Interesting Parts

By Bob Westerman

Motor Mount Adapter: Due to the similarity of CJ-2A engines they are often installed in CJ-3As. The biggest obstacle to this swap is the different location of the drivers side motor mount. One of the improvements made to the CJ-3A over the CJ-2A was a vacuum booster on the fuel pump. This allowed the windshield wipers to operate while at full throttle. This change required a different engine front plate to allow the larger fuel pump to fit. The new plate required a different motor mount location and therefore a different vehicle frame. The 1949 CJ-2A, CJ-3A Parts manual lists an adapter to allow later CJ-3A frames to be used as a service replacement frames for CJ-2As. This adapter must relocate the CJ-3A drivers side motor mount point to the rear for the CJ-2A engine.  The part number is 647913 Adapter, engine mounting bracket .

CJ-3A Page note:  The adapter shown below was on my 1950 3A that had an MB engine in it.  This adapter allowed an early L134 with rearward facing engine mounting tabs to be used in a 3A frame.  As you can see, the bracket allows for the offset of the 3A motor mounts on the frame by relocating the motor mount about 3" back..

The 2A engine mounting plate is on top, and the 3A plate is below.

As you can see in the above, the 3A plate on the left has a forward facing engine mount on the drivers side.

Here's a shot of how the adapter mounts the 2A engine plate in the 3A frame.

Key Start 6 Volt Conversion Starter: From the WillysTech mailing list comes this information. "David mentioned a while back that he heard that Autolite starter MZ4163 could be used on a kick start type jeep to convert it to a key start.  I have confirmed that this is indeed true.  The MZ4163 has 9 teeth to mesh with the stock 124 tooth flywheel on kick start jeeps from 1949-1952 with stock starter without a bullnose." This starter can be used on CJ-3As to replace a kick start starter MZ-4137 or MZ-4162 from 1949 to 1952 through serial number 452-GB1 30973.