springs on it yeah not quite enough for these 32s I've got like two inches to Defender over here these are 33 12 50 15s I like that size on a flatbender it looks good to me it does it needs to be lifted a little bit if you're going to off-road it but I know you you're just going to drive it around the sand washing I've got to look the part when I'm uh Mall crawling with it so I'm just I'm gonna have to do a little bit more lift this is a cj3a yep you know how I know the windshields get changed a lot from a 2A to a 3A so you can't really count on that the difference is that a cj2a would have a split windshield it would be two pieces and this one is one and the front frame horn shape up here and this custom wiring oh it has a block heater oh no way look at that plug wow oh dude yes what did you notice the whole body is skinned I know do you see the rivets yes that's kind of an odd thing but it's overlaid with uh sheet metal for some reason small block Chevy yeah that to me was like a deal maker oh nice what engine is it and the guy said 350 but to a lot of guys any small block Chevy is called a 350 right I don't know if it starts and runs I can't stand this two barrel carburetor because it doesn't go now floor it all right Steve I'm going to give you our goal for this episode all we're gonna do is make it run and drive because once that happens you're not going to want to change it all up you can just use it for a tractor on the farm so whatever it takes we're going to make it move under its own power without changing the engine did you look at the interior see if you approved it's got a lot of like I call them desert wrap kind of mods there is glitter in the handle of the toggle switches on the piece of angle iron this shifter is an eight ball this one is brew 102. that was a beer made in Los Angeles back in the day wow that is vintage it's got overdrive that's the extra shifter here this thing was just magic in it today oh it's got an AMC steering column oh that's a CJ7 column yeah I okay pressure wash it roll it inside fire it up [Music] [Music] okay Steve remember just make it run don't get it right just make it run you know I can live with that you can handle it if we could make it run I'll be a pretty happy camper look at that Ram Air all right what do we have here basic small block Chevy we don't really know what it is they claim it's a 350 who cares if it is or isn't I think we need to go through a process here let's try and make it good because I'm counting on this engine staying in the Jeep for my lifetime okay so let's see if it'll turn over by hand we can pull spark plugs out of it I got new spark plugs we can investigate the points and condenser we can carb clean it maybe even wait for it I'm waiting change the oil well you got to make sure you have the lubricity right I just want to drain the oil and see if it comes out in chunks or not man I really have my fingers crossed fry burger if this fires up it'll save me so much time swapping an engine yeah we're gonna de-glop this thing this motor is filthy it looks like it was at one time corporate blue which lends Creed this to the fact that it might be a 350. Here Comes The Moment of Truth and Boop not bad Steve oh yeah it's a little Gloppy at first oh that was a big chunk it's starting to drip oh yeah it's going down my arm oh come on ah why are there so many threads on these things there we go oh that was Gloppy and had water in it yep lots of water in the filter Steve oh really uh-huh here it comes behind the passenger side front tire right where you said yeah so here's the filter that came off the engine and uh it'd be interesting to see what's actually caught in the filtering media so I'm gonna stick this in the Vise as so I've got a special oil filter cutter opener works like a can opener there's a cutting thing here a couple of rollers there you turn the handle here to advance the cutting blade there we go and what you're looking for is obvious signs of internal engine distress like flakes of bearing material that means you've got bad bearings I issued this a clean bill of health I think our possibilities are very promising there's a new filter oh yeah it's filling up okay okay yeah that's officially running no Blue Line the thing runs great a little smoke at the tailpipe but that's normal no that's fine yeah I'm calling that official breaking news here I'm ready you have no rear drive shaft do I have a yoke do I have anything you have a half a slip yolk hanging out the back wow that's a short drive shaft because they moved everything back to install the Muncie this is Fubar it is you know what Fubar means yeah all messed up yeah uh wiggle the linkage well the shifter is now bolted to the floor it's actually just doing nothing not being bolted to the floor is not my problem right now see if you can hold the base of it and actually make it pivot because it's not attached to anything up here no I can't do that now I think we need to weld it to the floor that sounds Pro [Music] that's welded up to Perfection I considered that a professional grade repair [Music] okay here we go let's see is this the right length yeah that's gonna be okay I bought this molded radiator hose from the auto parts store it kind of has the bones of what I need but it's too long so what I'm going to do is cut it down the middle take a chunk out of it and then I'm gonna make a slicer out of this galvanized pipe put that in the middle shirt in length and it'll work perfectly I have to congratulate myself on a job really well done on that radiator hose it looks really good a couple of extra hose clamps but I really don't mind [Music] here we are at our secret test facility we've been here with the wreck Runner we've been here with that 41 Ford we're here at the 40 Ford this is the first time we've been here with an actual 4x4 I know that has four wheel drive now you know what I was thinking about though no do you have any idea why a Jeep is called a Jeep oh of course you do gpw and what does that mean general purpose okay School me Prime Burger hate it when people come up with that so here's the thing all right remember they had the GP before the gpw so the Ford gpw was the World War II jeep that was made to Willy's specifications so it doesn't mean general purpose Gia's government p is an internal code for the wheelbase and W is in fact Willy's and so Jeep could have been a contraction of gpw GP but I don't think so I think it's from Eugene the Jeep on the Popeye cartoons you think so but what does that have to do with the Jeep because it means that they can do anything and go anywhere that's exactly what Eugene the jeep was and so I think it's either a contraction of gpw or it's Eugene the Jeep it has got nothing to do with general purpose that didn't exist I'm fired up this is the best running small block Chevy flat Fender Jeep in the history of mankind I know it's pretty good and I'm kind of not exaggerating prepare yourself David I embraced myself this thing's actually peppy it's very good you're in low range yeah [Music] you know what would make the Jeep slightly better brakes and seat belts yeah the brakes are like secondary to seat belts yeah we still don't know it's off-road capability but it is a Jeep make that climb yeah probably but if you don't you gotta back down with no brakes oh this thing climbs just like a mountain goat yeah no problem at all these flat Fender Jeeps are really good even with the stock motor and the stock suspension everything like if you throw Lockers in them yeah you can go anywhere oh some of my best days are in a flat Fender yeah me too I mean I cut my flat fenders that's basically Where it All Began for me I didn't come to them until much later in life when I was the editor of four-wheel and off-road magazine ah this is nothing for a flat Fender Jeep oh there we go my foot slipped off the gas pedal oh great oh this is the model of safety do I go for it oh yeah you got this [Music] you lifted and it still went see wow we are invincible that's great yeah

Channel: MotorTrend Channel

Views: 345,477

Keywords: motortrend, motor trend, motor trend channel, automotive, auto, roadkill garage, roadkill, motortrend full episodes, motortrend full episode, roadkill full episodes, Roadkill Garage MotorTrend, Freiburger, 1952 CJ-3A Jeep, jeep, jeep restoration, jeep rescue, jeep cj, cj jeep, jeep build, jeep offroad

Id: Qf_aIjHadoU

Length: 12min 41sec (761 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 08 2023