My '67 M35A2

[K5Cruz]

I've been wanting to chronicle my M35 adventures for awhile, and I couldnt think of a better place than here. Beware, I'm a little long winded.

First and foremost I have to thank Warthog. Without his help, knowledge, and generosity this truck would have been parted out. He's a stand up guy that I cant say enough good things about.

Edited to add the trucks information: The truck is a 1967 Kaiser M35a2 with winch. It's got a sprag transfer case (that works well, amazingly) and no heater. The odometer read 9500 miles, and the hour meter 380 hours. Carnac says it belonged to the 133rd Field Artillery Battery C in El Paso. I believe it was overhauled in 1989.

I was bored one night, browsing GSA. Noticed some local auctions. An M52 caught my eye, and I decided to go check it out. I ended up looking over several trucks, 5 tons and deuces. I glanced at the one I ended up buying, but didnt look over it like I should have. Long story short, the trucks I wanted went cheap, but more than I had budgeted. The truck I won was next to last, tired of being outbid I threw in $100 over my budgeted max, and a few minutes later I was the proud owner of a beat up m35a2. The first picture is from the auction listing.



After payment went through I hooked up the gooseneck and went after it. The truck had previous forklift damage, so I saw no harm in letting them load it like they normally do.



After getting it home we discovered some missing parts. The FDC was gone. After some quick searching I found nothing, so I made a post. Warthog to the rescue. He had one, and the hardware to go with it, and I could come pull it that day. Turns out he pulled it for me, and had it waiting when I arrived at his house. Thanks again!

We pushed it in the shop and got to work.



I've always been mechanically inclined, but knowing nothing about the Deuce really made for a steep learning curve. After about 20 hours of trial and error, with lots of help from the forum, she started and ran. We chased leaks for the next few days and decided to try bleeding the brakes. I wanted to build a power bleeder, but being short on cash I called a friend to run the pedal. After about 30 minutes all 6 brakes were bled, no leaks, all operational. All fluids were good. We moved on to the winch. It was rolled up so far the chain was into the drum and the eye that mounts the chain was stuck in the bottom cross tie bolt. The PTO worked and we powered the winch out. We took it for a drive. Drove good, not nearly as slow as I had imagined. But still plenty slow. Here's a shot from its first outing.



It was still missing a wheel, headlights/headlight rings, tail lights, mirrors, and some other things I'm surely forgetting. Warthog to the rescue again. He had everything but the mirrors and made me an awesome deal on them. Even took time out of his busy day to meet with me and exchange parts.

Here's what it looked like, running, but very, very ugly.



I'm assuming 5 pictures is the limit, so I'm going to continue this in the next post.

 

[ARYankee]

Hey, you've got to start somewhere. Most of us at first go over budget, well, maybe more than at first. And you are correct about Warthog. I had the privilege of meeting him last year. I look forward to seeing how your restoration turns out.

 

[K5Cruz]

After getting it running and most of the issues addressed, I decided it was time for paint. I used a bottle jack to bend the fender back out, and to straighten the under door toolbox. Being lazy, I used rustoleum rattle can camo. I wanted to roll on the behr paint, but I didnt want to do the prep work. I'm paying for it now, paint flakes when mud gets on it, so I'll be prepping it and rolling it when it warms up. Here's a few pictures of before and during paint.



After getting it painted I drove it quite a bit. I was tired of working on it, and aside from a few issues it was great. It still leaks a bit, but I think they all do. I just consider it rustproofing. I used it to pull a truck out of the river one night, an 08 Silverado in water past the windshield. The winch worked flawlessly.

The tank was leaking, which ruined several gallons of fuel, so I started tarping the tank. Here's the only picture I can find of it from the side.





All was well. I was driving it almost daily around town. Another boring afternoon I was browsing Govliquidation and came across some 395's in Hooks.

A few hours later and a little incorrect lot bidding I wound up the proud owner of 16 395's on FMTV wheels. 9 were MVT's, 7 were XML's. I was after the XMLs, but bid on the MVT's on accident. Assumed that I would be outbid on the MVT's, assumed incorrectly. So I loaded the gooseneck up again and headed to Texas. After a long drive I had them loaded up. Cant say enough good things about the Hooks GL crew, they were friendly and helpful.



I did some research and reading, PMing and calling and couldnt find any way to adapt the FMTV wheels to the deuce bolt pattern. So I broke the wheels down and pulled the tires. Not much fun since the wheels had been sitting outside and were rusted. They were also about 3/4 full of water. Which makes an unbelievably heavy tire/wheel miserably heavy. It also makes a mess in your shop when the rim splits and water pours out. Lots of manual unbolting, ended up buying a new impact to finish the job.

I was finally able to sell the MVT's to cover the price of tubes, flaps, and labor to mount the XML's on the stock wheels.

 

[K5Cruz]

I used a cherry picker to pull the inserts out, ended up working out pretty well.



I also used the cherry picker to load a tire in the truck. I found a local place that was willing to touch the stock wheels, but they wanted to see the tire I wanted to put on there. Without any help, you have to use what you've got some days.



