M151's still out there? Look

Makes you wonder about all the ones in Europe when they were surplused.

Hey Guys Check out the December issue of MILITARY VEHICLES the feature article is Mighty Mutt. I was a M151A1 CO's driver for two years, then I voluntered to go ABN to go to SF.Thanks SGT FROST..

so why were these cut up and not sold whole? Surely the deuce can be way more dangerous than that little jeep

DeuceNewb said:

so why were these cut up and not sold whole? Surely the deuce can be way more dangerous than that little jeep

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The FedGov decided the M151 posed a rollover hazard.

If the vehicle became airborne while traversing some whoop-de-dos the front wheels would rotate down and in. If the steering wheel was not pointing straight forward upon landing, the leading wheel tucked under and the vehicle rolled.

Thats the feral govt's excuse anyway.

They sold some complete.

Then they required the unibody be cut in two but folks rewelded them.

Then they required the unibody be crushed with a tracked vehicle.

Regards

Jim

NMC_EXP said:

The FedGov decided the M151 posed a rollover hazard.

If the vehicle became airborne while traversing some whoop-de-dos the front wheels would rotate down and in. If the steering wheel was not pointing straight forward upon landing, the leading wheel tucked under and the vehicle rolled.

Thats the feral govt's excuse anyway.

They sold some complete.

Then they required the unibody be cut in two but folks rewelded them.

Then they required the unibody be crushed with a tracked vehicle.

Regards

Jim

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Couldn't they just require a roll bar? Maybee we should start crushing some modern SUVs that tend to roll.

roscoe said:

Couldn't they just require a roll bar? Maybee we should start crushing some modern SUVs that tend to roll.

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The military eventually installed full roll cages with nylon side curtains.

Wasn't good enough for the nanny statists.

it was about in A2 models the used ROPS kit on the mutts. found to be very useless. didnt give driver and passenger enough protection, still getting thrown out of the trucks.

and as far as crushing these white collar yuppie trash ding-dong soccer mommies SUVs, they aint no match for a M35!!!!!!!

Also I was reading the other day on some military base , that they lined up the M151A1 jeeps in a long line and drove a tank over them to crush them flat . The article was written before it was called a Presidential Decision .. Thanks, SGT FROST

Why dont they sell them? Are them deemed to unsafe for sale to the public or what?

There have also been rumors that some car manufacturers did not want folks out here getting great 4 wheel drive vehicles for small bucks rather then "sign and drive" a 48 month car loan.

Just sayin.

December 11th, 2009.

Gents:

Say what you will, the M151A1 was an inherently bad design with its coil spring suspension, no travel limiters on the suspension and over engined with the Ford 6 cylinder.
This is why Uncle's lawyers ordered them cut, and later crushed when too many people welded them back togather. Compared to the M422A2 Mighty Mite with its quarter elliptic and suspension arm suspension, or the M38A with its slow turning and 45-50 MPH max speed, it was a dead end design. The CJ5/7 proved that when you add power steering, V8 engine and 80 MPH+ top speed, you can remove genes from the gene pool really fast.
The problem persists today with folks who buy SUVs and think you can drive them like a Mustang. Just check insurance rates on any civillian SUV.
The deuce, for what it was, is a pretty sane, stable design. However with eb
nough folks driving them without knowing how to, or to PMIS them, or to alter them to go faster, higher clearances, pushing the design envelope and such, sooner or later we are gonna have 1, 2, or 10 spectacular accidents on the evening news, and the deuce is gonna get crushed. It behooves us not to provide that ammunition. The Unimog is an ever more stable FWD.... I know, I own and use both an M35A2 and a S404.114 Swiss Cargo. Now let's see if we can use an intellectual voice to discuss this matter.....
otherwise let the begin....

Cheers,

Kyle F. McGrogan

saddamsnightmare said:

December 11th, 2009.

Say what you will, the M151A1 was an inherently bad design with its coil spring suspension, no travel limiters on the suspension and over engined with the Ford 6 cylinder.

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What you say about the suspension is true but that did not render the vehicle unsafe when properly used.

