Thanks everyone! This is turning out to be quite a fun little investigation. I have been researching and it's raining here in the desert (where it never rains). The adobe mud out here is the devil, so I'm probably going to be inside researching more today. Here is where I'm at now.
Want to try to figure out the year, I think that will help with Reg.
Jack and I thought mine was a '59 because his Stude number starts with '63 and the dash tag indicates '63 as the year. Just a coincidence it seems now. I wonder if the numbers after the M reset every year? I'm going to list all the Stude numbers and years I can find...
Anyone know how to get in touch with Mr. Doyle? PM box full.
"M" means it's a Stude, got that. Stands for Military maybe? Jack (Gov Surplus in Tucson, maaaaany trucks) said the other numbers are frame rail part numbers, although they are slightly different left to right. Driver side has a "22" prefix and " T suffix". I doubt that is very relevant though. At one point, based on Mr. Doyle's article I thought the 22 might have indicated at LWB truck, but it does not appear to be so. Rear suspension is still hot riveted in place.
Neighbors have a few gassers, I glanced at frame numbers real quick but didn't look at dash plates. Dummy, was in a hurry. I took pics though, and one starts with M, so I will revisit. Wish I could get in on Sunday, although it's a muddy mess I'm sure.
The USMC thought is based on the USMC carved in the steering wheel and the handle at the front of the hood. Jack said that's a USMC thing.
Any other USMC hints to look for? No lifting eyes welded on the bumper, but I have a feeling the bumper was swapped and it used to be a winch truck because the lower portion of the grill guard was missing. Have a winch to go back on, need to get a PTO. I don't think the water truck PTO is gonna work.
Carnac, isn't your database only Army? If so, that's one more USMC indicator, I think. I have little doubt it was out of the mil system before computers. It's spend a lot of time being civvy abused I think. I need to go donate, thanks for taking the time to try to help!
Re: dash, and all the tags missing, I bed it was civvy swapped and of course the Multi dash numbers, tags, etc. weren't right, so they just took them off and didn't bother to re-rivet the proper tags from the old original dash on. It just occurred to me that I could look at the rivet hole patterns and compare gassers to my '80s stripped AM-G multi parts donor truck.
Jack was thinking LDS427 because of the big multi dash and he thinks they kept the manually engaged lever type starter (and generator?) from the 427 when the LDS 465 was installed. Maybe I could look for underbody exhaust hangers or remnants.
Paint colors... probably not relevant to much, but surface is the Kuhn Hay ugly yellow offwhite. Under that is yellow, under that, fire truck lookin' red (also on engine under oddball minty green, Forest Svc or USBP?) and lastly OD green. I'm thinking to sand (or strip?) off the hood and hope I can find some hood numbers. Oh, the interior is a different color...kind of a gold/tan/green.
EDIT: hard top has small fixed rear window, not sliding.
Ok, off to dig more. Thanks again, y'all.
EDIT: I was kidding about questioning tires, I plan to run NDT 11.00-20s Dual. And since I want to offroad, and it's USMC, gonna have to install lockers...
Yesterday I saw a 5 ton bridge truck with dual NDT 14.00-20s. Wow. Also, 3 M123s...man, he's got looots of stuff.
