Good skills to have for mad-maxing it thru the desert after the ai apocalypse :)
I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep
41–50 of 68 posts
Re: I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
The terms of the lend lease agreement meant that Britain only had to pay for the equipment it kept after the war. So in some cases they were pushing aircraft of the deck of carriers into the sea so they didn’t have to pay for them.
Spitfires were British planes, so not part of the American lend lease program. Maybe if they were build with American loans, though?
Sorry, I wasn’t meaning to say that they were spitfires in particular that they pushed into the sea. I believe they were actually F4U Corsairs in that case.
Re: I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep
#43One of my great regrets in life is not knowing anything about how to rebuild an engine (and various other car parts). It's not exactly a cheap hobby, so it's probably for the best, but I have the feeling I would love working on cars (my wife probably not so much).
Re: I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep
#44One of my great regrets in life is not knowing anything about how to rebuild an engine (and various other car parts). It's not exactly a cheap hobby, so it's probably for the best, but I have the feeling I would love working on cars (my wife probably not so much).
It doesn't have to be a super expensive hobby. Plenty of old cars need some love, and you can buy them (and their replacement parts) quite inexpensively. In my experience, if you're willing to learn, break a few tools and old parts, get dirty, and persevere, you'll more than likely succeed, and your bank account won't be too broken at the end of it.
(Owner of two old german cars, one which has seen a partial engine rebuild, the other significant chassis welding. No formal training doing either.)
Re: I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep
#45"the only" is hardly ever correct. you built the only one that you know of
Re: I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep
#46The important point is "from as much ebay parts as possible" because I suspect there are still "jeep in a crate" boxes where all you have to do is remove the Cosmolene (this is undoubtedly not all you have to do btw)
On a slightly newer time scale there are always firearm collectors searching for something impossible to acquire now, but which might have been acquired at some point in the past and squirreled away in its factory original box in the cosmoline. Like somebody who might have purchased an imported Egyptian Maadi AKM (locally made AK47 variant) in 1982, then never unpacked it for whatever reason. People collect these thi…
Several years ago, I bought a new in box 1981 road bike. Story from the seller was an old chicago bike shop went out of business and there were some old bikes and parts in the back. The frame is big, I'm 6 foot and I barely fit. Probably they sold the bikes with regular size frames and put this in the back, and then styles changed and they forgot about it. The brake pads wore out super quick, but everything else worked fine. I went through the tubes too, but that happens. No big collectors, so the price was reasonable as a bike to use... more than a similar used bike, but much less than a similarly nice new bike.
Re: I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Howdy! This is Matt from The Autopian. I talked to David about this and we'll have it for you soon. We've been doing the math and it's kinda hilarious. Obviously, we were proving a point with this video but it's not... the most efficient way to do this.
Another big point of curiosity for me is registration--it clearly doesn't have a CA number plate, but there was a big red "3" on a laminated card in the spare.. what is that? How do you go about titling and registering a brand new body + frame?
> it clearly doesn't have a CA number plate, but there was a big red "3" on a laminated card in the spare.. what is that?
That's a temporary operating permit, colloquially called a moving permit. I've not built a car, so I dunno what happens there... but I've gotten moving permits for cars that have expired registration and need an emissions test to get registered. Can't have wheels on the public road unless it's registered or you have a movimg permit.
Afaik, all of our states have a process to get a VIN for a car without one... although it's common to take a VIN from a similar donor vehicle because it's less effort and vehicle safety and emissions requirements are de facto tied to the model year on the title. Legally, they're tied to the year of manufacture --- emissions ties to the year of the engine, not sure about safety.
You see all sorts of shenanigans if you look though. VW ended sales of Beetles in the US by the early 80s but still manufactured and sold them in Mexico through the 90s... it was not uncommon to send your US titled beetle to Mexico for "repair" and get back something very different. Sometimes just an engine transplant, sometimes only some key component from the US vehicle like the frame or the floor pan would remain, sometimes just the VIN plate. Putting a newer engine legally triggers newer emissions standards, but if you don't tell anybody and nobody notices, you can get away with it for a long time.
Re: I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep
#48This article was tremendous. My dad and I rebuilt an old GPW as my car in high school. His brother bought it as his car for high school a generation earlier. This article and the video are a love letter to that old car- a quirky, heavy, underpowered, beautiful legend.
Re: I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep
#49One of my great regrets in life is not knowing anything about how to rebuild an engine (and various other car parts). It's not exactly a cheap hobby, so it's probably for the best, but I have the feeling I would love working on cars (my wife probably not so much).
I started last year. I had most of the tools already. I picked 90s ford trucks as my platform: cheap, plentiful, variety of models, known to be reliable, easy enough to work on with simple tools, parts still readily available, lots of YouTube material for any job I need to do.
I bought a couple and I've already had to do a lot of work.
It turns out, it's not that difficult. The systems are simple, each on their own, with few exceptions. When you isolate systems, you can just learn one at a time without pressure to be a whole mechanic. I still reserve the right to send it to the shop if needed.
I haven't had to rebuild an engine yet, but I've been all around the wheels, tires, axels, AC, fuel system, timing, vacuum lines, trailer wiring, brakes, coolant system, and of course I service all my own fluids.
I put it off way too long. My advice is to start now, if you think you'll like it. And you can start with mowers...a whole lot of the tools and concepts transfer.
Re: I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep
#50Incredible project.
And how much I love that this is an article instead of an youtube video.