When you drive some 900-plus miles to look at a Jeep for sale, you can't expect to pay a nickel less than the asking price. However, we were worried about losing a whole hell of a lot more than a few bucks while driving onto the guy's property. We passed by several rickety wooden houses straight out of the movie Deliverance, houses that had been overgrown with vines and moss. The road kept going, and so did we, puckered to our seats, until we reached a much more modern-looking home and the camper-shelled yellow J-truck. We found out the owner's family had purchased the land during the Depression and he'd just left the original houses there.
The first thing we noticed was the 360 and Quadra-Trac logos emblazoned across the fenders. Somehow, this Jeep ended up with a swapped-in AMC 304, a T-18, and a Dana 20. No big deal. Ol' George (the owner) claimed the engine was rebuilt; he had several receipts but only for the valve springs, cam and intake. We figured that in Oregon maybe this was considered a full rebuild.
Around the office, we often joke about old-man engineering. It's basically just making due with what you have on hand. The term really has nothing to do with age; it does seem, however, that the most interesting quick fixes come from old men who have no problem using things like household fixtures in their Jeeps. This J-truck was full of old-man engineering. From the two ignition switches and the broken electric choke (that had somehow been converted to a cable-operated manual unit) to cross-threaded pipe fittings on the cooling system that somehow didn't leak (I didn't even know it was possible to cross-thread pipe fittings), this Jeep had old-man engineering written all over it. It didn't run quite right, and what really scared us was when George asked us if we wanted the complete Holley carburetor jet kit he had. Of course we took it, but more to see what was missing from the kit to try and figure out what was in the engine now. We slowly learned that not only is a '73 a hodge-podge year for Jeep trucks, but this J-2000 had been literally vandalized with repairs. Hazel dubbed my new truck "Hot Dog," because you have no idea what's in it. In the rear is a good Dana 44 with large axle tubes and flanged axles, but up front is the real bummer: a closed-knuckle Dana 44. It's basically a Dana 44 with weaker Dana 27 axle tubes, knuckles, brakes, U-joints, stubs and hubs. Oh yeah, the frame is bent in the middle, too, adding to the overall hot dog theme. However, we didn't notice all of this until the next day. Upon closer inspection, it looks like the Jeep was rearended pretty hard, maybe with a trailer in tow since there's no apparent or repaired damage to the rear of the Jeep. There's some repainting in the front, so it may have taken a hard front hit with a heavy trailer in tow, but either way it's bent in the middle, and I wasn't exactly going to take it back to the guy. It was kinda starting to grow on me. Not the bent frame--the truck.
Anyway, I paid my $1,000 J-truck entry fee. We inspected and tightened the loose steering linkage bolts and a squeaky fan belt. I hopped in and then smoked, popped and sputtered on about 6 ½ cylinders down the dirt road past the spooky overgrown houses with Hazel following in the Cherokee. The Jeep wouldn't idle. The gas was so bad, it almost had a sweet smell to it and probably wouldn't even burn if you lit a match to it. The fuel in the tank was likely only days away from sprouting life--heck, the rest of the truck looked like a rotten log with all the moss growing out of the windows and molding.
By this time, it was dark and I was surprised to find that the headlights actually worked using the original switch. I even got the truck up to 60 mph. I pulled into the nearest gas station and had the attendant fill it with 91-octane gas to try flushing out the nasty. For some reason, you aren't allowed to pump your own gas in Oregon, and the attendant looked at me like I was a moron for putting 91 in my new piece of crap.
The one thing I really dig about the J-truck is the huge secondary fuel tank in the bed. It must be close to a 50-gallon capacity. I didn't even bother filling the main tank; who knew what was growing or had made a home in there. At the time, I felt kind of stupid filling up the huge auxiliary tank, since the engine was running so poorly that the possibility of J-truck abandonment was high. I wouldn't want to leave behind a truck with a full tank of gas.
Luckily, it started up again, and away down the highway we went. The J-truck was backfiring so badly that flames were coming out from underneath. Still, I was able to get it up to 65 mph, but speed quickly dropped down to 45. The engine almost died as we hit the offramp for the hotel, then it just stopped as I made the turn. I apparently had the tank switched to the crappy empty stock tank the whole time. After some fumbling and figuring out that it wasn't getting any gas, we flipped it over to the full auxiliary tank. Fuel was still just barely trickling out, so we used a Power Tank to blow the line clear with compressed CO2. It started and ran almost as crappy as it did before, so we drove the last 100 yards to the hotel and parked it until the next morning.
After inhaling gas fumes and...
After inhaling gas fumes and starting a few carb fires, we figured out how to use the auxiliary fuel tank switch. The fuel lines were plugged, so we blew the rust out of them, and the ill-running V-8 was backfiring again. The fuel filters were literally red with rust.
The next morning, we went...
The next morning, we went through the truck in the hotel parking lot. We removed several old-man engineering fixes. The transfer case and transmission needed oil, and we later found out why. All of the adapter bolts were finger-tight; some had even fallen out.
Inside the J-2000, Ol' George...
Inside the J-2000, Ol' George added house carpet, a beer-tap shifter knob, and a dangling, outdated, trailer brake controller. We added the chrome skull cup holder we found in the parts' store bargain bin. Even the two-knob radio worked, but it was barely audible over the nasty glasspack muffler exhaust.