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Bill Norris's Harvest Tan '47
s/n 145876, engine # J155895

 


Bill Norris sends these photos of his 1947 CJ2A along with this story:

"This is a '47 that was 'found in a barn'. It had been in there for about 10 years before I bought it and it 'only' took me 14 years to restore it. I had to pull a bird's next out of the intake manifold and several wasp nets out of the frame, but the body looked good and it was extremely original. It had one coat of light blue over the original Michigan Yellow. I tried to drain the oil but it was more like pudding. The axles and transfer case were not much better. We took the body in to have it sandblasted and walked out with a hood, windshield and the cowl. Not much more was left. Being the 14 years old and very inexperienced I got a crash course in 'watching out for bondo'. A friend of mine Jeff Gadient did a fantastic job of recreating the body. He was able to use aftermarket patch panels, but paid close attention to detail and added features to make sure everything was as original. He then applied the Harvest Tan. We didn't care for the original yellow with green wheels. My dad and I rebuilt everything mechanical and painted the chasis. Like I said the pictures don't show the detail but its there. My dad and I had a great time researching everything and putting it together.

"Some of the rare features this one has are: two heaters, one on the driver's side and the other on the passenger side. The waterpump actually has two outlets on it for heater hoses. I don't know if that was original, but I kept them anyway. It has the original functioning temperature gauge, original gas tank and fuel sender, original
chrome rear reflector, novi governor, rear pto and pulley drive. It had the original parking light sockets and wiring. It even had the original exhaust hangers and clamps which I was able to cleanup and save."

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