I’ve heard that some people use Grey Hound Buses to ship parts, but Josh is the first to provide first hand experience.  Here’s what he had to say.

“As a tip and likely often overlooked when trying to ship something, Grey Hound offers an excellent shipping service (cheaper and faster than USPS in every experience I’ve had)  I recently had a full gpw windshield assembly with gun rack in a crate, a set of mb top bows, a skid plate, an air cleaner and a small pile of other parts all shipped in the same load by greyhound for less than $140. They are the way to go when it comes to these bulky parts. Also for a $2 fee they take C.O.D for shipping expense so no need for the seller to get back to you just pay for the part they drop it off packaged up at gray hound and you wait a couple of days for a phone call to come pick up your stuff! (sometimes they even help load 🙂 )”

You can learn more from the Grey Hound website

Looking for Willys parts or a restorer for your jeep and are located in Canada?  You might try Willys Acres at 3224 Line 7 North (Coulson) Oro Station, Ontario, Canada.  They have a collection of jeeps for sale, including the Boyer Fire Jeep in the post below.

From the company’s website, “First and foremost, we are a Canadian company that takes pride in the satisfaction of restoring World War II military jeeps and being able to sell very rare jeep parts for those that wish to do the work themselves…. We restore complete vehicles. The customer vehicles in the Photo Gallery are awaiting restoration. Our facilities consist of about 8,000 sq. ft. … We have about 50 jeeps in our Jeep yard, so have a look to see if any suits your fancy.”

UPDATE:  Roberto had originally noted this was from Brazil, but when I checked out the website, I saw Londrina – PR, which I interpreted as Londrina, PR.  So, I did a search from Londrina, PR and somehow found a town called Londrina in Puerto Rico.  Unfortunately, it seems I was a sleep at the keyboard.  Because Hugo, from Uruguay, contacted me and told me the company was based in Brazil.  Puzzled, I did another search and could no longer find a Londrina in Puerto Rico.  Oh, the mysteries of the internet!  So, thanks to Hugo and Roberto!

Roberto spotted this Cinfel website.  I don’t know anything about the seller and I can’t tell if the seller is simply a reseller  or manufactures these parts.  Anyone know?

Brian sent me a link to a website called “Diane’s Jeep“.  Diane lives in the UK and almost a year ago today purchased a 1944 GPW that she plans to restore.  She has had experience restoring other vehicles, but this will be her first jeep.  Diane’s Jeep Website has been chronicling her team’s efforts.

Below is an image of how the jeep looked before she started.  It appears pretty stock and in fair condition.  There is plenty of work to be done!  Check out pictures of the progress that she has made. Good luck Diane!

Earlier in this decade, I drove through part of Hungary.  I dropped in from Slovakia, stayed in Budapest and then drove north into Austria.  Some people call Paris the city of love, but I’m pretty sure that title belongs to the city of Budapest — there was lots of kissing and hugging all over.  And I enjoyed my fair share of it too there …. I also went to my first true European ‘bath’ while I was there; the description that comes to mind was crowded and disorienting.  There was no kissing and hugging in there and, frankly, I was happy about that.

My understanding of Hungarian isn’t very good; the number of consonants to vowels made any attempts to pronounce town names and words an act of folly.  However, despite that,  I still found this Hungarian jeep site enjoyable: http://ww2jeep.gportal.hu .  I’ve seen many of the pics on this website elsewhere and some nowhere.

I really haven’t done a great deal of research into the best sites for parts restoration.  However, while looking for something else today (do I use that phrase a lot?) I discovered Classic Enterprises Restoration.  Specifically, they had a nice, easy to scroll list of restoration panels for Willys and Jeeps of all types.

A reader from Greece contacted me today. He is searching for a bare bones willys that he hopes to get and ship back to Greece.  As an alternative, I suggested he try using ooyyo.com to locate a jeep in Europe.  I haven’t used this search engine much, but in a search of greece, it did show a variety of Willys flatties and CJ-5s.   So, I did a search on Willys in the US and I got a wide range of results, from way, way overpriced — almost confusing — to reasonable deals. For example, I have this CJ-3A from CDA listed at $10,000 , yet ooyyo has it listed at $20,000 and links it to this ad.  Caveat Emptor!

I feel fortunate that dad kept his old manuals around so that when I started working on my Jeep (and this was pre-internet), I had a some good resources at hand to help me puzzle through problems.  Specifically, he had a 1969 Chilton that seems to contain information about engines and transmissions related to every automobile made that year (and if not everyone, at least most).

Even in the post-internet age with Google at our fingertips (I actually keep my laptop on a special shelf that I’ve used many times while working on things in the garage), sometimes finding old information can be difficult (like the proper firing order for a 231 buick V6).  It’s these type of searches where an old manual is a godsend (and which I turned to so I could finally figure out the firing order).

All this comes to mind as Mark forwarded me a link to the OldCarManualProject Website.  There is a ton of information here, though sometimes it takes some digging to find it.  It is particularly full of Chevy Manuals.  For example, here is the complete service manual for all 1938 Chevrolet Passenger Cars and Trucks.  So, if you love or own older vehicles, this is worth some surfing (though I didn’t see many Jeep specific manuals).

Here are some useful engine examples from howstuffworks.com. They have a number of linked pages devoted to engines. You can start here.  Here are some examples of what you will see …

Here is a classic engine (how stuff works page link):

Here is an overhead cam example (how stuff works page link):

This is an inline 4 example (how stuff works page link):

This is a V example (how stuff works page link):

And here is an electrical system example (how stuff works page link):