Ya know, the jeeps that the postal service (use to?) use? Is there like a postal service YARD somewhere or somethin'? Do they auction 'em off??? What happens to all those old jeeps when the post office is done with 'em?
The post office regularly holds auctions for their castoff stuff in bigger cities. We have one about every year or so. The really beat stuff gets bought up by wrecking yards.
Back in WV, they were auctioned off by the state gvt. Cop cars, mail trucks and jeeps, even road crew trucks. You may want to check with your state, they probably have auctions every 6 months or a year.
Out here in CA, they show up 6 at a time in junk yards... A friend of mine took a bunch of steering U-joints of them for a project... What were you hoping to use? I wouldn't be suprisd if there's some sort of internet car club for mail jeep owners... You might try a couple searches.
its that kid with the tunnell-rammed jeep gettin to ya, huh? makes me miss my ol $400 mail jeep.... Another thought.... how hard are they to convert back to normal left hand drive? Do you need a different steering box?
I'm planning some serious junkyarding in the next couple weeks. I'll let you know if I come across anything. I should be close enough that you could drive down and take what you want.
Okay fellows first let me say, I worked as a level 6 mechanic for the Post Office for years. When I left in 2001, we had gotten rid of the last of our Jeeps. We had the S10 chassis LLV trucks and Explorer chassis FFV vehicles left. Anyway, we used to auction off the Jeeps every few years. We stockpiled them in a lot behind our shop facility. Whenever we got up to 30 or so, we''d have a sale. I'd have to go out and tinker with them and get as many running as I could. Most sold for a few hundred bucks, but sometimes, a rural carrier who was a fool would pay bigger bucks hoping to get a good work vehicle to use on their route. Anyway, in later years, I had to drain all of the fluids out of them and a local scrap yard would come get them. The manager of my VMF (vehicle maintenance facility) made the scrap guys absolutely guarantee that they would crush the Jeeps beyond any form of use ever again. No parts were to be sold off of them or anything. The post office was concerned about liability issues, so they wanted to assure no one could ever wreck one and sue the post office. The irony is we treated those vehicles very well. Most had 4 new brake drums, new steering boxes, radiators, fuel tanks, and engine rebuilds. We went for reliability when we repaired them. Then, the order would come down to remove such and such number truck from inventory and dispose of it. All those good parts wasted.
We had a 76 in a local yard 258ci 6yl. I got the steering box for a side steer set up, a cool shifter (3 spd auto with lock out button), column and wheel, steering joints and back up lights. The parts I should have gotten - the under floor mstr cyl mount & pedal, thick radiator (18" wide with the outlet on drivers bottom), narrowed 44" b-p to b-p Dana 44 rear, straight front axle. The spindles have the tie rod mounts such that left or right steer is an option.
I think some of them had dana 44's, and they were pretty narrow, might work well for a fenderless car? http://www.postaljeep.com/
Here are a few postal jeeps for ya. There are about 40 in this pile. The owner of the yard says the post office made him crush them so they were no longer driveable, for liability reasons. Oh, well. I wish I had bought one just to strip it for the chassis and running gear, it could have made a cool runabout. This was taken about 3 years ago so I'm sure they are gone now.
What happened to them up in Minnesota and Wisconsin, is that real weirdos would buy them, chicks who were into following the Dead or goin to the Rainbow Gathering. They would be a constant traffic hazard, being lugged along with smoke pouring out of the exhaust and truly disturbing paint jobs. The other users were mad inventor eccentric types who valued them for their cheapness, guys who had gravity control devices mounted on them,polar magnetic shift warning alarms, or about ten different antennas to communicate with THE ELDER VOICES. I developed a truly deep revulsion for them nasty little vehicles.
They would probably do good under a gasser, you could probably use the leaves and all from the jeep. They are narrow enough to go under an early body too. I don't know if they had disc or drum brakes, probably either or depending on year.
All of ours were drum brakes. We had them all the way up to the "M" models with Audi engines. Early had the master cylinder under the floor. Laters were on the firewall.
i know its kinda out of the loop but a friend of mine just picked up a truckster made by west coast machinery in stockton CA., (before the jeep in the 60's i think) for dirt cheap. i told him he needs to hang on to it thats its not a everyday sight ot see one of those things. the thing is a blast to drive. i was wondering if there is a big following on those things?
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