G749 preservation

The names in White or Tan, were a way of making the USA crews take pride in their vehicle, and warning any temporary user, as to who would be coming after them if a truck was not returned in perfect condition.

As for signs or decals on the door, when I served, you might have your call sign on the door.

Only the lowly combined Forces duty drivers, or Range control had a fancy emblem on their door. We were embarassed
to get stuck with one of those.

Our assigned Veh. with our unit Tac sign, on the rear was all we wanted to use.

For interests of National Security, Tac Signs, and unit designator stopped being posted, we we all knew that we help the only key for the steering wheel chain lock ( in flagrant disregard the national policy, but screw you... I signed for that unit, and I'm taking it back!)

M135 assists in Provost recovery

Story at 11

M135 assists in Provost recovery

Canada,,,,,,,,,,, jet aircraft, MV's and Palm trees

G 749 engines in crates

After all the Muffler talk with the 211 kids I called the gent that sold me my M135. We went back for a wander in his yard and found 302/ G749 engines still in crates. He thinks they were re-built some 20-30 years ago when he had the contract for 'salvage' and simply hauled them to his yard where they have sat rotting. He still has pickers, trailers and axles for the Early Deuce as well as two old girls rotting in the trees.

He simply wants the best value for his investment but time has forced him to bring in the shears and start moving the scrap cars and metal out of the yard.

If I can I'll hoard the engines and any parts I can find. Still digging for mufflers and should have access to the crates in a few days.

In hopes I win the lottery and can save all of it, are their any rich heartfelt investors that want to loose a pile of money collecting old military gear and store it at my farm 30 miles away? I'm going to grab what I can afford but in a few days...........

The big crush

........the big jaw in the first photo is going to start eating.


The 175,000 lb tug, fuselage mover, the wrecker, engines, helicopter blades, axles, 2 trucks and a yard full of vehicles..........cut and containerized for over-seas shipping,


Send me a PM if there's something you think you want....soon!!

Scrap, really, to who

Axle off a Korea era trailer, cut, re-welded and customized for moving log homes......

Aluminum water tank

Cut up jeeps in the third picture

Some of the over-sized rigging laying around

The wrecker,

Helicopter blades.......... smelled like they were off a Huey but not sure if that's a
sure proof method of determining originality. They'd make a cool gate.

302's just sitting in crates and rotting away?? Isn't there a site rule about posting pics that crush souls??

drlogistics said:

302's just sitting in crates and rotting away?? Isn't there a site rule about posting pics that crush souls??

Click to expand...

I threw up a little.

The Crush

Aye Dr.log......He's been talking about this day for years. I just dumped a bunch 'o' doe on other things so buying and saving more green is out of the budget.

Standing next to the thumb knowing it's soon cutting into the stuff I love....and there's nothing I can do..... makes ya want to say nasty swear words.

Instead,,,,, I made some calls and found out that the motors are most likely "take-outs". Still worth at least scrap value with at least 5 decent exhaust manifolds, carbs, gens, compressors and we......good friends that didn't spend all their doe....... can make an offer on it.

The trucks, trailers and what ever else is big, will demand full scrap value or it's not worth his time.

Need to get resourceful and save this stuff.

Oh, there are no rules about posting soul crushing pictures but I'm sure there are rules about watching historical, military Steel Soldiers get crushed without trying to do something about it.

Anyone want to throw in and save some gear, chime in now or the opposite of this video will happen.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF2GVOXs0tI[/media]

Continued Preservation

With frost in the mornings, ice starting to form on the puddles and the sun going away just after 7pm........cruise night is probably finished....after tonight.

Spent 2 hrs in and under the M135 re-torquing everything, inspecting the parking brake drum assy' for cracks, (levy# 7411357) steering, brakes, wheel nuts to 300lbs and finger dipping for fluids.

Grabbed the grease gun and had a quick look at TM9-8024 pt1 pages 117 thru 133 to SSee what I might have miSSed. There are more orifices, holes and nipples on this truck then Gunfreak's pig at the Yuma gun range.

Hot Trani check is tricky with the truck in High Range 'level' for the dip-stick pull.

Tweaked the timing up from 12 degrees (Normal is 0) and hit the road for the 10 minute drive to our White Oaks A&W.

She's never performed this smooth so an hour later.......I pull into the lot as the sun was setting on a short summer.

Once again the truck attracted a retired soldier and his wife. His love/hate history with the G 749 started with the first time he had to climb out of the small door in full tactical gear. It's great hearing the stories and each time I learn a little more on the pros and cons of the early deuce. Just the honor of taking a former tank pilot for a tour is worth the build time.


Where's Waldo?

Deuce ride along

Just an unedited video of a 7 minute ride along. Don't try this at home, the Deuce handles like a cadi so one handing it while taking videos, although not recommended, is very easy. Traffic was light and safety margins were increased as recorded at 3:19. The guy facing the wrong way into traffic at 50 seconds and a few seconds later as the deuce comes to a crawl, the near rear-ender pedestrian crossing, made Thanksgiving for driving a Deuce that much sweeter.

Crazy whine can be heard in the video microphone but really didn't hear it in the cab. Must check that out.

My favorite part is at the end where the beast anticipates the light, slows down with just the trani and actually needs fuel to get it to the intersection. Fun truck.

An extra long Thanksgiving treat for the Gunfreak.

