52 M37 bright yellow paint

[Karl kostman]

OK I know the title sounds like something really bad but I am not painting my M37 yellow I promise! Here is my question, I have a 1952 M37 and as I have been working on the truck getting it roadworthy I keep noticing like hi Visibility yellow looking paint or primer showing through in spots on the frame, inside the fenders and even on the soft top supports, these are small little spots etc. but my question is where did it come from? At first I thought that it might have been a county/municipality truck and they painted it this color? If that had been the case it would just be on the outside of the truck, this is every where, I pulled the screws out of the window access port in the door and where the screws go through the panel to hold it to the door there is yellow in the screw holes. The truck has OD green paint on it and in sanding I can see the normal brown primer under that but then I see yellow, could this be something that was used to etch the steel before it was primed?
Any ideas??
Karl

 

[Roller]

Mine had yellow paint under all the other coats. The yellow was over the original blue paint. Mine is an ex Air Force truck, and I was advised that the AF painted the flight line trucks yellow.

Frank

 

[USMC4302]

My '63 B-1 is yellow underneath it's current coat of green paint. Hopefully someone has the gouge on this ... I've heard rumors as to why a lot of these trucks were spray bombed yellow or white, but it would be good to have an accurate answer.

 

[maddawg308]

Are you sure it's paint and not primer? Check out the bottom end of this article, talking about "yellow death" paint primer/etcher.

https://books.google.com/books?id=N...IJjAB#v=onepage&q=yellow death primer&f=false

 

[Storm 51]

Flight Line or Fire truck would be my guess.

Decades ago I knew a guy who had a truck that came straight from the military painted International Orange. We always figured it was a Flight Line truck; maybe part of a crash crew.

I'll be interested in some actual facts, not guesses.

 

[Karl kostman]

Interesting I am going to take a look at the ID tag on the truck and see if I can find out where it started its military career that may shine some more light on this! Thanks much guys for your thoughts and sharing them on this subject!
Karl

 

[Special T]

is it possible it came off the big island of Hawaii? All these bad boys were at a macadamia nut farm near Kona!

 

[Karl kostman]

Special T I sure dont think so but I must admit the crappy yellow color is fairly close! That is a pile of 715s
Thanks
KK

 

[FrankUSMC]

Our crash trucks were all painted yellow on the air stations.
One of the few, Frank USMC RET

 

[67Beast]

I believe you are seeing the original yellow primer wearing through in spots. Here is what it looked like on my 67' M725 as I was sanding it down. Lusterless Forest, then OD 24087, then yellow primer, and finally bare metal.

 

[DicktheDog]

I had a '54 M37 outfitted as a fire truck for the AZ Division of Forestry. Phone booth doors, high bed sides with grabrails, rear PTO for the pump and it was painted screaming yellow zonker yellow. One of the great mistakes of my life was selling it.