Willys MB Jeep - MB365678

I really love this show

Apart the rubbish weather on day 1 (Sunday) it was its usual excellent mix of cars, car stuff, burgers, beer, motorcycle stuntmen and ice cream - I doubt if it could get much better. Hopefully some photos will tell all, firstly my favourite thing in the show (after the jeep of course!)

A Ford V8 Pilot Pickup Truck:

Here's her indoors after finding out a bit more about it:

This is what all the young guns want:

My favourite photo of the show, Daddy's Toy:

A selection of some of the excellent vehicles:

And now some MV's:

This is a rare beast - Ford Sidevalve Fieldmouse, nearly a jeep!

Finally the jeep - it rained on my jeep....

Looking forward to next year already

For All Your Jeep & Dodge Needs
http://www.dallasautoparts.com/

http://www.hampshirepageantofmotoring.co.uk/index.html

Last year I made my own replica headlight ground cables. They weren't too bad but luckily some real ones came up on the famous auction site.

The packages came from America - they look absolutely brand new. They're dated 1952 but made to the same spec as the original factory production ones. Inside the packages the cables looked like this:

Really top quality condition, just a little stiff due to the cosmoline preservative having hardened off.

Some closer views of the cables:

After gently straightening them out, I removed the cosmoline from the connectors by wiping them with white spirit and then fitted them to the headlight brackets. When I made my own replicas I fitted them under the headlight bracket, this is wrong, they should be fitted on top. I picked this up when I was lucky enough to get a look at a really original MB a little while back.

Final result is very pleasing

For All Your Jeep & Dodge Needs
http://www.dallasautoparts.com/

When I got back from holiday I naturally got the jeep fired up as soon as the freaking rain stopped. I got about 200 metres down the road when there was a fairly disconcerting growl from somewhere and the engine began to get very loud. Fearing the worst, I shot back to the garage, this was the issue:

The end plate of the silencer had disintegrated - not good news (but it sounded great!) I was happy it wasn't something worse.

Replacing it looked like something I could do, so off I went to Dallas Autos for a new one. Nice shiny new ones available complete with a comprehensive fitting kit.

Getting the old silencer off wasn't complicated but was a pain as all the bolts were tight with rust.

After a bit of cursing and a lot of WD40 I got all the fittings off. I replaced all the clamps, rubber insulators and the metal supports with the new parts from the fitting kit. Pretty straightforward job (even for me) which all in all took me about 2 hours. When I'd finished it looked like this:

Only one thing to watch out for on the test drive, the burning smell and grey smoke is not your head gasket blowing, it's just the paint burning off your new silencer.. phew!

For All Your Jeep & Dodge Needs
http://www.dallasautoparts.com/