At A Crossroads

Hey guys....This forum has been amazing, lots of great people and information, and I cant thank you enough for all of your time and help. Owning an old Wilys has always been a dream of mine. I bought her about a month ago from a guy in the Navy, said he was deploying and needed to sell his baby....which he'd just finished a year long restoration on....had pics, talked about honor and integrity....and completely screwed me over. I'm an older 100% disabled veteran, so money and heavy work on the Willys is beyond me. I'm $11,000 into my dream that I was told was a show quality Willys....this guy spent more time and money hiding stuff than actually rebuilding it.....my budget is blown all to hell.

A day after I got it , it completely quit running. The $650 receipt he had for all the electrical wiring was evidently fake and the whole electrical system was wired wrong. Replaced that, rebuilt the carb, cleaned the fuel line and gas tank....and it runs.

This week second gear almost completely crapped out, it'll shift into second fine, but unless I keep light gas on it it starts to chatter and kicks out of gear. Got under the Willys today and what this guy had done was completely coat the transfer caser and transmission with RTV....now its leaking everywhere and coming through the RTV and dust that hid it all. Took it to the one shop we have and they said both the tranny and transfer case are trashed. I'm kinda devastated at this point.

One option pointed out to me was Kaiser Wiilys has assembled transmissions ($974) and transfer cases ($1071), just bolt them on, everything you need already done. The shop said they'd do that, but dont want to rebuild the stuff I have. What do you guys think of this option? Knowing everything is beat up, would you also replace the output shaft gear and sliding gear?

My biggest fear is spending $2100 doing this, and the engine craps out or something. Any other options you can think of?

I also get your shops point of view... they probably aren't hobbyists, have maybe zero experience rebuilding t90/d18s, and want to stand behind their work.  I'm sure they are more than qualified to swap them out, though.

Maybe ask them to split the baby and take out the trans/tc for you to rebuild, and reinstall them for you after you refurb.  I redid mine on an old desktop... a little tedious but doable and actually enjoyable. If you have limited space or tools you'll have to factor those costs in as well.  

Only you can assess what you can do physically or monetarily, but these things are redone by idiots like me all the time 

Steve

sound advice, a stitch in time and all that. 

I saw that Willys advertised, I think, on Craigslist - Fallon, NV. Sounds like he definitely screwed you by misrepresenting the vehicle.

This forum and over on earlycj5.com are good places to buy used parts. I have done a fair amount of business with Herm and he is straight up and knows his Jeeps.