My Deuce, From Purchase to Present

Hi Group,

Here's a thread I meant to start right after I got my deuce, but I never did... Too much work to sort through and resize all the pics. But as it's restoration nears completion, here it is. Better late than never! I'll use this thread to post all pics relating to my deuce in the future... road trips, MV events, parades and such.

It's a 1968 Kaiser-Jeep M35A2, the frame is stamped 12-4-67. Plain-Jane. No hard top, no winch, no dropside... Just a plain old truck. I've since added a heater kit for the cold desert winters here, but the rest will stay as-is.

I bought it in January, 2006 from SS member Mark (NF6X), from an ad on his website, "Mark's Green Pages" http://www.nf6x.net/ which I stumbled across from a link at http://www.olive-drab.com/ while doing deuce research. I had wanted a deuce for a long time, having grown up right next to USMCAS El Toro, here in Southern California. I had been looking for the right deuce... One I could afford, was complete and restorable, and that was local. Mark's truck was just what I was looking for.

Mark's property in Riverside is on a former orange grove, and there are still groves of fruit trees in the area. This attracts rodents, and the area where the trucks were parked had a lot of rats. Rats think dormant trucks make ideal shelter, and my deuce was jam packed with nests... The empty battery box and under the hood were solid packed with twigs, sticks, and other debris. I wish I had pics of that, but I started clearing out nests to check for damage before I turned on the camera. Fortunately, they didn't chew anything... If it were mice, not rats, I would certainly have had to replace the wiring harnesses and hoses.

The truck was complete and in good condition, but had not been fired up... It was towed to Mark's house from DRMO Barstow and he never got a chance to work on it. He lives about 60 miles from me. I paid $2000, and another $340 to have it Landoll trailered to my house by a local towing company.

Most of this first set of pics were taken by Mark and appeared in the ad. A few were taken by me the day I went to look at it.

Regards,
Jon

Please keep 'em coming sir!

Wow - combining these with the pix in the other thread - its obvious you've come a long way.

DD

The day I looked at the truck, I knew I was going to buy it... I had cash in pocket. My girlfriend and a few of my other friends were with me... My friends wanted to check out the truck, and they were a little surprised (and amused) that I wanted to actually buy one of these things.

I gave Mark a deposit, and made arrangements to have it towed to my house a week or so later. Mark used his HumVee and towbar to drag the deuce to a position where the towing company would be able to get it onto the Landoll trailer.

I met the truck driver at their yard here in Hesperia, and rode to Mark's house with him. He was completely fascinated with the deuce, I could tell he'd love to own one. It was fun to ride in the rig, too... it had a Detroit Series 60 under the hood. He wasn't the greatest shifter... lots of grinding.

These pics are of us moving the deuce with the HumVee, and the day the deuce came home.

Jon

Man, I'd like to have a trailer like that at my disposal!

Does Mark still have his goat?

Interior view really says much about what you've done!

DD

Here's a few more, then I gotts to go to work!

The first pic is after I hosed it off the day it came home. What a difference it made, just removing all the debris, dirt, and rat turds!

The second pic is later that same day, when I got the canvas cover installed. I removed the troop seats because they had damage... bent metal parts, with rotten wood on one side and fiberglass on the other. I chose to leave them off until repaired or replaced.

The third and fourth pics are after I went to town with a few rattle cans of Rustoleum and Krylon, spraying the wheels and touching up some faded or rusty areas, and making the odd colored hood match the rest of the truck.

I had no trouble getting the truck running... I bought new 6TL batteries, and fuel filters. After purging air, the truck fired up instantly. I bled the brakes, and after less than a week I went for my first drive! Woo Hoo! This is about the time I first started posting here on Steel Soldiers. I had been lurking for almost a year, reading a lot - especially during the week before my truck came home - and downloading and reading TMs. I did not find it necessary to post at first, because all my questions were answered by searching the archives.

After a few weeks of putting around town, I started heavy maintenance work... greasing, replacing all fluids and filters, servicing bearings and replacing axle seals. After more local driving to prove reliability, I went on my first road trip.

The last pic is of the deuce's first road trip... 275 miles round trip to go shooting out near 29 Palms. The trip went flawlessly.

More to follow tomorrow...

Jon

Thanks David!

I thought this would be an interesting thread, because I have hundreds of pics, from the day I got the truck to present including every stage of restoration in between. It's quite a transformation!

Mark still had the goat when I was there, I got to check it out... "Want it?" he said... "I'll make you a deal!" Yikes! One MV at a time! Back then, however, I had not been bitten by the bug yet... I thought you 'multiple MVers' were lunatics on the fringe. If he had said that to me today it would probably be in my yard.

