XM791 Recoveries

[Elwenil]

Ahh, I knew someone here would know exactly who I was talking about, lol.

 

[jollyroger]

Tom's making the new OD gears for the M-35 tranny's. We can send him a message and see what he says about the XM 791.

As for the body......We can get away with an M-4 type expansible van body. It should bolt right on from what I have researched. All the nomenclature I've seen say's it's a modified M-4 van body. I don't know what the modifications are to make it different. I have a diagram of the complete interior layout. But getting an original is probably a huge longshot. We will keep tracking the history of the trucks and see if one of the bodies is laying in a field somewhere.......you never know. We've been lucky before. Just getting the trucks was lucky........

 

[Oldfart]

Photo of the passenger door stencil. Imagine 50 MPH on the Autobahan. I have been there, white knuckled, at 118 in a Chrysler mini van. I can only wonder about the mix of a 50 mph 8x8 with some of the grocery getters that shot by us at 118. DRIVER WILL NOT SWim?

 

[cranetruck]

Bob, I believe that the top line is separate from the other ones and reads "Driver will not smoke".
Image below shows slightly different door marking regarding smoking.

 

[Oldfart]

That makes sense. The stencil runs on to the finger pocket behind the door handle and it looks like what ever the rest of SM was it did not get painted. That 3rd line about 25 MPH is pretty well gone as well.

 

[Oldfart]

Cranetruck,
Is that a sealed brake drum below the glove box? Even though the cabs were filled with stuff, the glove boxes were empty. Jollyroger found a circular plaque that read "Military Police" around the outside edge and then had something like "EH PH" "CLLO" in the center (no photo yet, his memory to my memory...) in with all the support brackets and stuff on the floor of one of the cabs.

 

[cranetruck]

Cranetruck,
Is that a sealed brake drum below the glove box? Even though the cabs were filled with stuff, the glove boxes were empty. Jollyroger found a circular plaque that read "Military Police" around the outside edge and then had something like "EH PH" "CLLO" in the center (no photo yet, his memory to my memory...) in with all the support brackets and stuff on the floor of one of the cabs.

Well looks like it's part of one. Image from Captain Pat's Ohio restoration project...

 

[doghead]

That brake drum looks very similar to the GamaGoat's drum, interesting.

 

[Oldfart]

I have never had a chance for a real close look at a Gama Goat, but one of my fellow club members told me the Goat also had a tubeless snap ring wheel set up. I do know Goat wheels are 18 inch as opposed to 20 inch on the XM791. There is a bueatfully restored Goat in our club, but so far I have only seen it from the back of the MVCC parade string while it goes around a corner up ahead of me. Maybe the whole concept of sealed brake drum and tubeless wheels was shared with the Goat?

 

[cranetruck]

That brake drum looks very similar to the GamaGoat's drum, interesting.

Right, many similarities here, aluminum bodies, swimming capabilities, same era etc.

 

[DKELONE]

You have probably already gone back to the Ellicott FD and asked about parts and pieces laying around. I bought 3 mules years ago from GSA that were missing the beds and hole covers. They had come from a FD in S GA. I called the FD and all 3 beds were shelving units in their shop. I traded some equipto shelving and recovered the beds + a whole bunch of parts. You might get lucky and find the bodies or parts. Can't hurt.

 

[jollyroger]

We have an e-mail in to the Chief of Ellicot FD but no response yet. We are definitely going to track that down. Also there were reports of some van bodied trucks coming from a salvage yard somewhere around there. Supposedly the bodies were scrapped. But you never know.

We are definitely trying to leave no stone unturned to find the original pieces for these trucks. And thank you for the suggestions. Keep em' coming.

 

[Oldfart]

I had a chance for up close looks at two Gama Goats yesterday and yes, there are lots of similarities between the Goat and our XM791's. Same blackout light set up, same kinds of drums and so on.

Today I went to the farm to photograph the MP sign found in the cab of one of the trucks. It's hard to read and did not photograph well either. We have determined some of the pipes and stuff thrown in the cab probably relate to the expansible van body supports when extended. We have yet to go through everything. We plan on taking the time to photo it all and to make up inventory sheets that show what was in which truck. I am including todays photos with hopes someone may have an idea of what the circular sign says and what it would have been used for. Its about 16 inches to 18 inches in diameter.

 

[Recovry4x4]

The suppport jacks sure look like M4 van body supports.

 

[Oldfart]

Good weather today coupled with a free afternoon has allowed us to inspect and investigate our XM791's a little further. We managed to make out more of the circular MP sign we found in one of the cabs. It says "Military Police" around the outside edge of the sign and then across the middle just above the center mounting bolt hole it says "Golden Colorado". Below the center bolt hole there is a series of numbers that we can't make out yet.

We installed a couple of 8D batteries in place of the two cracked frozen junk 6UL's. The tool box location change battery box lid shows the wiring pattern for 4 6UL's, but someone had reduced the batteries to 2 and simply wrapped electricians tape over the battery terminals that were not being used. I pulled the mess apart and installed new terminals as the old ones were badly cracked. Careful connection, finds no dead shorts. The in tank fuel pump works and one of the head lights functions as do some of the side marker lights. Considering the left side head lamp assembly was torn off the bumper and the wires are disconnected I think we have a chance of that side working as well when we get that repaired and reassembled. It appears the original battery box under the passenger seat was set up for two 6UL's, but never used for that purpose. Looks like a good place for tools and the like.

 

[Oldfart]

Had more time today until the winds started to blow so hard. Cold front is on the way. Anyhow, we now have the electrical to the point the starter will engage. It looks like we have a complete set of bows for one top at least. I checked out the tires a little further and I note two brands, BF Goodrich and Goodyear. The BF Goodrich's look larger and wider at the sidewalls. About a third of the tires have decent looking ND tread with sipe cuts on each side of the centerline. These tires are all recaps and look to be originally Goodyear’s. Don't know why, but someone had removed all the fuel lines between the IP and the injectors on both trucks. The lines are all loose in the cab so we have them, but we for sure will have some cleaning and reconditioning to do.

 

[54reo]

We have determined some of the pipes and stuff thrown in the cab probably relate to the expansible van body supports when extended.

With 100% certainty, those items in the last two pictures are indeed the supports for the expansible body that would have been on those trucks.

I do have an early TM for the entire series of expansible/expandable bodies, both truck and trailer mounted. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find the time to scan it...

 

[Oldfart]

At this point, we are missing the expansible van bodies, but I have a couple of offers to sell should we get to that point with restoration. Yesterday we found 4 feet for the jacks so our stuff is looking more and more complete. I am sure we will need instructions when we get that far. Right now we are trying to find out if they can be made to run.

 

[tm america]

Im not that close to you, but if you need a nice box i might be able to help.

There is a trailer for sale near me that i want for a project and i wont need the box.

i'm interested in the box .. pm me if you get it and let me know what you would like to get for it

 

[tm america]

i have a couple of the support jacks with the bases and handles if you need them shot me a pm