Fort Drum auction

[doghead]

Just plain fun

Well, yesterday I put in new light bulbs and swapped out the blinker relay on the truck. Now I have all lights functioning except one low-beam (headlight is blown). I vacuumed out the interior and quickly prepped the truck to go to town for the local Friday night cruise-in! When the wife and I got there we saw no cars at all! She went in the Icecream stand and asked what's up. They said they are only doing it every other weekend now. (First time for that). Oh well. We went for a ride up the see my nephew (4 years old) and took him for a ride to get ice cream! Everything, worked and seamed fine! Lot's of smiles and waves everywhere we went! My favorite situation that happened on this ride was , In my neighborhood there is a campgrounds. On a dead end road. When we went by the first time we saw at one site, 2 parents lounged out by the fire and 2 kids in one peace pajamas on their laps.(we received a nice smile and wave from them) On the way back by the 2 kids (may bey 4-6 years old) were standing at the edge of the road waving like crazy and with huge smiles on their faces!! I gave a short toot on the horn and their smiles got even bigger! Alltogether I probably put on about 50 miles on it last night. These things sure are fun to drive around!

 

[Recovry4x4]

Fun? More like addicting!

 

[WillWagner]

Stress relief! I'll come home all wound up, fire up the big canvas smeelin beast, and just putt around 10 or 15 miles. I come home all relaxed and a nice fuzzy feeling all over.

 

[doghead]

Stress relief! I'll come home all wound up, fire up the big canvas smeelin beast, and just putt around 10 or 15 miles. I come home all relaxed and a nice fuzzy feeling all over.

That's the exact same feeling I had!

 

[WillWagner]

What year is the soft top one? I see it has just under 30k. Mine is a '68 and I watched it turn 30k on Wed. Smeeling...I gotta learn how to spell!

 

[doghead]

1970 on the soft top!

 

[doghead]

today

The wife and I rode around in the hard top today. We even took it to the store to get our groceries ! Here's a fresh pic of it today

 

[houdel]

Dave - Your signature line reads:

"70 AMG M35A2 w/w turbo soft-top
71 AMG M35A2 non-tubo hard-top"

Odd, I have a '70 Kaiser-Jeep M35A2; I thought AM General didn't buy out Kaiser-Jeep until 1971. Also, a '72 Deuce WITHOUT a turbo; I thought all -A1s and later had turbo'd LDT-465's.

What do your data plates (cab and engine) indicate in both your vehicles? Was the '71 repowered or did someone just pull the turbo out for less power and more smoke?

 

[doghead]

Lee are you asking me(doghead) My name is Eric.

 

[doghead]

The hard top and the soft top have the same data plate (manufacturers). The data tag says; Manufactured by (Inverted triange /vertical rectangle) , General Products Division. Under that it reads Jeep Corporation. The 1971 hard top vin is 04F-45671 052-20*** .It has an '89 rebuild tag on the motor. Both have a mwo on the cab dated '89. The 1970 soft top vin is 0411-72271 0539-11*** . It has no rebuild tag on engine.

 

[houdel]

Sorry Eric. I knew that, for some reason I've been calling you Dave all through this post and the Soft top Deuce post. Must have messed up too many brain cells sniffing too much Deuce exhaust! Gotta switch to Biodiesel!

Can you post a pic of one of the data plates? I've never seen one as you described it. Here's a photo of my data plate, note it has a serial number, not a VIN!

 

[doghead]

i'll post pics of tags tomorrow. Also I'm glad "Dave" did not receive my socket instead of me!

 

[Recovry4x4]

Lee, your tag is a replacement tag as evidenced by the etched letters. As far as years, 1969 was technically the last year for Kaiser Jeep. 1970 was a transition year and most true 70 stuff wil be General Products Division. 1971 Started the actual AM General production. You will always run across the guy who insists he has a 69 AMG or the guy with the 1973 Kaiser Jeep but the above pretty much sums it all up. Since VINs or serial numbers prefixes usually cover 2 years or more, actual year of a vehicle is at best an educated guess for the later trucks. The earlier stuff will actually show a year on the data plate. My matching numbers Studebaker M108 shows the date of 1953 and the dates of 2 of the 3 axles confirm that. Haven't checked the other one yet. Congrats on the LDS power. Look around for a tag stating it was converted for use in the M35. If you find one, they probably recalibrated the injection pump, if you don't find one, you got a screamer.

 

[doghead]

there is no recalibration tag on the engine(It screams!)

 

[doghead]

Dash tags

Here are the tags on the hard top! I'm posting the soft top tags under the soft top post! They are both AM Generals.

 

[Recovry4x4]

So, the data tags appear original and the years are 70 and 71 right? How did you determine the years or are you going off what you were told?

 

[doghead]

The years are what I've been told . GL listing for the hard top (not reliable). Registration on the soft top. If you or anyone else can identify them as anything else , please let me know! Thank you, Eric

 

[houdel]

Ken - Thanks for the clarification. As I undertand you, pre '70 was Kaiser-Jeep, '70 could be marked either Kaiser-Jeep OR General Products Jeep Corp and post '70 are AM General. My data plate is stamped, not etched, and did not have a year stamped on it originally, but it does now and I have the 1/8" metal stamp set to prove it. It is also light brown, not black, as is Eric's plate. My weight data is given as 13,000/23,000, not 13,030/23,030 as seen on many trucks.

I was told that my truck is a '70 based on an earier thread. The serial number prefix is "0539", "05" was the date Kaiser-Jeep date code for 1970 and "39" indicates a winch truck, although the NSN indicates wo/w and I do not have a winch. Also the serial number, 14943, was told to me to be in the mid 1970 range of Kaiser-Jeep serial numbers. My frame does not have the prefix stamped, just the 5 digit serial number. I noticed Eric's plate is stamped "0525" indicating 1970 model year wo/w and his NSN is wo/w.

Who mentioned a LDS engine? Mine is an LDT and pretty anemic at that. I have to give it full throttle to start it and then play with the throttle to keep it in the 800-1000 prm range until all 6 cylinders are running smoothly. It starts kind of like the old Pratt-Whitney radial aircraft engines, first one cylinder fires, then it sputters along as more cylinders start firing and eventually all six start firing, the process takes about 2-3 seconds to get all 6 running. Even then I still have to play with the throttle a few more seconds, if I release the throttle too soon it will die on me. I have to gradually ease up on the throttle to keep it below 1000 rpm, but still give it extra throttle to keep it over 800 rpm until it has been running for 10-15 seconds. Once it is warmed up it will restart normally without any fiddling with the throttle. I have the ether start system, I'm told that ether engines are like that. Of course I haven't changed out my fuel filters yet, I've also heard a dirty primary filter will cause hard starting.

 

[houdel]

Ken - Got it. Read the Soft top deuce thread, LDS-465 there.

 

[doghead]

I took the hard top out for a little off road adventure today! Sorry no pics,( it was completely unplanned). I traversed gullies, climbed hills(45 degrees+), and climbed and descended creek-banks(4-5') that I would of never guessed possible with any motorized vehicle! (especially one that weighs 13000 pounds) The way the axles move and stay in contact with the ground is unbelievable. I had some very skeptical passengers in the back and when it was over they were truly amazed!(as well as I was ) I still can hardly believe what that truck would do!(effortlessly) I really like it when my friends pick on me for a couple weeks and then the only thing they could say after the ride was how awesome this truck is !