Novice Deuce Questions

[Dodge man]

Hello,

I'm interested in buying a Deuce and I've been out looking at several but these are new to me and I have a couple of questions about them.

(1) Several have had two rifle rack in front of the seat and to the right of the shifter as shown in the TM but one that I looked at has a rack in each back corner of the cab behind the seat. Is this correct? If so why the difference?

(2) I looked at a '68 kaiser and it had the delivery date stamped on a plate on the dash but none of the others had that and I haven't found a date on them. They did have the manufacturer marked on a dash plate along with a 1970 contract code on them so I suppose the government changed the marking requirement. How can I find out what year they are?

(3) The '68 Kaiser had MWO tags on it but I haven't seen any of the others. Does that mean they were never MWO'd or did they simply not mark them?

(4) All of the Deuces that I looked at had heaters and all but the '68 had air shifters. But one of the later ones that I looked at also had a canvas shifter boot. I understand that was part of a cold weather package but did that package include anything else that the other "heated" Deuces didn't?

(5) What kind of jack came with these originally? I've never seen one and no one that I've talked to has either!

(6) I'm curious about the M-35's pioneer rack. Where can I find an explaination of what's supposed to be in it and how they all attach? I've been reading the PMs, TMs, etc but haven't found anything about them yet.

(7) Did they always zero the hour and/or speedometer when they rebuild the engines? Or is there a way to tell when/if they were rebuilt? The later Deuces that I looked at have ~40k miles on them. Is that OK or should I look for one with lower mileage?

(Any recommendations of manufacturer's or particular years to avoid or any other hidden issues that I need to look for?

Thanks,

 

[m16ty]

1) I have no idea

2) Some trucks have the dates stamped on the dash and some don't. The frame number can tell you the true year.

3) If it's got seatbelts it's had the MWO. That's the only MWO that I know of.

4) They had winterfronts, cab flame heaters, insulated cargo covers, cago heaters, flame engine heaters, and other things for trucks that were in cold climates.

5) A od green bottle jack.

6) I'm sure you could do a search and come up with answers.

7) Pay no attention to the miles or hours shown. There is no way to know how accurate they are.

No, they are pretty much all the same.


Do some searching around here and you'll find more answers to all of your questions.

 

[gunboy1656]

1) easier to get to when you need it, as in war time.

2) already answered

3) once again answered

4) there was all sorts of upgrades to try and help keep the driver warmer, although I dont see the boot doing all that much.

5) Look in the BII section for the deuce, think it lists an 8 ton bottle jack. I would have to double check.

6) the pioneer rack is: shovel, maddox and axe. the maddox comes apart to fit in the rack. I know there are a couple threads with pics.
http://www.steelsoldiers.com/deuce/47183-pioneer-tool-sets.html
http://www.steelsoldiers.com/deuce/44465-m35-pioneer-rack.html

last 2 already answered

 

[Dodge man]

Great! Thanks guys!

 

[LanceRobson]

1. Rifle racks were unit installed and came in at least 3 versions. Many trucks never got them at all.

2. If you look at the contract number on the data plate, the 7th and 8th digits represent the year of the contract. The truck could be a couple of years newer due to the length of some contracts. There have been 3 or 4 different serial number sequencing systems used on these trucks. In some there is a 2 digit representation of the year. It denotes the year in which the frame was designated for a particular type of truck.

For uncommon trucks like tractors, wreckers and dump trucks the manufacturers seemed to have set up for and made more than one year's worth of frame rails at a time. Some of those trucks are quite a bit newer than the serial number date code would imply.

Also, a lot of trucks dated in one year would not get completed until the next year. Most trucks did not have the build or delivery date stamped on them so we have to use an educated guess to date the truck.

3. Seat belts were installed as both an overhaul item and unit installed. As said above, not all got tagged.

4. Again most heaters were unit installed. A big part of who got them had to do more with the level of a particular unit's funding and whether the unit trained in cold weather than the physical climate of the unit's home. That's why you'll see trucks that spent their whole life in the FLNG with heaters and some from the NYNG that never got them.

5. An 8 ton bottle jack, originally green but replacements were generally locally procured and are in whatever color the manufacturer painted them.

6. The maintenance records for the truck were supposed to be annotated if anything affected the hour meter of odometer accuracy. If the engine were changed, the odometer or hour meter were changed etc it would be written down in the paper records (later computerized). Sometimes the odometer or hour meter were changed with the engine but that was a unit choice, not an Army policy. A few trucks got a label or penned note on the dash to "Add 897 hrs" etc.

Based on 35 years around these I've noticed a good correlation between the hours and miles. For 2-1/2 ton trucks, the cargo truck show about 30 miles for every hour. For 5 ton cargo trucks it is about 40 miles. For tractors it is closer to 50 miles. For everything else it can be all over the place because dumps, wreckers and shop trucks spend more time idling and the dump and wrecker trucks spend a lot of time in very low speed operation.

If the hours and miles are out of whack, look for why. You can usually figure it out.

The overall mileage is not as important as the general condition. A few minutes looking closely at a line of trucks will give you a good indication of which came from units with a well funded and effective maintenance program. I've seen HEMTTs in NJ that were 12 years old and had rust holes in the body and bed from neglect and bought a truck from a NJNG maintenance company that had 53K, was 40 years old and was mechanically perfect. Unit climate matters much more than miles or age.

There are no better or worse dates or makers. If you look at the tags on the engine, transmission, transfer case and axles they can tell you a lot. If they are all dated newer than the frame and are dated with the same year or within a year, it's a sure indication that the truck got a complete overhaul. Otherwise, scattered dates indicate there was ongoing maintenance and that the unit had some funding.

Until the 9/11 attacks funding for Guard and Reserve units was all over the place. The lessons from the Persian Gulf War were ignored. Units got funded based on outdated ideas that believed that combat arms units and units belonging to combat brigades and divisions would deploy rapidly and all the detached or separate units would have time to "catch up" on maintenance before deploying. Big mistake. Reality shows that construction engineers, transportation outfits etc go before most combat troops since the support folks are needed before the gunfighters or the gunfighters don't eat or have any bases to work from.

Since 9/11 the trucks coming out of the service have been a lot better maintained. Some are still rough but they are nothing like as rough as they were 10 years ago.

Lance

Lance