Retired M925 Finds Home In Seattle Area

Ordnance bomb, so what are the unit markings of this truck. mine is an 80th OD truck.

Unit = WQYRAA It took some digging and some parts are a bit sketchy, but what I have so far: She started life with 803rd Armor, then with 303rd Armor when they merged about 1993, time in Iraq (Camp Victory South - Baghdad) and Kuwait as tank support vehicle, then around 2005 assigned to Yakima training center with Troop E of 303rd cav (motto "Always in the lead") , until 303rd was reformed and absorbed into the 81st, then retired. Now living a life of luxury in Issaquah, WA

Troop and equipment rosters found on board (underneath a battery in the batt box) substantiate the lineage.

wsucougarx said:

Fender emblem is ORDNANCE (OD)

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Thanks Mike, makes perfect sense.

Bed refinish recommendations

My Bed was also not in great shape. I pressured washed it then I sanded the large rust scale popping up mostly in the front. Mine appeared to puddle the water in the front.

For paint, I used the rust o leum rusty metal brown oxide colored paint brushed on from Home Depot. 2 qts did the job for me. then I did 2 coats of durabake bed liner (1 gallon) rolled on with the texture grit as the bed is super slippery wet. It worked like a charm and the results look awesome. The color matched very close in sand but they also had od green. Good stuff and i was very happy with it. I did not have a compressor or paint gun and felt the bed would not matter if I did not use them. The special rollers from durabake did a great job

I am glad the stack worked out and enjoy your truck!

Take Care,

Juan

Hey Juan, great minds think alike I have some Durabak on order in OD Green and am set to pressure wash the bed this weekend.

While it looks bad it is only very surface rust, so may not need to sand it out, will see.

Interestingly, some sort of enclosure was bolted into the bed with silicone caulk around the edges. In the pic you can see some of the bolt holes through the bed and the caulk outline. I call them the auto drain featrue of the bed.

The overall rust seems like classic salt water exposure and some of it I need to address real soon, like the driver side mirror bracket.
Im going to sand off the cab top this weekend and give that a once over rattle can job until I can get the custom color mixed up from our local paint shop, Rodda. Ill use the same rattle can job on the stack I bought from you and mount that also.

Having a wet summer here so far, but dry days are ahead.

I have some fabrication work ahead of me for the side rails, as those seem to be hard to find in my AO.

Thanks again for the smooth trans on that stack purchase!

By the way, your truck looks great!

bed pics

What retrictions tripped you up for the license? Went back and looked at them and unless you are using the truck as a daily driver or hauling commerically, it looks pretty open for me. Think I have 5 vehicles licensed that way and have not had any problems. The only thing that looks restictive is the load issue and they put it in the same sentence as the commerical,so that would imply that they are talking about commercial loads. I haul a load of brush to the recycle every once in awhile in the M715 and if anyone asks, you do need to circulate fluids and charge the batteries once in awhile.

No trip up, just my choice.

According to the DOL office in Seattle, with historical plates, you cant haul anything, nothing, nada, not even a can of gas.

And I plan on haulin....stuff....did so today matter of fact

So historical plates wont work for me.

RCA, that Ordnance Bomb was probably put on by the Mechanics while it was serving them. I seem to see that happen very commonly with Ordnance Corps guys. We tend to put the bomb on a lot of stuff. I even have a couple stencils for use later down the line.

While I do not know your end goal with the truck and paint, I would try to keep that or re-create it down the line.

Congrats on scoring a nice truck!

Thanks Bikeman. Thats a sweet M38 you have there, dont see many of them in such nice condition.

That makes sense as the unit was in service in Iraq with an arty unit.

I was struggling with how to retain the image after a repaint (and the rust demands paint), as it is part of the trucks history, so it belongs there.

Where could I find / source the stencils you mentioned?

RCA understood on the plating issue. I am surprised that they would even license a monster like that through a DOL office in Seattle. They must have had a stroke.

When I did the intial licensing on the M54, the difference between regular and historic plates was about 300 dollars. They wanted to get me for tonnage and I suggested that on historic vehicles they didn't pay tonnage. after a little research on their part, they agreed. So my fees went from 550 down to 250. They still have up to 30 days to change their minds and get you for something else, but after 30 days you are clear.

Anyway, you are on a path. Enjoy that truck. Happy 4th of July.

RCA I got them from Home Page

But, I don't think he has anything in stock that is that size. I would recommend just taking a piece of posterboard or manila file folder, and making the stencil on that. use some tracing paper or something to get the size of the stencil off the truck, then transfer it to the Folder. The Ordnance Bomb is a very easy stencil as it doesn't have any intricacies or overlapping lines.

Recon Charlie Alpha said:

Note the fender emblem on the last pic, any ideas?

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wsucougarx said:

Fender emblem is ORDNANCE (OD)

Click to expand...

We call it a piss pot.

You'll find it all over an ammo dump or on any of their coins.

bikeman said:

RCA, that Ordnance Bomb was probably put on by the Mechanics while it was serving them. I seem to see that happen very commonly with Ordnance Corps guys. We tend to put the bomb on a lot of stuff. I even have a couple stencils for use later down the line.

Click to expand...

We have stickers, use them to tag other units stuff as a practical joke. Of course ours always has a trefoil in the center.

Ha! So Bighurt, that emblem is more of a practical joke? Not a serious tag by a unit?

No it's more than just a joke.

YOUR AMMO HERITAGE

RCA, units, esp USAF units, will tag other units with their own unit sticker.

The emblem, in the Army, is not a practical joke. That'd be a point of pride for some Mechanics actually.

Thank you both and that web site cleared it up for me, thanks BigHurt for the link.

Tracing paper should make it easy enough to copy it off and then put it back after paint.

As the unit was in Iraq with cav, as tank division support, it probably ( just a guess) hauled tank ammo, or some kind of ammo, hence the emblem.

Have a greath 4th tomorrow!

RCA, it could also be maintenance, could have been their spare parts/runner truck/contact truck, work platform... The Army tries planning this stuff out all the time, but necessity overrides MTOE.

Have some fun

Update - New livery in progress

Here are some before, during and after shots. Just the forward cab done so far. Bumper done in Rodda brand and cab done in Behr brand, all the same color mix.

New livery will be U.S. Navy SeeBees.

Before Pics below.