My Little "Barn" Find... '55 CJ5

What's the difference?

 

So I have been digging through more of the parts that the Jeep came with... apparently that included an old soft top with enough parts to sort of hold it up. It's missing some parts though, anyone know what kind of top this is?

 

Different faces. The '55 went to 10, the '56 went to 8. I believe the fuel and amp gauges were reversed too. And nearly every '56 I've seen has a broken needle. I've got 3 or 4 of them, only 1 with an intact needle! In '57 they changed again, to the "9" face. I'll try to remember to put up photos, I'm on my phone atm.....

 

Rondog, I did talk to Unclebill yesterday. He did mention that he talks to you on a fairly regular basis. North Platte NB. Buying a house, living in a trailer towed by a Dodge PU dually. Talking to him you can almost smell the cigarette smoke over the phone. I've been known to enjoy a cigar or two so I can't say anything.

 

Tang, a lot of the time there is embossed name on the rear window or a tag somewhere

 

OK, as I understand it....and I see it's the Fuel and Temp gauges, not Amp....

1955 speedo -



1956 speedo -



1957-later speedo - not sure when the next change happened, but I believe these were used for several years.

 

Brown santa stopped by today with some goodies... new electronic distributor, all the correct decals for the air cleaner/oil filter/dash, some gaskets, spare tire holder, and the stencil for the "4 wheel drive" logo on the tailgate.

 

Need more/better pictures of the top,
Interior shots of what hardware you have, door handles etc etc

 

Spent the day wrestling with the Jeep and trying to figure out why the new ignition wont get spark. If anyone hasn't seen this, it should be considered the ignition diagnoses bible for our Jeeps. http://mightymo.org/Proj_No_Spark.html Followed their steps by the letter and found out that my coil had too much resistance to be using a ballast resistor. Jeep then started right up with the new electronic distributor.

Also got some new (to me) wheels... 15x4.5 originals powder coated black.


Now I'm looking for the best all-around 7.00x15 or similar... any suggestions?

 

Went for a cruise today to do some tuning n the Jeep and get my tire situation sorted out. One of the tire stores in town has tons of stuff for old vehicles... this is a pic of their 'odds and ends' rack. I bet some jeepers could clean this out pretty quickly.



They also had an old CJ5 in the back that they plow with. Nice rig.





Still haven't gotten the timing and mixture 100% dialed, but it's definitely driveable and did well on a cruise up to 9000'. Just sputters a little if I accelerate too hard or go WOT.

 

Oh man, what's the scoop on that plow Jeep? Know what year it is? I have two heaters just like that one for my '56, I'd love to check it out and see how it's installed. Is that in Durango?

 

I forget exactly, but I think they said it was a '56 or '57. The Jeep is in the garage of the model tire store on main st in Durango. Want me to take some pics under the dash when I go get my tires installed?

 

Yes please! Got a digital camera with a flash? Cell phone pics just aren't real pics IMO. Heater, under dash, firewall side, any controls, etc. I'd drive down there just to check it out if I have to. PM me the name and phone number of the place please!

 

More work on the Jeep today. I'm trying to get the last little mixture/ignition issues worked out. Biggest issue at the moment is a miss at WOT. Seems to be running well everywhere else.

Needed a reliable vacuum reading to finish my tune, so I decided to make a permanent solution. Replace the factory piece with this T.



Installed



Now I can leave a cap on it and get vacuum reading whenever I need to.

 

Nice starter Jeep!

 

So today was a pretty fun day of Jeepness... first off, I got my new tires and wheels installed, love it.



Also went around chasing rumors of a hard top for the CJ... then spent the entire day driving from property to property as people told me of "another guy I know down he road with some Jeeps"... met some good people and definitely found a lot of great parts (including a hard top for mine!)

One guy's Jeep collection (everything from 2A's to a CJ8):


Another guy had this nice patina'd tuxedo park CJ5... still drives it around his property.


In a funny turn of events in the Jeep world, I show up to one house and find a nice hard top (but it's missing the doors)... told the guy I'd have to look into finding some doors. On the way home I get a call from another guy and had over to his place to see what he has. In his Jeep parts are an immaculate pair of Jeep hardtop doors, but no hard top to match. Funny how it works out.

 

Day 2 of the epic scavenger hunt pays off... chased down some more leads about guys with Jeep stuff and came out with more than I expected... Here's the take for the day, some for me, some for other friends' projects.

A bunch of control cables and the heater controls.


A factory 2A mirror.


2A manual wiper control


Heater assembly with the defroster plenum.


A perfect speedo.


Old army cooler.


And my personal favorite, an original coleman stove with the oven attachment.... awesome...

 

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Cole...=GoogleProductAds&WT.z_mc_id1=51294501&rid=20

Coleman still makes them for $40... probably works better than the one I got, haha.