CJ5 or ???

skratch

skratch

Well Oiled
Jun 15, 2017
1,120
bernardo nm
First Name
john
Willys Model
  1. CJ
Willys Year:
  1. 1958
About 50+ yrs. ago I had what i thought was a 1957 CJ5. It had an L134 and the rig was in excellent condition overall. Not mint but close. On another thread I read the CJ5 never had an L134 from the factory. I'm sure the engine was stock. It had a tail gate, spare on the side, also had a throttle on the dash, vac wipers, no vent on the pass. side, blue in color.

Back then I had no knowledge of Jeeps. Just curious but could it have been an MB? The sad thing is it had a metal half cab when I bought it, I removed it and put a JC Whitney soft top on it. I have no memory of what happened to the half cab. :confused:
 
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The two CJ’s in production in 1957 were the cj5 and 3b. Both used the F-Head. If it had an L head then bubba probably found one cheap and used it. It would bolt right in.
 
skratch said:
About 50+ yrs. ago I had what i thought was a 1957 CJ5. It had an L134 and the rig was in excellent condition overall. Not mint but close. On another thread I read the CJ5 never had an L134 from the factory. I'm sure the engine was stock. It had a tail gate, spare on the side, also had a throttle on the dash, vac wipers, no vent on the pass. side, blue in color.

Back then I had no knowledge of Jeeps. Just curious but could it have been an MB? The sad thing is it had a metal half cab when I bought it, I removed it and put a JC Whitney soft top on it. I have no memory of what happened to the half cab. :confused:
[restored?
Click to expand...

For starters, did it have flat fenders or rounded fenders? Any old pictures that you can post?
 
From the 46 CJ2A on up Jeeps had the spare on the side. It was not an MB. Was it 4wd? A 1957 DJ3A 2wd would have the 4L engine. And who says it really was a 1957?
diggerG
 
It was round fenders, 4x4, 1957 on title, no pictures. I guess it might have had the engine swapped but it was in such good condition
and low miles, don't remember how many, and it seems odd an F head would be replaced with an L head, Doug might be right. Don't know, I just got to thinking
about no CJ5s with L heads from the factory. I think I bought it in 67 or early 68. Just curious, it seemed odd. Thanks guys.
 
FinoCJ said:
4cyls are bolt in interchangeable with no mods needed.
Click to expand...
I should clarify that if an F134 is swapped into a low hood flatfender (MB, CJ2a, CJ3a) then the carburetor and air cleaner will hit the hood. The extra 10 or so hp from the F134 was a nice upgrade over the L134, and very easy to do, but either a rare (at least these days) side draft carb is needed (some you probably know more about that than I) to avoid hood modifications, or as you see many low hood FFs, a hole was cut in the hood with the air cleaner element sticking up through it.

As mentioned above, Willys temporary solution to get the F134 into production and sales while the m38a1/cj5 (and its various prototypes like the cj4, x90 etc.) was under development was the high hood flatfender (cj3b)...of course, I think the cj3b ended up with the longest production run of any jeep if you include the international production agreements with other companies like Mahindra. Even for US production, I think cj3b was from 52-68 - so 16 years for the 'temporary solution' - many of them overlapping with cj5 production.

I think the popularity of functionality of the v6 in the cj5 was probably the end of the 4cyl (and thus flatfenders). A factory v6 option in a 3b would have been cool though! Of course, by 1968 - we were only 4 years away from a v8 powered cj thanks to AMC in 1972....
 
ndnile said:
The two CJ’s in production in 1957 were the cj5 and 3b. Both used the F-Head. If it had an L head then bubba probably found one cheap and used it. It would bolt right in.
Click to expand...

After reading all the posts that too would be my guess, the original F head could have failed for any number of reasons. About that time there might have
been L heads available from other upgrades and probably not as expensive compared to a rebuild or F134 replacement.
 
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