1956 GMC M135CDN 6X6 City tour - YouTube

Frost? It was 109 here a few days ago!

BRAVO MAN. AWESOME VIDEO. MADE MY WHOLE TOMORROW. Had the skullcandy headphones cranked up to full power. Wish I could press the thanks button more than once.....

Awesome video. Would love to see some video taking from the outside view with the truck going through its paces off road.

I deliveryed the MKT to the working AO with the M36A3. Sorry Dave no video for this trip, Soldier who was detailed to shoot video, had to do a football game for TSN.

You might have to wait. The M36 has the ponies to pull that ugly kitchen trailer, but it is so blasted long, that we are going to have to bring the M135 along as a yard donkey ... even without any power steering assist, it is just so much better.

Yes, I will try to get video of that too. You know that I WILL edit out my backing mistakes!

I like the beginning shots in the video where you see the tarp bows in the mirror.

Snatched some time here and there to read through this entire thread. Great work.

You gave me some ideas how to handle cleaning and painting our truck. I got a headache only imagining taken off all wiring, brake lines and other small stuff and protecting somehow the drive train or taking it off as well before painting. From the pics in the first two pages of the thread, it looks like you just cleaned everything very thoroughly and then primed and painted EVERYTHING in one go: frame, bodywork, drive train, brake housing, wiring, brake lines, etc, etc, just everything.

How did you clean it beforehand, just high pressure water or steam or also sand blasting?

The brake restore pictures are also useful. The pictures of two brake cylinders per brake give some good ideas on the possibilities of making a similar setup on the 5-ton front brakes. That would make it easy to make a dual brake system on the truck: top front cylinders and 2nd axle on one circuit, bottom front cylinders and 3rd axle on the second circuit.

MV Preservation

Thanks for the kind words, the brakes are the most 'comforting' mechanical re-build. Even after re-building, monitoring and maintaining the entire brake system I still respect the fact they are the most critical item on the truck. You have a 5 ton Robo? I'll search around for pics, gotta see it.

I had a small budget and very little time so instead of a long remove, restore and replace everything I went with a "preservation" theme to "soda/ glass/ walnut" blast the truck without a big tear-down.

We cut out and patched the worst metal with metal and as little bondo as possible. Bought my first mig welder for the truck and learned how to weld with gas to patch the paper thin body back together.

Finding a portable blast unit to come to my shop was a stroke of luck. The owner of this company served in the military and was not only gracious with the final bill, spent 5 hours with 3 different blast media to get in every corner he could without heating thinner areas. He knew I was saving the truck with noble intentions so my final bill from him was just over $1000.00. Too unbelievable to express equal gratitude.

There are pros and cons on blasting but now that I know I can keep sand out of the engine and not cause more problems, this is a successful, fast and efficient way to get through the layers of mystery paint to a 'ready to paint' surface.

Any finger prints or grease marks were removed with 'Endura' thinner or reducer then tack clothed over and over. We blew sand out of it several times before spraying however the spray gun still found sand and while applying primer, a little grit would jump out and land on the sticky paint now and then. To this day when I open the front windows while cruisin', sand comes out of the window frames and other places it's been hiding. It's not a show truck yet so I have little concern other then what may be sucked into the carb. For a 'rolling restoration' and limiting the down time for a toy, this is one quick way to go.

The blasted M135 was wheeled into my shop on the May long weekend and after 47 hours including two days on a spray gun, she was preserved by Tuesday morning.

Once everything is blasted and painted from the outside, teardown and removal of mechanical is an absolute pleasure. Paint damage while twisting wrenches is inevitable so touch up paint should be inventoried.

Wash, cut, weld, blast, clean, prime, paint, mechanical, insure, register and drive.

Dave you are spot on. Big difference between restoration and preservation. Your labor will insure she is in prime condition for another sprucing up 50 years from now.

Thanks for the update on this. It looks you really almost went to bare steel with blasting, much further than I initially thought from your pictures. My son (a blacksmith) has a small very old blasting unit (if it still works) so we would use that. Apart from the engine, blasting around wiring, air and hydraulic lines and moving drive train parts (joints, axle seals) is no problem?

Tomorrow I will go to a company that does sand blasting and "zinc priming" work on our son's blacksmith work. I will ask what it would cost and how they do this kind of things.

For my truck, see this link
dump to tractor and back conversion

I am now busy making some videos about the truck, maybe later this month they will be up.

Also, follow the link in my signature for more info on what we are going to do with the truck, which will be part of a museum exhibition. I will update that site also later this month. The problem with restoring the truck is that our budget is extremely limited (think hundreds in stead of thousands) and we are still looking for sponsors. Until then, it is whatever time and money I can scrape together to get and keep things going.

Sand Blast Preservation

So far the only challenge with sand blasting was keeping it out of the engine and continuous washing/ vacuuming after. Even now, before I pull a spark plug, a wash down is required to get the sand out of 'collector' areas around the plug.

Sand blasting in the engine compartment was limited to fire-wall, inner wells, top of rad and frame. He did hit some of the brass as well as all lines. That was the reason for the three different pallets of media. Different pressures, nozzles and media for sensitive areas. It takes a hand of experience not to cut holes in thin, delicate metal so be sure whoever gives you a blast...has a big resume.

A Before and After photo with the original owner and a Carazy buddy that helped with the recovery.