My Restoration

The Story of my MB-CJ3B		Documentation
My Restoration		Links
The History of the Willys-Viasa MB-CJ3B		Thanks
Other MB-CJ3Bs		Spanish

Here you can see the restoration I've been doing on my Jeep since I decided we were going to keep her. My goal is to give my MB-CJ3B the genuine look, and leave her in the better condition possible. I don't have much time and besides the car is far away, but I'm not in a hurry, so I take it easy. There're lots of webs regarding restorations though I think there's always something that can be useful to someone. I hope you enjoy it!

02/24/07. The move.

We took her to a cottage to start with the work. Unfortunately I couldn't take  a single picture.

03/03/07. The washing.

We went up to Culla to give her a washing, see in which condition she was, and put her away in order to spend the winter. Ramón's John Deere tractor helped us.

>

Two of the pictures we took that day

07/28/07. Starting again.

On this day, the Go-devil roared again leaving behind ten years of silence. It just took us no longer than ten minutes to start the Go-devil again, after checking the vital points and filling the tank.

The Jeep plugged in and Santi jr. lending us a hand

After that, we soon started with the brakes. We thought it would be fast, but we soon realized that in order to remove the brakes we had to remove first the front wheel hub, and the nut on the rear spindle's nuts.

The front hub should be removed easily, but in this case they were hardly stuck, so we had to find a hub puller. For the rear nut the proper wrench is required.

Front and rear hubs

In the meantime I've been doing some work at home, such as cleaning the ID dataplate, which was all covered with paint. I managed to get it as you can see in the pictures with nail polish and cotton wool.

ID dataplate, before and after

11/18/2007. Drums removing and 'winterizing'.

After nearly three months I managed to have a look at my MB-CJ3b. I just took me just a few minutes to star the engine after all this time. Here you can hear how it sound.

We finally managed to remove the front wheels' drums, with the help of the right puller. We didn't try with the rear drums since we run out of time, due to we were inspecting the front brakes, but I'm sure we'll succed when we go back to them.

The front ones came off with the help of the puller. It's useless to try without it, and however, very easy with it.  Two nuts come after the hub. A special wrench is needed to take them off, the WOA692 wrench.

WO692 Wrench

We also use the hub puller to remove the drum pulling from two of the hub screws, as you can see in the picture. Unfortunately this can't be done with the rear ones since there's nowhere to lean the central nut on.

       Removing the drum with the bearing puller                      Brake pistons and brake shoes

The next step is to disasamble the brake cilinders and drums to clean them and fix them.

We also took advantage to replace the water in the radiator and cooling circuit by an antifreeze liquid. The temperature is now close to 0ºC at night and it will probably freeze in the next months.

You just need a 14mm wrench and be able to get under the car since one of the two drain cocks is nearly under the radiator, exactly in the radiator outlet, on the right side. The other is on the right side of the cylinder block, at the forward end, but we didn't use it this time. Just two things, the hole for which the water has to come out through was jammed and we were wondering if that was the right one until we tried to insert a small screw driver and the water started to come out.

To bear in mind the temperature of the water if the engine has been on for a while before. Once the radiator started to be empty, we cleaned it by filling it with a hose through the filler pipe in the top of the radiator, and while the engine was on.

12/13/2007. Solex Gasket Kit.

This has arrived today. It's a gasket kit for the Solex 32 PBIC that I bought on Ebay two weeks ago. It comes from Australia (quite far away), and It looks good. Now I just have to wait for the Solex 32 PBIC I also bought on Ebay last week, and that I expect to get here by next week.

Solex 32 PBIC Gasket Kit

01/07/2008. My New Solex 32 PBIC.

Finally, the Solex 32 PBIC I bought from France has got here. It looks good, quite better than I thought. Now I just have to clean it, replace gaskets and leave it as if it were new.

My new Solex 32 PBIC

01/30/2008. Starter and throttle cables.

More thinks  that I bought from GPW (forum) arrived this morining. Starter and throttle cables, and a three knobs set for the gears. Both the cables and knobs are second hand but they are in very good condition. 

02/10/2008. Cables y speedometer.

Another short day. After having a drive, as usual,  I took advantage to remove old cables and relays I installed long time ago for extra headlights. I disassembled the horn and the speedometer. I brought them home to clean them up and have them ready for when I need them.

06/22/2008. Not kidding!!

After several months, finally today I started removing a few screws and we ended up disassembling the right fender, the grill, the hood and the windshield, until the day was over.  I can say now that we've started and we're not kidding.

07/20/2008. Tub off...

Three more days working. We couldn't do what I had expected due to several stuck screws and the steering wheel, but finally we managed to separate the body from the frame. The tub is in much worse condition than I had thought, and I'll have to spend a few hours working on it. I also will take the occasion to work on the frame and other parts, such the engine, axle, now that the body is off.

We started brushing to see how easy the different layers were showing up. A pair of pictures with details.

In order to separate the body from the frame, you'll need to take to pieces, several elements between them:

Air filter, on the firewall. Clutch and brakes pedals, they come out easily removing the screws which tight them to the levers/arms. Gas pedal, taking apart the rod which is attached with a cotter pin. Starter and throttle cables, there's only the starter in my Jeep, and i just had to take it apart from the carburetor. Speedometer cable, which I disassembled from the gear box. The nut is not an hexagonal one but a notched wheel, and it took us a little long. Gas pipe between the tank and the gas pump, no problem for this. Electrical cables. And the hardest thing, the steering wheel. The best thing you can do is to take to pieces the steering column together with the box. The box is attached to the frame with three screws and they come out quite easily, once you've disassembled the steering wheel. The worst thing is the steering wheel.  It's nearly impossible if you don't h ave the appropriate puller. I used the hub

puller, pushing on a metal plate which was leaning on the center of the wheel, once the horn button is off.

Once this is completed, there are only seven nuts on every side of the car plus the ones of the exhausting pipe, which is attached to the tub too. It's possible to lift the body with only a couple of people, but i would suggest that there were three of you, and that you use a gadget such as a winch.

09/21/2008. Some paint.

First layers of primer paint on the frame.

05/30/2009. Taking the radiator and alternator apart.

A few hours to take apart the alternator and the radiator. Although it's quite easy, I left a few instructions about how to do it on the technical section. 

06/14/2009. Painting the manifolds and exhaust pipe.

I took adavantage of the good weather to paint manifolds and exhaust pipe. I used a special paint for fireplaces. I hope it gives a good result. I'll let you know as soon as everything is put together. The exhaust was brushed and treated with Minoxil. A few pictures before and after the painting.

08/02/2009. Painting the engine.

After three hours removing grease and layers of paint and some rust, I painted the engine. Although it looks white color in the pics, actually it's grey, but of a very light tone, RAL7035, to be more precise. I was looking for something darker, so I don't rule out to finish it with a darker grey. Anyway, I'm not unhappy with the result. Little by little I'm seeing some changes. Here a few pictures.

...the engine got painted.

09/05/2009. Painting the propeller and oil filter container.

The same thing with the oil filter container.

Go back to, The Story of  my Jeep

Go on to, The History of the Willys-Viasa MB-CJ3B