Cold-weather Jeeping Tips: Part 1

You can also remove the brake master cylinder cover. Toasty!

 

Good one. The early autos, you'd put a wedge under the back of the hood for a defroster.

My 1950 Willys Jeep pickup had an OEM placebo heater under the glovebox. I'd travel with the driver's window open and exhale sideways, or else the windshield had to be scraped on the inside.

 

Overheating the wiring behind the dash helps a little, too.

 

We put one of those hot-rod heaters in this one in 1970 or so, but it rusted and rotted away years ago. I swear lifting the shifter boot works better -- at least for the driver.

 

I all semi-seriousness, it's surprising how (relatively) comfortable this thing is in cold weather, with no top and no doors. I'm not saying it is actually comfortable, of course, but the flat windshield makes a huge bow wave, the headers and side dumps heat up the firewall and part of the floor, and quite a lot of warm air blows up from around the shifters. Plus, the entire experience makes your heart race.

 

That might be the carbon monoxide.

 

My brother with his 53 model 3B, made a heater for it by using a 2 foot joint of stove pipe. He spread it out at the factory joint and fastened it over the exhaust manifold on the side of the F-134 engine. The front end was left open so the engine fan could force air thru it. The rear of the pipe buted up to the firewall where he cut a 5x5 hole so the manifold heated air could pass thru under the dash near the drivers feet. Worked much better than expected, usually would be providing heat within 2 minutes we carried a old rag to stuff in the hole if it got too hot in there.

 

When I was a kid, I remember riding as a passenger in an early 30's Ford farm truck on a trip over the mountain to haul some cattle during what I think of as one of the coldest winters of my life. That old truck had a pipe from the exhaust manifold routed into a box under the dashboard. That was the heater. You opened a door on that box and the heat felt pretty dang good.

 

Here is how I handle the cold.

 

Does it cook burritos as well?

 

That sort of messes up the M38 built in trail cooler conversion which is more popular than a heater in the South.

 

This works too.

 

Nice!

 

Wow!

 

Also wow!

 

Yep. I forgot to say in my response to BoopieJones that I left my master cylinder cover off last winter. I did leave the floor intact, however.

 

Two burritos or four McDonald's apple pies, looks like.