Despite the Ford Courier’s best efforts to keep me from the Induction Center, I served in the US Army at Fort Sill Oklahoma. I learned a lot of things in the Army, for better or for worse, but I wanted a change. So I returned to live in my home town of Salem Oregon and I got a job in a coffee shop down the street from my parents house where we were staying.
It was very different indeed from the Army or anything I’d ever experienced before: crazy hippies, addicts, and all manner of deadbeats, pundits, and poets. We consumed a lot of “medicinal herbs” and alcohol while not working much. But that was OK since the boss seldom paid us with working checks. I needed a cheap car and one day after “work” I was walking home and I saw a glistening metallic blue Jeep in a front yard for 500 dollars. I just had to have it. Why? You may well ask.
Somehow I managed to get the money together and buy it. It was an 80’s era DJ5, equipped with an AMC 232 straight six and Chrysler 904 auto transmission. It had been professionally repainted a nice metallic blue and had chrome wheels and a new front seat with a passenger seat added (on the left hand side of course). Funny thing, it felt almost natural to be driving on the right hand side to me though. Other than it’s right handedness, the first thing I noticed was that it handed like a roller skate. A small twitch of the steering wheel and you were over three lanes to the left!
Now I still didn’t know much about cars, or I would not have bought that DJ5. So I was not aware of what happens when you severely overheat a motor. One day I was driving back from the store and it started making funny noises. I looked at the gauges and discovered that the temp gauge was in the red. “I can make it home” I thought to myself. I didn’t, the motor gurgled, spit and died. I rolled to a stop in front of a house where some good ol’ boys were working on a Camaro. I popped the hood and they moseyed over like moths to a lamp. And then one of the worst things anyone has ever said to me about my preference in vehicles was uttered. One of the two good ol’ boys took a look under the hood and said “you like them Rambler motors do you”? I had no idea what he meant so I said sure, I guess and he shook his head in a slow shameful manner. Now that I do know what he was getting at, it really irks me. Even though after owning several rigs with “Rambler motors” (with the exception of that old 232-258 six) I really don’t like them Rambler motors all that much. And as a testament to the toughness of the Rambler six it ran just fine once we let it cool down and added some water.
For some reason, I guess it was that Jeep, I started to enjoy learning about working on cars. As I did, I started collecting projects as well. During the time I owned the Jeep I also owned a couple of VW buses, one of which never did run. I never took the Jeep anywhere very far away, because firstly it was terribly uncomfortable to drive, and secondly it was actually a bit frightening. Sort of like piloting a life sized Hotwheels car down the highway.
I didn’t have it very long, for the aforementioned reasons. Eventually I sold it to an aspiring heroin addict named Billy from the coffee shop scene who promptly blew up the weak little 904 tranny and was sure I had rigged it that way. But he somehow got the money together to fix it and started selling ice cream out of it. A few years back I went to see the film Borat. There was a scene in which Borat and his producer and a bear take to an old ice cream truck. When I saw that, I immediately thought of juiced up Billy selling ice cream to poor little urchins out of that old mail jeep. And that is how I will always remember it.
I spent a lot of time in my friend Lowell’s mail jeep when we were in high school. His was a 69 or 70, the last of the Kaiser Jeeps. I believe that his was powered by the old 153 cid 4 banger out of the Chevy II with a 2 speed auto that was probably a Powerglide. If yours had the AMC 6 in it, it must have really flown, because it was not a terribly slow car with the 4.
The side doors slid and would lock open and the car was mighty fun to ride around in with the doors open on a summer day. It was not really all that comfortable, but it was pretty trouble-free as I recall.
You’re right about the Kaiser Dispatcher 100s…which was what the Postal vehicle was called back then. Chevy II four; PowerGlide. Seems about ten years earlier the Post Office had fooled with hard-topped DJs, then supplied by Jeep as Jeep…using the Willys F-head four. It was no sale, for the lack of power.
Kaiser at that time was the government’s favorite truck company; they made the Jeeps and Mutts and Buck-And-A-Quarters for the Army…so apparently they cadged another contract with the Post Office, in, I think, 1968. I never remember seeing a Postal Jeep without side marker lights.
And, as an aside, it was a great use for the South Bend plant they had (one of Studebaker’s old ones) where they had made the M38A1 before it was discontinued. It was probably a simple matter to prep the line to make the hard-shell Postals.
As for the AMC/AMGeneral six-cylinder ones…they were jumpy; you could spin a tire easily (they had Trac-Lok rear ends but usually why were non-functional by the time they got surped out to the public) but they were NOT fast. I believe they had 6:1 rear ends, just like the military jeeps did.
Right on the dash, there was a plate insisting top speed was 60. I had three of those; and I never once even got one going that fast. Engine noise would leave you thinking you were stuck in second gear.
Thing you had to watch for, was that those things were incredibly nose-heavy. On the Jeep CJ-5 they stretched the wheelbase to make room for the six. On the Postals, they left it at 81 inches; made room with the bulging grille.