Drivers using the vehicle like a motocross dirt bike, e.g. getting "air time" on bumps and high speed cornering resulted in rollovers.

I suspect that if we had access to the raw data on fatalties per passenger mile due to M151 rollovers we would find it did not warrant the reaction.

Like radium in gages, lead based paint, and asbestos - just leave it alone. Do not grind it into a powder then sniff it or eat it.

I am honestly surprised that the safety nazis in the fed gov have not banned the sale of anything with CARC paint on it....yet.

Regards

Jim

the 151 is a 4 cylinder

I was gonna say...never saw an M151 series with a 6 banger engine. All had 4 cyl.
Yes, there was a suspension issue but in my opinion, with the ROPS system, training provided etc., it was a pretty darned good vehicle.

Could you flip em? Of course...just like any other vehicle.
I think they got a bad rep...probably caused by drivers not heeding instructions.

That's just my opinion though...so don't take it to the bank

Any vehicle will flip if not driven properly and every vehicle can be dangerous. It is not that the thing was prone to tipping over. It has more to do with the fact that a live sprung axle vehicle gives a lot of body sway when you start pushing it. The independent suspension did not give the same body sway. This caused the drivers to push it farther then they should have in turns. The other jeeps could not take corners any faster then the m151. Vehicles that do good off road have to have ground clearance and this raises the center of gravity. Just don't condemn a whole vehicle system because a few people do not know how to drive. There was only a slight increase in the amount of rollover accidents with the M151 compared to the M38 series. If the M151 was that bad you would not expect only slight increase. You would expect more like a doubling of accidents or more like four or five times the rate of rollover. If the rate was appreciable higher I could buy off on the M151 being that bad but there was only a slight increase in rollovers. The design of the suspension of the M151 was pretty close to other vehicles of the same area including the VW bug. The design was not inherently flawed. It was just different. The suspension stops on most coil spring suspensions are the shocks and the M151 had shocks. The shocks do limit suspension travel on the M151. The only time you need extra suspension stops is if you are going airborne and if the M151 was driven properly it should not have been airborne except in or under an aircraft. One fix for the suspension was the trailing arm style suspension of the A2. This did not effect the rollover rate appreciably. Say what you want but the demil was more of a business decision than a safety decision. The fact that AM General built in the no sell clause into the deal for the humvee is evident of this relationship. The humvee was destined to demil even with no safety problems at all and this was inked before the vehicles even went into service. Now my rant is over.

there is actually still one they use at the Ft. devens motor pool in Massachusetts....they just gave it a new coat of paint recently....same with the gamma goat sitting next to it!

AceHigh said:

There have also been rumors that some car manufacturers did not want folks out here getting great 4 wheel drive vehicles for small bucks rather then "sign and drive" a 48 month car loan.

Just sayin.

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Wouldn't surprise me in the least. Dollars make decisions, especially when it comes to elected officials and large corporations.

Still a crappy deal that we can't get them.

GENTELMEN, THERE IS A THING CALLED LAWYERS, THAT ARE HUNGRY FOR A CASE AGAINST YOU . THE GOVERMENT HAS LAWYERS TO PROTECT THEM ,AGAINST YOU ,AND YOUR LAWYER,THAT AS A SNOWBALLS CHANCE IN **** OF WINNING AGAINST THE GOVERMENT A LAWYER THAT SAYS THAT THE MILITARY JEEP BELONGS IN A COMBAT ZONE AND NOT IN YOUR DRIVE WAY . I LOVE MY JEEP AND I AM GOING TO EXPENSIVE LENGTHS TO MAKE IT LAWYER SAFE AGAINST THE SYSTEM OF OF ... sgt frost out!

WHY ARE YOU YELLING and what are you talking about?

I was not yelling I took off in the upper case mode and did not want to go back and change, also I can read capital letters better. The original thread was a discussion about the M151A1 jeep and why the jeep was dealined, reference thread numbers 23,24,27,28,29,31,32, In my humble opinion the fear of many lawsuits against youever had the deepest pockets wood be suied . This was part or start of the throw away world we live in . OUT