willysmjeeps.com

Hi John,

Thanks for sharing that. I've often wondered about MD Juan, and being new to jeeps I thought it was pretty good that someone like them actually took the effort to make jeep parts and keep the hobby going. Now that I'm learning, it seems most folks have bad things to say about MD. So I'll give them an A for effort and and F for execution.

My tank seems to fit the well ok, but I don't know what the previous owner did to make that happen. The seat frame fits ok too. As for the strap I'm either going to have to cut a circular notch in the strap to clear the sender or make small offset bars for the attaching points and move both ends of the strap over an inch or so. But how they got the hole locations wrong is pretty stupid. There's also no provisions for the strainer in my tank nor any place to secure the fuel cap chain. I ordered a correct sender, now I just hope the hole pattern for the sender screws is correct, and the douglas connector points toward the d-side.

It's funny.........when I first got the jeep a few weeks ago I was crawling around underneath and noticed the fuel line routing was weird. It looked like the previous owner had to pull the fuel line toward the tank, or like it was too short. Now I understand that mess as well.

Anybody........in the ORD and Maintenance manual the tank looks to have a couple line clips on the top. They're not listed in the ORD separately (at least I couldn't find them). Were these clips spot-welded to the tank? Did MD Juan forget to put those on as well? Also........was the original tank baffled inside?

Thanks for all the help.

regards,
bob

Hi Bob,
Yes those two tabs were spot welded to the tank.

There is a baffle about midway in the tank running from left to right with the tank installed.

The strainer fits in the filler neck.

take care,

Thanks Brian.

The saga continues. I pulled the sender and gave it a good soaking in Evapo-Rust overnight and it looks great. Won't work for my application....but looks great. At this point I figured I'd better pull the pickup to see how screwed up that was as well. Only one of the screws on the top plated snapped.....the others all came out with different degrees of effort. Although the ORD calls for Phillips Pan head screws with internal lock washers mine were the older slot headed Pans with the lead washers underneath.....aka M37. Once I got it out I also removed the vent and all of those screws came out without much trouble. Nothing gets you attention like working over fuel vapors with metal parts hitting metal parts. I guess the spark would be the last thing I'd see.

Here's the funny part......the reddish fiber tube filter appeared original. But I guess at some point someone thought it was obstructing flow.........so they punched 4 holes into it to let the fuel get to the pickup tube easier. I just had to laugh. If this were any of my other vehicles I'd have been pissed, but for some reason the Willys just makes me laugh. It's been thru so much and wrenched on by so many idiots......and yet it just still keeps going and going. So I just smile. I pulled the filter off and will order a new SS one tomorrow and soaked the rest of it in Evapo so it can cook overnight.

So I'm still batting 100%.........everything........and I mean everything I've touched on this jeep is either broken, jury rigged or the wrong part. But it does look nice.

regards,
bob

The slot screws and lead washers were original issue on the M38.


Bubba was persistent, if anything!

Bob, you have "the attitude". You like your Jeep. It will give back to you and reward you for your efforts. When I look at my collection of rigs, each is a time capsule that records all the places and things I've done with them. I have good memories. A few setbacks, but that is all. Now that spring is here in western SD, It's time to get ready for some epic Jeeping coming up June 19th. I hold a meet. This year I found two trails for 62 inch or less width vehicles. You have to buy a Forest Service 25.00 permit, but wow are they fun. It's a ATV trail. I had one guy in a ATV say: "oh you can't go there in that"! He was totally wrong. So far we have 27 Jeeps showing up. No side spares and no wide tires. Check out the thread on the CJ2A page meets and get togethers, Black Hills Meet! "Tight Steer Alley" and the Piedmont Fire Trail are posted there. I'm driving my '51 M38. let's go!!!! You too Wes!

Yes, and I'm finding out how horrible these Doc Juan tanks really are. I hunted around on Google and it seems that my early MDJ tank also has the hole pattern for the sender screwed up. So even though I got the correct sender coming it won't index right in the tank and the float will hit the front wall of the tank. What idiots!

Luckily for me I just picked up a nice used original M38A1 fuel tank at Aberdeen, so I don't have to futz with the Doc Juan junk. It has the correct vent and sender, accepts the fuel strainer, the strap doesn't go over the sender, and it has the line clips on it. It just needs a good cleaning. Anybody have a good recommendation on what to use to get all the old varnish out of it? The guy I bought it from said to use parts washer fluid from Harbor Freight straight out of the bottle and not to dilute it. I was thinking more along the lines of a little hydrochloric acid.

thanks,
bob

Bob,
There are several methods. Use the search function above, do a little
reading and pick the method of your choice.

Brian