I’ve just finished wrenching my arse off on my 1954 Willys CJ-3B, and I have to admit: I’m tired. This project snowballed so much worse than I ever expected, and now that it’s done and I have a beautifully-driving flatfender Jeep, I’m naturally going to sell it. It’s a classic case of “The cobbler’s children have no shoes.”
When I bought my 1954 Willys CJ-3B for $5,900, I was thrilled. Here was a rock-solid body, an engine that appeared to have been rebuilt at some point, and honestly very few obvious flaws.
It was a steal. Or so I thought.
Fast forward a few months, and as I’m rushing to prep the Willys for my wedding I realize the vehicle is made of bondo. It’s really more of a sculpture than an automobile at this point.
Is this a big deal? To many, it’s not. As long as the Jeep looks and drives well, who cares if there’s a bit of putty on the sheetmetal? It turns out: I do.
For some reason, this bondo bothered me so much that I gave up on the CJ-3B as the wedding car, and instead chose my 1991 Jeep Wrangler YJ, the 4.0-powered five-speed beast that we all know and love from Jurassic Park.
Anyway, I still had to fix the Jeep, because $5,900 was only a white-hot deal if I got the Jeep running and driving. A broken Jeep — even one as complete and decent at this one — doesn’t command much scratch around LA. Still, I wasn’t worried; it’s an old Willys. I can fix these in my sleep!
View this post on Instagram
Unfortunately, this nice Jeep ended up in much worse shape than it first appeared. The fuel tank was toast, so I had to replace that:
The rust in that tank meant the fuel pump and carburetor were filled with rust, so I had to replace the former and rebuild the latter. This took time.
Then, when I looked into why the brakes weren’t working, I found that the brake master cylinder had rusted out. This, like rust in the fuel system, had downstream effects. Because this was a safety issue, the rust in the brake system meant I had to replace all the brake lines, hoses, and wheel cylinders. This was a pain in my ass the likes of which I hope to not have to deal with again for at least a few years.
Then I noticed the rubber shift boots were torn, the brake pedal had far too much play, the shocks were rusty, and before you knew it I was multiple months in on this Jeep, laying on my back with brake fluid all over me, wondering how the hell this project had snowballed.
View this post on Instagram
Then I realized: This is a pattern. This has happened so many times it’s hard to count. Take my 1991 Jeep Cherokee XJ; this was the holy grail of Jeep XJs, but I bought it with a bad front axle and fender. So what did I do? I let the project languish until I decided I had too many cars and I needed to sell it.
But since I’m too cheap to sell a car for less just because it doesn’t work, I set out to fix the Jeep, and by the time I let it go, I’d spent hundreds of hours fixing it until it was the Jeep I had wanted in the first place!
The same thing happened with my 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee ZJ five-speed. It needed new shocks, a new shift tower for the transmission, a bunch of other repairs that I cannot remember. A bit overwhelmed with my huge collection and knowing that this Jeep was worth quite a bit in good shape, I decided to sell the Jeep, which was an absolute creampuff:
For reference, the Jeep I kept was the exact same model, except it looked like, well — see below. My logic was: Why sell the rough one? Who’s going to buy it? 
This same pattern occurred with the 1987 Jeep Grand Wagoneer I bought for a song. It languished until I had to sell it, then — in part because the city of Troy was trying to fine me for having broken cars in my yard — I got off my arse and got the AMC 360 running quite nicely. Then I sold the Jeep for a good price:
This same thing happened with my cheap Chevy Tracker, which was in great shape once I sold it:
It’s become clear that the best cars I’ve owned are the ones I had just finished prepping for a sale because I’m too damn cheap to sell a car for thousands less just because it needs a few hours of cheap repairs. I simply cannot stand it.
The result is: The cars I sell are in amazing shape and the cars I own are always basket cases, at least up until I decided to sell them and then fix them up for the next owner.
None of it makes sense, but it’s completely in line with that old saying about cobblers children having crappy shoes. I sell the good stuff off because it’s worth money, and I keep the basket cases in rough shape until I decided to sell them and realize nobody wants to buy a basket case.
It’s a stubborn habit I hope to break someday. Because while it ends up with me having a few bills in my pocket, it also ends up with me spending loads of hours on cars I don’t even get to enjoy, while I drive my junkers everyday.
That Willys is a tempting start to my next chapter… it runs incredibly well and it does look quite good even with the Bondo…
Top graphic image: David Tracy; IIT
Running theme in many of David’s articles: “I thought I was a genius; turned out I was a knucklehead.”. Larger, Rinse, Repeat. At a time when the country is slipping toward idiocracy, why is The Autopian glorifying doofusness? By one of the founders, no less?
David it makes sense. You like the challenge of getting something running, it is how you relax. Some people do Sudoku others spend hours getting dirty and fixing cars. You are only happy if you can apply your skill to a truly lost cause. Even your i3, It needed a new battery, you didn’t do the work yourself but you got to go through the warranty book and find a loophole.
You are an engineer and as long as the vehicle transports you from A to B looks don’t really matter. That is why you leave the cosmetic stuff to the next owner.
Don’t worry about breaking the cycle, move to a catch and release. Find Basket Case, get it running, drive it, realize it is worth money, sell it, repeat.