Regards,
Jon

Jon

My story is similiar to yours. I bought the green truck that was parked right next to yours from Mark, you can just see the bed in a couple of your pictures. I got a great deal and a GOOD truck from him.

I had a nice 1957 M35 gasser manufactred by Curtis Wright, I had it for several years, and loved it. A friend of mine is a huge 5-ton fan, and told me I should get a 5-ton I'd be happier. Being an American, of course, I thought, why not? Bigger is better, right? So I sold the Deuce and got a 68 M52A2 (tractor). I removed all the 5th wheel stuff, and added a custom made cargo bed from a derilict, non-working dump bed. It turned out pretty cool looking, it was a short wheel base 5-ton cargo truck. I nick-named her "Mongo" (Blazing Saddles)

But for reasons to long to go into now, I was not happy at all with her off road performance,, and I missed my Deuce. I had two friends, one who wanted a nice M1009 CUCV, and the other who had a nice CUCV but he was bored with it, and looking for another toy. In the mean time I found Marks truck for sale on the net, and it met ALL of my criteria.

So I came up with the "plan" (hair-brained scheme, is more like it!) to get my buddy who wanted a CUCV, to buy Marks Deuce for me, and have it shipped to my home in Buckeye, AZ. In exchange I would give him the CUCV, now if I could just get my other friend to trade me the CUCV for my 5-ton! Yeah I know it was crazy, but believe it or not, it all came together, and we're all still friends!

My friend who traded me for the 5-ton recently sold it to another Steelsoldiers member Desert Deuce. In AZ we have to smog any vehicle newer than 1966. I wanted Mark's truck because even though it was updated from a gasser to A2 standards with a whistler turbo, and airshift transfercase, they never updated the data plate, and the CA title showed it as a 1953 REO, which it was in it's original configuration. As a '53 not only did it not have to inspected, but it qualified for "Historical" plates, which means it wouldn't be taxed as a commercial truck. And I'd basically have a "late model" Deuce with out the hassle......what's not to like?

So I'm VERY happy with my truck, when we went to pick it up, I just installed 2 new batteries, and it fired right up. Marc had fixed the leaking breaks before we arrived, and I was able to fire her up, and drive it down the hill to the waiting lowboy. I had a BIG grin on my face that day!

I had a 53 REO parts truck at home so I swapped some parts out, including a better right fender, some mudflaps, and the tailgate, and hood. My parts truck was originally equipped with the winch, of course the winch and the drive shaft were missing, but all the PTO, and it's mounting/operating levers were intact, along with the front winch extensions. Needless to say, I stripped all that from the parts truck, and will install it on my Deuce once I find a winch, and a PTO drive shaft.

I hope I didn't hi-jack your thread, I just saw the picture of my truck next to yours and it brought back a lot of good memories, and reminded me of the good deal I got from Mark, he's a good guy to deal with. I hope you enjoy your Deuce as much as I enjoy mine.

Later - Tom

Hey Tom,
Yes, the truck you got sure did look good! I never saw it in person, by the time I went to look at the truck I bought, yours was already gone... But I remember reading the ad which was still on Mark's website at that time.

Neat that we're all Steel Soldiers members, too...

Jon

Here's some more pics that will bring me from summer, 2006 up to the start of the restoration back to semi-gloss OD with stars, which started at the end of March, 2007.

Throughout 2006 I collected thousands of dollars worth of NOS and new parts, pretty much everything I would need for the restoration... I almost felt like I could build another truck! Almost all of it was purchased from Walker's right here in Hesperia... I'm very lucky to have a supplier so close. (And I suppose he's lucky to have such a spendhappy goofball so close!) Most of what Walker's didn't have came from Antelope Valley or Saturn Surplus, and a little came from Ted Hils and Memphis.

Summer 2006 I decided to replace my bed. Dave Walker had one that was completely rust free, had a pretty good tailgate, and also came with a complete set of troop seats. He even lifted my old bed off and set the new one in place with his big fork lift. I also got a good used hood, because mine had a crease from someone sitting on it, and also had quite a bit of rust and thin areas, as well as a lot of stress cracks.

Also that summer, I replaced the clutch and installed an air shift transfer case. The sprag just didn't cut it in the soft sand around here... I almost got stuck several times.

The last pic here is camping at 29 Palms in October 2006. All mechanical issues had been taken care of, new bed and heater kit installed. This is pretty much the way my deuce looked up to the start of restoration. I was ready at that time, but I had to order the paint and wait for nice weather in the spring.

I almost forgot! There was another reason the restoration didn't start until the end of March... I was waiting for the title conflict on my V-18A/MTQ (which I won last December) to be resolved, because my deuce and towbar was the only way I could get it home. As soon as the V-18 was in my yard, the deuce started coming apart... In fact, that's the last time it has moved.

