What could possibly go wrong? I mean how hard is it to keep a Jeep’s Go Devil 4 cylinder running anyway? These little engines were 134 cubic inches, made around 65 horsepower, and were dead nuts reliable with a cast iron flathead and a maximum compression ratio of 7:1. I mean these little things will basically run on anything flammable, and were designed to run with little maintenance required. With that said, the average one never saw a ton of miles, and I’m not sure many ever made a single road trip of 2,500 miles in their lives.
But that is exactly what Freiburger and Pewe are going to do with the WWII Jeep. And it’s not the first time they have done something like this. Nope, they have made this kind of trip on several occasions, spending as much time as humanly possible on dirt. But will this one be an easy drive? I kind of worry since the Jeep looks so good and that’s not their norm. But I can’t decide whether that is a good omen or a bad one.
But they’ve been doing Dirt Every Day trips for decades, so I have faith that they will figure it out.
What do you think?
Video Description:
Rick Péwé and I started doing the “will it run?” thing in about 1996. We’d go to a guy who had a dead vehicle, get it running in his driveway, and then road trip it on a huge adventure where we had to four-wheel along the way. We called it Dirt Every Day, or a DED Tour.
In this video, we’re doing it in Rick’s own driveway, wrenching on the virtually stock 1941 Ford GPW that we drove from Phoenix to Alaska 20 years ago. This time, we’re headed from Phoenix to Key West—but the “new” engine developed a brutal rod knock. So we did whatever it took to get us on the road, and that meant installing an engine that had not run in 36 years!
This video is Part 1 of this particular debacle. Look for Part 2 with the epic road trip!—D/F