My shop was full of tires for over a month. It got old quick.



Fred's Tire in Shawnee, OK ordered me some 1400 tubes and got some flaps. They mounted 7 of them for me, it took a few days. Good folks. Very nice, good prices. Ended up only having a few hundred in the tires after selling the MVT's, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise I suppose. I called a buddy to help me mount them on the truck. He arrived after I already had 4 of them mounted myself. My floor jack want happy about that, but it got the job done. I inflated the tires to 45psi after reading different opinions on the XML's and pulled her out of the shop.



I've been driving it like this ever since. I really enjoy it. I'm getting set up to run waste motor oil, I think I've found a decent source. I've been running oil out of my vehicles and other trusted sources in it, it seems to like it. I've still got a few bugs to work out, and it needs a few more things. I'll upload one more photo here, and I'll continue this in my next post.

As with every Deuce owner, I always get asked what I use it for. Air compressor. My wheeling truck has a slow leak on one of the street tires. Good old 16.5's like to lose the bead. Solution? Mobile air compressor.

 

[Danger Ranger]

Are you looking for a bed or something for it? Or do you have plans to make one? Just curious. Everything looks great so far! Keep it up.

 

[K5Cruz]

Some of the issues that need addressed:

-The driver side window binds up about 3/4 of the way up. It goes up if I wiggle it a bit.
-It needs a bed.
-One headlight is burnt out.
-The brake light switch on the air pack is bad, I keep cleaning it and it'll work for a few days. I'm getting tired of cleaning it.
-The turn signal is intermittant. I've cleaned the grounds, so I'm assuming the box is bad.
-The air compressor governor doesnt always work properly. Sometimes it will run up to pressure and shut off. Other times it will cycle contentiously.
-The fuel tank is damaged from the forklift. It leaks. And the lift pump is intermittent as well.
-The oil pan has a good dent. The GSA operator tried to pick the truck up with the forks pinching the front differential. It slipped off and the truck fell onto the fork. Great.
-It still needs a passenger side mirror.

No clue when all of these issues will get addressed. I'm in between jobs at the moment, and as much sense as it would make to sell this thing to cover expenses I cant bring myself to part with it.

So I'm going to attach some of my favorite pictures of it, and stop being so long winded until it comes time to update this with new parts or good news.

 

[K5Cruz]

Are you looking for a bed or something for it? Or do you have plans to make one? Just curious. Everything looks great so far! Keep it up.

I intend to put a bed on it. Cash has been short, and, while useless, it's still fun to drive around. I did ratchet strap some pickup tires to the frame and run them to the tire shop the other day. A bed would have been much better.

 

[Heath_h49008]

She's a nice looking chunk of iron. Good to see you saved her from the scrapper and gave her a new life.

You might keep an ear to the ground for guys bobbing trucks near you. Most of them scrap the bed.

 

[13thArmy]

Good advice from the Heath man. Also I am happy to see that truck saved from the scrapyard...

 

[FatBuddhaBoo]

Nice work so far on the restoration. Paint is the next phase on my crew cab project, so I guess I'll take no shortcuts on this area to avoid re-work down the road.

 

[zout]

Nice work Cruz like the other said - saving a piece of history and it looks like your having a great time driving it around.
Tires look really nice on there as well. Great pictures.

 

[K5Cruz]

Thanks for the kind words folks.

Nice work so far on the restoration. Paint is the next phase on my crew cab project, so I guess I'll take no shortcuts on this area to avoid re-work down the road.

I've been watching your crew cab build. I'd like to attempt one someday, they look great.

I really thought I was going to get off easy. And I really just got tired of seeing the red paint. Now red paint shows up almost every time I drive the thing. I will at the very least powerwash it and sand the areas that flake off. I'm thinking about tan, but I'm not sure if I want to tackle a complete color change.

 

[GrizzlyEater]

been a few months. any luck with the job or any progress?

 

[K5Cruz]

Not much has changed. I'm working again, but 55+ hours most weeks. The truck has begun losing prime, rather quickly some times. My lift pump is bad, so this equals a lot of cranking some days. I havent had time to troubleshoot it, but i can see air in the Line from the pump to the filter housing while running some days. Once started it runs fine. Any ideas?

It's camo now, but I didn't roll it or prep it again, so it still flakes. There was a two or three week period where it was out every other day or so pulling out stuck pickups. It's hard to believe how well this big thing gets around when you plan ahead a bit.

Still looking for a bed. By looking I mean I want one, but I haven't had one fall into my lap. I'm not sure how I would get it on the truck anyway, so that seems to be the biggest setback.

Its got two bushings that are looking pretty bad on the suspension links. I plan on finding two and replacing them before I set a bed on it. I'll try to put some new pictures of it up as soon as my computer is fixed.

 

[Dipstick]

Disconnect and look for water under the turn signal flasher military connector. That caused me a problem. I remounted it on the firewall to keep it drier.