I'm envious. Good job on the restoration, it looks minty.

Here's some more... We're almost caught up!

The last week of March and the first week of April was my vacation, and I spent the entire time sanding, prepping and priming the truck for it's paint job. I used a LOT of sandpaper! To get a good surface for painting, I had to take much of the camouflage color off for fear of seeing the pattern through the final color. There were lots of flaky and powdery areas of CARC, and those had to be taken down or carefully feathered. Also, what seemed at first to be a "rust free" truck nevertheless required a lot of rust treatment. I refuse to paint over rust, so every little rock chip and scratch where surface rust had formed had to be carefully sanded and primed. The bottom of the bed had a lot of rock chip areas and this was particularly time consuming.

Only a few days before my vacation ended did I finally spray some OD paint. My buddy John came over to help, and took over when my arm got tired of holding the gun. He'll have an MV before too long... He wants an M37. So far, I have used 5 gallons of Gillespie 24087 and 2 gallons of xylene thinner. I have one more gallon for the troop seats and some other little stuff, so it will have taken 6 gallons by the time it's done.

The day after the last pic in this post, I went to look at the truck and found some areas we missed, as well as some thin areas of paint where I could see primer or the tan CARC base. So, a few weeks later I took a 3-day weekend and did some work on the interior (which hadn't been painted yet), and resprayed the thin areas I had seen before. I also painted my new fuel tank and the hood, which were off the truck and also hadn't been painted. Well, I must have used a little too much thinner, because a few minutes after painting, large areas started to sag and run. Man, that made me mad! I was already stressed out from long hours working on this thing... Three days worth of work wasted and much money lost from taking time off from my job. I'd have gotten more done if I hadn't worked on the truck at all and had simply gone to work. This frustration burned me out and I didn't touch the truck again until the beginning of August.

Jon

Bumper paint archeology.

I wanted to stencil my truck with it's original unit markings if they could be determined. I figured I could, because while the truck's paint was not too thick in most areas, the front and rear bumpers were VERY thick, with about 10 or more layers of paint. I spent a day sanding the front bumper and uncovered the entire history of the truck... The last stencils were on OD paint, and under that was the original red oxide primer! The earliest stencils were "6A2F3" on the right front bumper, and "SV 12" on the left.

By the time I got around to taking care of the rear bumpers, I discovered that Kleen Strip paint stripper gel works MUCH better than sandpaper for uncovering stencils. To my surprise, the rear bumper revealed another number... Not 6A2F3, but 6A2F37!!! Sure enough, I went back to the front bumper and found a number 7 there, too. I ended up using stripper to take all paint off both front and rear bumpers.

From what I can tell, 6A2F37 translates into 6th Army division, 2nd Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Brigade. Such a group did indeed exist, and from 1967 to 1972 they were based out of Fort Lewis, Washington. If anyone has any other information about this, I would be very interested indeed.

These pics bring me up to date. After my ruined-paint-temper-tantrum was finished I got back to work... I lightly sanded the sagged areas and spent another day shooting paint on the truck. Then I spent a few weeks prepping all the parts that still needed attention... Soft top bows, troop seat parts, etc. I spent a day stenciling, and that really motivated me because it's finally starting to look good to me.

Still to be done... I have to finish the front axle, I'm putting one-piece boots on. The rear wheel cylinders need to be replaced. The interior needs to be put back together, and then I need to get at least 8 new tires (I already have three new ones, and I'd like 10 more so I have a few for my M105). Hopefully be ready for the High Desert Road Trip in November! I wish I didn't have to work so much... MV time is rather limited right now.

Jon

Lookin' real good man.

The semi gloss really stands out. Nice attention to detail.

Good attention to detail. How much did the painting setup cost you, or are you doing rattle can?

Thanks Guys!

I've got a 2hp Ingersoll Rand compressor, I think it's a 40-gallon tank but the HVLP spray guns don't really use a lot of air (high volume but only at 10psi) so almost any compressor setup will be adequate.

My HVLP spray gun is from Harbor Freight, at the time it was the nicest one they make and the only one not made in China... Central Pneumatic "Professional", made in Taiwan (still China I suppose but usually better quality). I seem to remember it was about $60.

Jon

Oh no!! Look at all the new ideas that just got put in my head! There's no more room!! What am I going to do?

(I'm checking into a 12-step program. "MVA").

Seriously though, beautiful truck! I'm going that direction with mine. It's at the paint shop now. I just have to finalize a few ideas and stick with them.

Lookin Great Jon:
Have you drilled any holes with the boring truck? Would really like to see that one in action.

Keep the pictures coming.

Wow! That's a great transformation. Keep the pics coming!