Another A1 survives.

[DeetFreek]

So this '53 A1 was delivered to me in March '14 by an old family friend who rescued it from a farm auction in Illinois some years ago. Where to start....delivery date 5/53 #49940. Body is in good shape and rust free from what I can tell. Pass side floor hat channel will need repaired as well as a small floor section. One section of rear crossmember has been taken out for some unknown. It ran (yes ran) for about 5 months, that's a whole different story. Converted to 12V at some point, I do not plan to go back to 24V mainly because of financial reasons. Not to mention I have already put in an early eighties CJ harness.
It had a minor tune up done recently so there wasn't anything major needing done, who am I kidding here, of course there was! Within a couple months, a total brake job which was by far one of the easiest I've ever done once I figured out the left hand thread lugs........The drums were so grooved Helen Keller could have read them!
Never had to deal with points either, there was a three day headache where it was also determined that #4 barely had 80 lbs. of compression. Not a good sign, so that makes sense on why there was such a horrible blow by issue.

Long story short, motor is now out and awaiting rebuild. I figure now is a good a time as ever to tear it down and get it back closer to it's original look. I'll get that in a later post. Here's a few pics for eye candy, enjoy!

 

[Hoefler]

Thanks for posting. She looks to be in very good condition. The tub looks great.
Pete

 

[ranchhopper]

Take the spark plugs out and put a bit of ATF into the cylinders you may have rings stuck to the pistons causing low compression I had a willys that was like that ATF cured the problem.

 

[Al Harvey]

Nice Jeep, body does look in good shape! Thanks for sharing.

 

[DeetFreek]

Take the spark plugs out and put a bit of ATF into the cylinders you may have rings stuck to the pistons causing low compression I had a willys that was like that ATF cured the problem.

If it were only that easy lol. In my OP I stated that the motor was out. Here's the story for that. Labor Day weekend I had it out and spun a bearing (in my driveway thankfully). My intent was to pull the pan and check the rods first. I thought I may as well pull the head and check the cylinders since I already knew I had a bad cylinder. Much to my dismay, I found the reason for the leakdown.

The first pic is the #2 piston. The rings were shattered but still intact until I pulled the piston. Needless to say, every piston had one if not both rings in pieces. Now the 2nd and 3rd pics are the #4 piston. I don't know when, why, or how this happened. I have not mic'ed the cylinder wall to see how bad the damage is. I'm just going to assume for now that it will need sleeved. The good thing is, it hasn't had any machine work done to it. Still original, at 32k miles. This all gives me good reason to get things back to the way they were. There was a lot of shoddy work done to this engine/engine bay through the years. I found 3 leads coming off the positive side of the coil running to the interior for whatever reasons.

 

[wheelspinner]

I just saw a thread recently, about surviving Civil Defense vehicles. This would be a great one to post up there.

 

[DeetFreek]

I just saw a thread recently, about surviving Civil Defense vehicles. This would be a great one to post up there.

I posted it in there a couple nights ago. Thanks for the thought though.