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I don't think you will find many these days, there may still be some that will use a typewriter but most are dome on the computer. Wayne
While I agree the 76 or so versions are horrible, the 1965 versions are pretty darned nice. I know I use them almost exclusively and so does Bjorn. I'm sure ACE won't leave the house without is TM 9-8022 and I have that too but I don't find it as useful as the 65 209 stuff.nf6x said:
Recovry4x4 said:
sailor2000 said:The "76" and "1965" above are referring to the revision years of the "TM 9-2320-209-xx" series of manuals for the M35A2 and its cousins. I'm guessing that you have manuals in the TM 9-2320-209-xx series from the 1970s or later. As you've already noticed, they're not as helpful or as easy to use as you might like. What you might not know yet is that technical manuals from that era were generally pretty poor, and the "209" manuals for the M35A2 from that era stand out as some of the worst technical writing ever. Even when we consider the instructions that come with made-in-China consumer goods. They're just really awful!Recovry4x4 said:
Up until some time in the 1950's or 1960's, technical manuals had numbers like "TM 9-8022", and that's one of the older manuals that was referred to above. From WW2 through the mid 1960's, technical manuals were pretty good. During the 1970's, they took a huge nose-dive downhill. They're getting better again, but still aren't as good as the ones from WW2 through the mid 1960's.
At some point around the 1960's or 1970's, the numbering system for Army technical manuals changed to what you see in your own deuce manual. The basic format now looks something like "TM w-xxxx-yyy-zz". W is a general classification (I forget how they break down, but our trucks land in "9"), XXXX is a Federal Supply Classification or something like that (our trucks are 2320, trailers are 2330, and there are many dozens of different classifications for anything you might imagine), YYY is for a specific manual set within that classification (for example, the 209 manuals are all for the M35A2's family), and the two-digit ZZ number indicates the repair echelons that the manual applies to. 1 is for operators, 5 is for depot, and 2,3,4 are for levels in between. So a -10 manual is for operators only, -20, -30, -40 and -50 are for individual different maintenance echelons, and if the second number is not zero then the number indicates a range of echelons. For example, -15 would be for operators all the way through depot maintenance.
If there are multiple volumes for any given manual, then more -numbers get tacked on the end. For your deuce manuals, the heaping pile of excrement is so tall that they needed to come up with those big old numbers like "TM9-2320-209-20-3-2" to keep track of them. The fact that they had to do that for a 1940's design truck is the first sign that they were on the wrong track!
On top of all of this, there are also things other than "TM" (Technical Manual) books that live in that numbering system. For example, Technical Bulletin (TB), Lubrication Order (LO), Modification Work Order (MWO)...
There's more... parts manuals get a "P" added to the end, and manuals which have operator/repair instructions and parts lists get an "&P" added to the end. Something fairly simple like a generator might just have a single "TM W-XXXX-YYY-24&P" manual, while more complicated items get broken down into many manuals covering individual repair echelons (-10, -20, -30, -40, and sometimes -50). Of course, as a civilian collector, you are all five echelons rolled into one. Thus, you'll generally find the information that you want divided between separate -10, -20 and -30 manuals, depending on how deep into the truck you need to wrench to get to what needs fixing. Each higher echelon takes things farther apart before either replacing a subassembly or kicking the job up to the next echelon.
Then there are the Hand Receipts, which get "-HR" on the end.
There's probably still more that I don't remember at the moment.
So, if this lengthy description hasn't bored you to sleep, and it hasn't made your brain jump out of your head and strangle you to stop the pain, you can now understand what I meant when I referred to the "209" manuals.
After all of this blathering, I don't happen to have a source handy for the older versions of the deuce manuals that you might want to look for. Hopefully, somebody else can chime in.
I do have something useful to offer, though: Eventually, they decided to write a whole new series of deuce manuals, re-written from scratch to only cover the "A2" generation of multifuel deuces, and completely ignoring the turd pile that is the 209 series... the new, improved "361" series! While they aren't as nice as the old pre-1970s manuals, they're still a lot better than the 1970's 209 series, and (except for the -10 Operator's Manual, for some silly reason) they're commonly available in PDF files.... for free!
These "new" manuals have numbers like "TM 9-2320-361-xx". You can probably sweet-talk somebody here into burning you a CD, or if you're feeling adventurous you can try to download them yourself from LOGSA:
https://www.logsa.army.mil/etms/
If you try to download a manual and it asks you for a password (this includes the operator's manual from the 361 series for some silly reason!), then that manual is restricted, and the general public like us doesn't get to download it. As this starts making more sense, you may realize that a letter other than "A" in the "DIS Code" column on the search results page indicates something you shouldn't waste your time clicking on.
I'm sure this was horribly painful, but this knowledge is powerful. Those TM numbers actually mean something to folks who know the code. Now you can see a TM number on the edge of a manual poking out of a pile, and immediately have some idea of what it covers (i.e., "operator's manual for some truck", "parts manual for some trailer"), and thus whether you want to bother digging it out of the pile! You can even smugly refer to a "dash 20 manual" with the rest of the in crowd now, or ask about the "LO" for something!
You asked us to decode all of this... don't you wish you had just kept your mouth shut now?
Please don't sugar-coat this, tell us really how you feel.nf6x said:
And those who can't do any of that, consult!
I toned it down for the kiddies. Ask me again after 10 PM.steelandcanvas said:
