M35a2 Deuce NO START

Yes, what is the latest?

Wow, this has gotten way more guys interested in the results than I thought it would!

Going to finally have some good and warm weather tomorrow to try to tow-start it.

The only question is, the truck that I will be towing (and trying to start) is equipped with the air assist steering. Will towing the truck, turning the steering rack, and using the air assist, with no air pressure damage that part of the system? The truck has sat for about 12 years so I don't want to destroy all of the seals if I can prevent it.

Along with that is there a way to artificially charge/fill the air system with a compressor?

The quick and dirty method is to unscrew the drain cock on the outermost air tank (1/4 in NPT) and screw in an air connection to hook up an air hose. Theoretically, the air connection in the passenger foot well at the firewall should also work and backfeed air into the rest of the system, but I have not tried it.

We used a spare glad hand, with an quick disconnect nipple on it. Hook it up, open the glad hand shut off valve and hook up an air hose.

Passenger foot well and @Guyfang 's gladhand have the advantage of a shutoff valve to be able to disconnect the hose and keep the air in the truck; if you plumb into the air tank, you need to plumb a shutoff valve also in order to have that feature.

I think, but not sure, that a glad hand with nipple was in the Wrecker BII.

I used the passenger footwell connection to charge my deuce when testing the wipers, horn, pressure indicator and looking for leaks. Was not running at the time so this worked great.

Good news. It's alive!!!


First time we got the truck up to speed and let the clutch out it fired right up. Guess the shock and higher rpm did make a big difference. The truck has no brakes (fluid leak somewhere) and, of course, it busted the oem radiator right after it got up to temp... but it runs.

Thank all of you for your wisdom and help! Very rewarding to finally hear it run after hours and hours of troubleshooting!

Very cool! Loved how she cleared her throat when she came to life!

That was a win for you and all us fans!

I bet your glad you didn't mess with the injection pump now !
These old diesels need to be run on a regular basis or bad things happen. It was very gratifying to hear it come to life !
Now is the time to run a good engine cleaner through it and then change the engine oil and filters. Then run it like you stole it !

Congrats!

That was awesome! Nice to see an old Deuce roar back to existence!

I just watched the video. That is a hoot! When the white smoke started, I knew you were going to get a runner out of it.

I love a story with a happy ending. I've been following your thread, thanks for sharing your experience. This is an excellent reason to have more than one Deuce (or an excuse for anyone who needs one).

Glad to see it running! Hopefully it keeps running like a champ for ya!!

After reading this, I was gonna say check for an exhaust restriction, but you got it figured out!