Trouble-free? Not exactly; the beauty was the troubles you’d find were mostly nickel-and-dime stuff. You could keep one running; the weak spot on those were the transmissions. In their first six-cylinder manifestations, they used Borg-Warner “Mickey Mouse” automatics; later they changed to TorqueFlites…but as this article suggests, maybe corners were cut on those boxes.
If I were to be looking for one now, the hot setup would be the 1984 or 1985 models – with the then-new AMC four cylinder engines (which turned out to be as tough as the six, almost as powerful) and TorqueFlite. Remove the bug-eye grille and put a Jeep radiator shell in, a la Kaiser.
The reduction in nose-weight would make it a much better balanced rig as well.
“There’s only one (postal) Jeep.”
Thanks for reminding us of one of the vehicles that kept AMC in business for many years. Still have a fleet of these suckers tooling around Gallup, NM delivering the mail and I’ve only seen a mailman stranded by one once in the 10 years I’ve lived here. I’ve heard of guys turning old postal Jeeps into everything from rockcrawlers to dragsters.
Technically speaking, Dan…it wasn’t Jeep or AMC but AMGeneral. Which had but one major customer – the government.
It was always profitable. It was created by spinning off the old General Products department of Kaiser Jeep into a separate subsidiary…they made, at first, M38A1s for foreign governments (the US Army having phased them out in the 1960s); M151 Mutts. buses (that didn’t last long; my hometown, Cleveland, and many other cities got burned with the AMGeneral Metropolitan bus) and – of course – the Postal Vehicle.
AMGeneral was sold to LTV in 1983; as Renault was completing a total purchase of AMC. Seems the US Government was uneasy about having their one supplier of HumVees owned by a foreign company; one owned by a foreign government.
One more major order for Postals went out, in – I think – 1985 – before the Long Life Postal Vehicle debuted.
But, in any event, the cost and hassle of dealing with government purchase procedures, probably kept profit somewhat low. It didn’t keep Kaiser Industries in the business; it didn’t save AMC; and LTV went bankrupt in spite of holding the franchise on HumVees.
Which frame did the Postal Jeeps use? CJ # What?
CJ5 in this case, there was a DJ3 also, as illustrated.
Postals used a modified M38A1 frame. Modified, in that some bracing and a couple of cross-members were deleted.
It used that frame because it was based on the military jeep, not the CJ; and was built on the line that the M38s were built. From 1972, the CJ-5 had an entirely different evolution.
The crossmembers were deleted because, compared to the M38, this was a very light-duty use: a more rigid body; on-street use only; two-wheel drive.
Most informative and intriguing sir, thank you.
The two wheel drive part is what bugged me the most about Postal Jeeps (really any 2wd jeep, MJ, SJ, XJ…) But AM General had to go by Gov’t spec I guess.
Wouldn’t have been much point in making them four-wheel-drive. They were for work on the street; and four-wheel-drive would only be useful a few days a year in a few parts of the country.
When they were spec’d out, I guess they figured the limited-slip rear end would be adequate. In practice…in snowy areas in New York State, they would chain up the mail trucks during bad winter storms.
That said…I’ve often wondered how much extra it might have cost to go FRONT wheel drive with these things…put the dead axle in the REAR, modify a transfer case as a drive-gear, off the rear of the transmission…power to the truncated transfer case, to the front prop shaft and front axle. Now THAT would have given it phenomenal traction; and those things were so bad on gas, it would barely have made a difference that way.
But the government is what the government is; and one thing it is NOT is imaginative. When cobbling together the Long-Life Postal Vehicle, they passed on an imaginative Grumman front-wheel-drive prototype in favor of something on the S-10 chassis. Why, I don’t know; especially since the cost was probably very close; front-wheel-drive becoming universal in small cars in the 1980s.
I would have kept it if it was 4 wheel drive! I latter had a 1948 CJ2a that I drove every day. The LLV gets the same piss poor gas mileage as the Jeep did. Very typical.
The words of a true Jeeper right there!
The only vehicle worse than the DJ was the Aries K. The Navy loved lime green K cars.. A story for another time.
Weren’t the LLVs built on S-10 chassis? I see them every day at work and they sound like the Grim Reapers chariot.
I think I knew those jeeps as “Joe” ice cream trucks (depicted) for longer than I did as mail trucks.
I remember wanting one of these as a kid, probably because of the Matchbox car. When I was old enough to know better, thankfully, that had passed. It seemed like the Government did a fire sale on these in my area around 89 or 90, they were for sale everywhere and almost always under $1000.
The Rambler sixes are pretty awesome. I’ve only killed one in my time with AMC products. It was in my 80 Eagle, and it was spectacular! The #1 connecting rod decided it wanted to see a bit of the outside world on I55 while passing a tractor-trailer. She still ran another 3 miles and restarted once after that to limp to a parking lot off
I think the last trouble free V8 from the AMC family may have been the 327. Not that the 290-401 were horrible, but they seemed to be a conglomeration of a little bit of everyone elses V8 design mixed with an oiling system from a Briggs and Stratton.
