Jason Potts, out of Burnettsville, Indiana, shared a couple photos of his Willys Dually project, so I asked him where he found his adapters and how he got into jeeps.
Of the truck adapters he wrote, “The adapters came from Hank himself. With the original bed rusting out on me, I bought the flatbed knowing someday the original would go bad. I had a local welder cut the length of the bed down 22 inches. The black locust was cut out of my family’s woods and milled at a relatives mill. I live in an apartment and the truck is currently stored in an enclosed metal barn and will see a garage again in the spring to continue work. The motor is a 232 out of a 70’s CJ and is being rebuilt.”
Then he shared his jeep history. “Originally my dad bought a 63 Cj5 at an implement auction and we used it to get around on county roads for fishing, hunting, and for other adventures. I was in my early teens at the time. In the early spring of 2004 (Junior in high school) a culvert washed out down the road from our house forcing myself and my dad to find alternate ways to work and school. His route took him past a place that had the 54 Willys and knowing I wanted a truck he told me about it. I bought the truck for $1500 and had to buy an electrical kit for it as its wires were all the same color and no lights worked. After about 2 months it became road legal and I started driving it to school.
Senior year of high school I was still driving it. Ever since owning it, the truck always smoked and was burning through oil at such a fast rate I eventually had to put the hottest burning spark plugs and plug extensions on just to keep up, in the end I resorted to using used tractor oil. The truck got 27 miles to the quart of oil. For a long distance football game I burned through 9 quarts of oil and $27 in gas.
Through the years since I have owned/or still own a 92 Jeep Cherokee, 66 Cj5, 75 Cj5, and a 95 Wrangler. Not to be outdone my older and little brothers also bought Jeeps. Older brother bought an 88 Wrangler and little brother has bought 2 Cherokee Country’s (both were previously rolled and used as trail rigs), a 47 Cj2A and a 65 CJ5.”