My Ford GPW project

A diary of the restoration and maintenance.

 

  
   

Towards the end of June 2006 I bought my Willys MB jeep. I knew next to nothing about WW2 jeeps except that I've wanted one since I was a kid. Finally that dream has come true. At the moment, my aim is to get her running and have a year or two of fun with her. At some point after that I shall be stripping her down to the chassis and restoring her as I rebuild her. Hopefully I will learn many new skills as I work on her.

History
Believed to have been built in 1942 she served with the US army in europe during WW2. After the war, rather than ship thousands of jeeps back to America, many were sold to european countries such as Greece and the Czech Republic that were left with transport problems. My jeep was one of those sold to the Greek army. Sometime in the late 80's she was bought and imported by a company in UK called RR Services and rebuilt to her former glory before being sold privately. That chap later sold her to me.

First sight
I travelled down to dover with my father and my brother in law who is a good mechanic and knows loads about cars. The idea being that me and my brother in law would drive her home and my dad would follow us back in his car. Alas, the brakes weren't working at all and she wasnt safe to drive. However we were so impressed with the condition of her that I went ahead with the deal, I paid the asking price and the seller was to deliver her for me. I paid him, the paperwork was done and true to his word he arrived the following weekend with the jeep on a trailer and all the spares as promised.

 

 

  
NEW!!!!!
 
                 
           
           

 

            
   

 

Vehicle ID and numbers

WHen I bought this Willys jeep, as I said previously, I hadn't done much homework and was happy with what I bought. However I have now found out that my Willys is actually a Ford built version of the Willys!

Although registered as a Willys and having a Willys style chassis number tag, I wasn't convinced with the explaination that the Ford style front crossmember was a result of a Greek Army rebuild, so I done some more research and slowly convinced myself that it wasn't a Willys MB but it could be a Ford GPW. The master cylinder bracket is different on the two makes and mine had the Ford version.

In order to prove my theory I had to rub down part of the chassis to see whether there was a Ford stamp or not. This is located on the front left chassis, between the engine mount and the suspension bracket. I painted the area with some brake fluid to help break down the paint and started to rub it down with some fine wet or dry paper. Here's what I found:

 
     
   
There it was, proof that my Willys Jeep was actually a Ford GPW!! Far from being disappointed, I was pleased that I had uncovered the truth about this jeep that may have been lost forever. I asked a few of the jeep experts about the serial number stamping and they were able to tell me that GPW 258848 had a date of delivery of 5th to 15th March 1945. Also, it was probably built in the last contract of jeeps from the Louisville, Kentucky plant.