diesel engine

xheadnut · Post by **xheadnut** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 8:17 pm

I bought a 52 M38a1 in 1970. At the time the dealer also had an M38a1 with a stock diesel engine. I went with the 52 because it only had 300 miles on it. Does anyone have any info on the other A1 with a diesel, I never see these mentioned.

Post by **wesk** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 9:53 pm

There's no record of any production M38A1 with a diesel.

Willys put the Perkins in their CJ5/6 line for two or three years and gave up. I think you saw a M38A1 converted privately to a Perkins setup.

xheadnut · Post by **xheadnut** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 7:56 pm

I've seen at least two places that mentioned M38A1's having perkins diesels put in for export. I do know that it had a 3 cylinder in it and it was stock in the A1. Wish I had bought it but probably would have had to sell it during my divorce like I did the 52 A1. Just think how long it would be till tune-up.

Post by **wesk** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 9:26 pm

To date I have not seen any evidence that Willys put diesels in the M38A1. The M38A1 CDN2 and 3's and the exported M38A1 NEKAF's all went with the L134. There were experimental M38A1's with diesels at Aberdeen but that was retrofitted stuff. Nothing stock diesel. Willys did not export the M38A1 other than as mentioned above. Willys did export hundreds of M606, M606A2's and M606A3's all over the world. The A2's and A3's were militarized CJ5's.

I hope you can find the references you mentioned and post them here for us.

xheadnut · Post by **xheadnut** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 4:05 pm

I thought it was a perkins www.allpar.com/mopar/perkins

In 1961 until mid 60's Jeep offered a perkins diesel with 60hp@3000r.p.m.-143ft lbs of torque@1350 r.p.m.
Don't know why it was in M38A1 but I know it was, I had just got out of Marines and was only familiar with A1's.

Post by **wesk** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 5:56 pm

I am pretty sure it was a Perkins also as I mentioned it above. The CJ5 used them for about 3 years. That would have been the easiest swap into an A1 since jeep already stocked the parts. The A1 you saw was most likely a stock A1 that someone installed the Perkins into after the A1 went surplus to civilian use.

xheadnut · Post by **xheadnut** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 6:25 pm

That might have been the case, but the dealer that had it was one of the first surplus dealers in the country at the time, he had been buying and selling surplus since his discharge after WWII. He bought complete lots of surplus U.S. equipment from whereever it was sold and really didn't handle any resale as not enough profit. I bought a new top for my m-38 last year from his son that was in NOS tops they had bought from a Japan sale, most of which was for A1's.

Post by **wesk** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 10:25 pm

Without any confirmation of the origins of the M38A1 with the diesel you saw in a surplus yard in 1970 this is all entirely conjecture and speculation. Military surplus dealers have existed since there was a first military. They have seldom limited their attempts at making a profit to strictly one source of salable materials. I have been frequenting these dealers since the 60's and the majority I have visited would buy and sell any profitable material from any source even though the military surplus line was their primary line. They would resale their surplus stock, they would trade their surplus stock and they would accept trade-in's on their surplus goods. Many with their own repair and rebuilding shops would fix many of the vehicles up and modify the vehicles when requested.