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The unofficial g749 picture thread

Oldfart

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Centennial,CO
What the heck, mine's still a work in progress, but here it is. First photo was taken at Barstow GL just after the 4th of July weekend 2010 when we picked it up. No ECU was required. Worked hard for a month and a half to get it in some sort of shape to display at the Colorado Sport Air Show on the 27/28th of September. We are having a lot of fun with the truck. It had 9983 actual miles on it after 55 years of service with the Army. If it were not for my son, this project would be much slower in getting accomplished.
 

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nattieleather

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Cleveland, OH
@Oldfart Your truck looks great and it is amazing that it was still in service until this year. It's funny how an older vehicle will slip through the cracks. I wonder why it was painted white? Do you have any history on the truck?
 

Oldfart

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Centennial,CO
Actually, we are in the process of learning all sorts of things about the truck. It was only surplussed because it was getting difficult to buy parts. We found Memphis Equipment papers in the glove box where ignition specifications were provided as well as other "settings" information. The surplus justification was largely that manuals were no longer available and parts had to be purchased through collectors sources. While we bid on the truck at Barstow GL, the paper work for the transfer indicated it came from Yuma Proving Ground. I managed a contact with the curator of their Heritage Museum and he has been kind enough to research the history of our truck. It is a research still in progress, but given the Garrison is staffed with civilian researchers who are fairly long term he has been able to find people who remember the truck and what it did. The white color may have been originally the fleet color of "Harry Diamond Laboratories" or it may have been painted white to reflect some of the desert heat and make it a little more visible on the range. Initially it was used to collect telemetry data on the range. It was used most of its history on Artillery research and in the later time frames , rather than collecting data, it was used as a conference center on the range. Its value was that it had dual air conditioners and its own generator out in the middle of range somewhere. We did not get the generator set up with the truck, but we are working on something in one of our M105's
 
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Gunfreak25

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Yuma, AZ
Wow! I live in Yuma, my truck was originally built as an M220 as well. I wonder if they were next to one another at some point in time? Mine has the white paint still on the cab areas.
 

Oldfart

Active member
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Location
Centennial,CO
Can you find any of the old bumper identification? The white paint was applied to ours sometime 1962 or before as that was when Harry Diamond Labs became the name of that research arm. We found "Harry Diamond Laboratories" on top of white paint on the van body. What we could not fine was any bumper identification on the base OD paint. That might be because the bumper marking were white and as we carefully stripped the white paint down, white lettering would have looked the same as the cover paint. What we did find was "AMC YPG" under "ATEC" Which translates to Army Material Command, Yuma Proving Ground under Army Test and Evaluation Command. AMC took over operation of the Garrison about 1962 and it became known as Yuma Proving Ground within a few months. I think ATEC took over around 1996, but all the vehicles dropped the YPG nomenclature even though the Garrison is still named Yuma Proving Ground. Most of the Artillery testing prior to YPG existence was done at Aberdeen, so it is possible our truck came from there on its way to YPG. OR, it could have been part of the earlier Post at Yuma. The only hope on going back beyond 1962 is finding someone still hanging around the Garrison who was there before 1962 and remembers the truck. I don't hold out much hope for that as that was when I got out of college and started my work career. I am now 71 so anyone who was there then has to be older than me.
 
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