You nailed it with the V8’s the oiling system was somehow fundamentally flawed, as I discovered the hard way.
Can’t wait to hear about that one!
I always imagined this being the optimal vehicle for living in a very congested downtown area. It’s tough as nails, can ride up curbs, a short wheelbase makes parallel parking a snap, there’s nothing on it anybody would want to steal, and you never have to step into the gutter to get in and drive. You could drop in a 4-cylinder engine from nearly anything and drive it at low city speeds for all eternity. And then when the I Am Legend scenario comes around you can probably run over vampires with it.
The only problem is that I’m sure air conditioning and heating leave a lot to be desired.
You’re right, it IS a good city car. Had three at various times, like I said. Aside from poor gas mileage (13 mpg) the thing was hard to beat as an Urban Ghetto Cruiser.
To me, the ideal ticket would be to find a rust free shell (good luck with THAT) and then pop in a Wrangler Four cylinder, automatic and wiring harness. It would be impossible to get the tail end of that driveline to line up with the rear axle (the Wrangler’s wheelbase is ten inches longer) so snag the live front axle as well, put in the front shaft, and PRESTO! A front-driver city car that delivers 20 mpg.
There are other problems of course; the chain-drive transfer case on Wranglers as well as the cost/benefit of butchering a Wrangler to make a truck of very limited appeal. But, can’t hurt to dream…
I am buying a ’83 DJ5 this week. Strange it has a 6cyl, presumably the AMC, but otherwise solid, runs good, and cheap.
I have wanted one for a while, so I am excited! I think they are a HOOT. It will be just for a toy to tinker with along side my ’70 Commando. They are inefficient, poorly-balanced, rattle cans, taking spartian to the extreme. But they are so iconic for those of us who were born in the early 70’s. RHD, sliding doors, RWD Jeep – how much more odd can ya get?? I plan to put a CJ bench in the back for the kids for around town fun.
I am currently looking for a parts list – I know of 3 online sources of parts, but i figure just about every mechanical part on them has to be common with some other contemporary car of the day.
Great discussion!
Mike
Most CJ5 parts will work. For the engine its standard AMC fare. Knock yourself out!
I have a 73 DJ5 left hand drive and I just want to know where I can get Chasiss parts
I like this site, It helps people find things they might not have a chance to find other-wise
I have a dj5g The non running with a little rust, and a running cj5 with lots of rust and no top. The cj5 door openings are larger and easier to get in and out than the cj. So I am thinking about putting the Dj body on the cj5 frame and running gear. Moving the steering seems pretty straightforward, and switching from an automatic transmission to manual may be a bit of a challenge, but I have all the parts from the cj5 to work with. Budget ( read – wife and kids) constraints make a new cj5 tub impractical for the next 10 years or so. Thoughts ? Suggestions ?
i would like to find out if you have any of the jeeps for sale and a number to call you thanks
281 995 9257 ask for ronnie
I bought one of these in 1990 from the post office, for $225, loads of fun. 1977 AM General DJ-5D. Of the lot of 10 I looked at for sale, 8 had the frame rusted out behind the front wheels(wrecks). I got one that wasn’t. 6-cyl AMC, 727 Trans. RWD, with an ancient rear diff, semi-limited slip. 4 wheel drum brakes with a single suicide cylinder(mounted under cab on the frame). Leaf springs with only about 1.5″ travel, and no anti-sway bars. 14 inch bias-pIy tires. I drove it to my parent’s hunting cabin 202 miles North from Detroit, up I-75. There were big warning stickers on the dash not to exceed 50MPH(They meant it), but I had to go as fast as 65 to not get rear ended. Even though the temp was 50 F outside, I had short pants on, and every window/vent open, and I was drenched in sweat when I got there. It was unsafe at any speed, and unsafe when sitting still! Lets just say it was “exciting” on the expressway.
RHD, with a second seat & belts provided by the USPO Mechanics when I bought the thing. They let me examine the service records(but not take) upon purchase. It had 69K miles on the odo(probably flipped many times). The service records showed: new trans, carb, alternator, stainless fuel tank, fiberglass front fenders, exhaust(hung down real low with a cat converter,-for a little while).
All of these were made from cheap Japanese Steel, so they had rust in the metal from day one. That’s what ended mine. Pretty soon the body panels rusted so much, you could stick you hand in and unlock it.
Mechanically, it was very reliable and simple. I was shocked the Heat/defrost worked well till the end. It had good clearance for water fording, but the low articulation of the Axles hurt off-roading(but did not prevent highway sway). The Brakes sucked: You had to stand on the pedal, and all four brakes grabbed at different levels, terrible on ice. I put some tire chains on the rears for winter and it actually was a trail-breaker as long as you did not have to stop.
Eventually the brake lines rusted through, I drove it around the property using the emergency brake for a while, but gave up.
They had LHD and 4 wheel drive models at the post office. They were called “Park and Loop” Supervisor Vehicles. Those were not for sale yet.
I drove it around the Property for about 10 years, then in around 2004 the land was sold and I signed over the title. I think it is still sitting behind the cabin to this day.