M37 Restoration (53-41242)

[maple_leaf_eh]

Originally Posted by Wayne Hingley

Due to snow and high winds today, I'm waiting until tomorrow evening to pick up this M37 that I found down the road on a farm. It is in great overall condition. Cant wait to get it home and take a closer look. CFR is 53-41842.

Here is a photo of something that is not OD for a change!

I haven't seen frost shields on any vehicle in years. There you have two on the windshield. One driveable defrosting solution I saw some time ago was a piece of 2" diameter PVC or ABS pipe plumbed from an unseen blower and the air aimed at the glass through a series of 1/4" holes. Not sure how well it worked, but necessity is the mother of invention.

If there is no rust, how damn lucky do you feel? Go buy lottery tickets!

[Jes Andersen]

Wayne, That looks like a pretty nice find. Rust repair panels for the area under the headlights are available from Charles Talbert at M-Series Rebuild if you can't make your own. The sheet metal looks pretty straight with nobody dancing on the hood or hardtop. What's under the hood? Still 251 with 24V stuff? More pictures once you get a chance. Now that you have one, you know that they have herd tendencies.
Have fun!

Jes

[Wayne Hingley]

Terry; Yes it is nice to have a rust-free truck. There are two other M37's (one would be parts only) a farm a few miles from me, and they are both very rust-free as well. However one of them has been beat up pretty bad in its use around the farm. The other is quite good (both are currently on my radar). Fortunately those trucks probably didn't see much (if any) road salt in the winters out here. There were frost shields on both side windows and the rear sliding window too. All are gone except the rear one. Its just the outline left on the other windows. Frost shields were before my time; were they an effective device?

Jes; Below are a few engine photos. A bit dusty, but it appears to all be there. Still 24v and original. I do suspect that upon handling the wiring will start to shed its insulation. A new wiring harness may be in the future.

[rob love]

The owner really seems to have had a thing for fuel filters.

I am not to old to remember frost shields....they worked just fine.

Ooops, on hindsight, I guess the phrase should be: I am old enough to remember frost-shields. They worked just fine.

That looks better.

[Wayne Hingley]

Rob, here is another one that will demonstrate how young you are...
The truck has one wheel with these clips (see photos) on the split ring. Again, not something I have experienced, but I understand they were to somehow help with ease of install and/or removal....???

[rob love]

Nope...those are bead clips. They prevented the tire from spinning on the rim (whilst simultaneously tearing out the valve stem from the inner tube) when driving the tire with low pressure for extra flotation. They basically kept the beads pulled against the outsides of the rim, simlar to what a beadlock ring would do.

Good old TM9-8000 (principles of automotive vehicles) covers it here: https://books.google.ca/books?id=OP0...0clips&f=false

TM9-8000 is the manual I initially read to become a army mechanic. A hearty tome, it will keep you up for many nights reading it.

The clips are not common to find. They could be saved if you did the tire repair by hand, but the big coats HIT5000 tire machines destroyed them.

[Jes Andersen]

It looks pretty complete under the hood. Strange routing for the multi fuel filter run, unless its coming from an electric fuel pump hidden under the dash or drivers side somewhere. I can see that something is cut off the fuel pump, either a vacuum connection or the original fuel connection to the carb. If I am correct, the air cleaner is a fording type but may just be a regular one after the dirt is cleaned off. Those clips are bead clips and not too common any more. When I redid a bunch of my wheels, the tire guy tossed those he found and we never bothered to find anything to replace them with. Wiring on anything this old will be toast and a replacement along with a cutoff switch, if it doesn't already have one is worth the effort and could save the truck or worse. These trucks had Douglas connectors originally but after many mods over their lives, its hard to know sometimes. Did you find the serial number? Not that there are records but it may help you know where in the range that this one lives. If you have access to any reasonable rust free parts trucks, they would be worth thinking about getting, especially if you have a place to store them or the take offs. As the guy I got my last two from told me, the parts won't get easier to find in 10 yrs...
Looks like you have a great project lined up. I just noticed the 'coolant recirculator' off the water pump elbow. That must be one of those rare bits we are all looking for...