This will be my journal on my M1009 resto if anyone is interested in my experience as a non-mechanic.
Having been inspired by my much older and uglier brother who is a member of this forum (heh heh), I went out and found a M1009 CUCV. My bother is a former Marine who worked in the Motor-T during desert storm, while I went off to the Air Force and worked on F-16s. I knew he knew a lot about these vehicles, currently owns two (M1008 and M1028 ). and has brought many vehicles back from the dead over the years. Since my brother and I are older now, live in different states and rarely have occasion to speak, it seemed like a good project. So I embarked on a journey to find a CUCV and located one on Facebook within minutes, and only about 40 minutes from my house.
When I went to view the vehicle from the PO, it was clear that he knew nothing about the vehicle.
A few giveaways.
He had no idea how many batteries were in it.
He told me it had AC, but it needed recharged.
He was using it to store his trash that clearly had not been picked up from his house in weeks.
The vehicle wouldn't start (slow crank from 12 year old batteries) so he got out and sprayed some starter fluid into the air box.
As I walked around the truck and analyzed the "visual" damage, there was very little rust. The passenger side rocker needs some work, there is a small rust hole in the cab roof the size of a nickel, and a dent in the door. The rear window wouldn't roll up and the crank was missing. The PO just yanked the window up with his hands to get it to go half way. All fixable items. Frame was solid.
Parking gear is non-existent, finding the other gears was a chore, the lack of transmission fluid potentially explaining some of it.
Once started and driving, it seemed solid enough and was switching gears. So engine turns, transmission kind of works.
As I looked over the truck again the truck stared back at me with a "help me...please..for the love of God.." look in it's headlights, so I had to liberate it. The PO had "lost" the title even though he had only had it a few months, so there was that issue to contend with. I found the previous owners registration, located her on facebook, and she graciously took a copy of a title transfer to get it notarized and sent it back to me, so situation handled.
Once I got it home and could do a semi-real inspection a few things I noted (along with face timing with bro).
Almost no oil.
Fuel pump was leaking like a sieve and hard fuel line from pump had a pin hole leak, which I found after my brother told me to change out the small rubber line going into the fuel pump on top of the intake manifold with some clear line to look for bubbles indicating a leak.
Front and back of oil pan leaking. (My guess was oil pan gasket in the front and rear main seal in the back)
Oil leaking out of torque converter inspection cover.
Voltage gauge doesn't work.
Shift indicator broken.
Turn signal lever not catching.
Rear windows only goes half way up because the regulator gears are stripped.
Manual glow-plug switch and no glow plug card.
Breather tube to the front axle (diff) snapped off.
...and of course noticing all of the cool items in the truck that you don't see on everyday vehicles (M16 rack, plates, blackouts).
So again I stood there looking at my hands that looked like I had dipped them into black paint, and came to the conclusion "My wife is gonna be pissed when she gets home and see this", and this put a smile on my face. In a surprise reversal she actually liked it and wanted me to fix it up, which is a first.
My very first purchase was Dickies blues, and boxes of Borax and Washing soda, because let's face it, the wife isn't going to be so kind if I F up her laundry.
Then some brand new 1000 CCA NAPA Commercial Batteries. The ones that were in the truck were 12 years old and had about 200 CCA left.
Off to harbor freight I went to get the torque wrenches I'd need for the first job (Rear main seal). That went relatively smooth, once you realize just how much force you can put on the transmission lines (as well as the angle to pull them from) to get them out of the way of the inspection cover. I noticed while I was taking down the inspection cover that there was a crack in it directly over the starter. Looking at the starter (and a quick check with the bro), and I realized the starter bracket had never been reattached and was shoved up above the starter a millimeter from the positive terminal (yikes), so that needed to come out and get done right.
Interestingly when I pulled the main bearing, I noticed a black, oily rope like item hanging out of where the rear main seal should be that had mostly disintegrated. My brother informed me of something called a "rope seal" although he had never seen one used in this application. They are usually installed on much older trucks.
I noticed that the flex plate teeth (the ones I could see) looked kind of worn, and I suspected that all the grinding from the PO's low batteries were the cause, but figured I'd be fine for now.
Once the rear main seal was done, new gasket put on, and everything bolted back up, I moved on to the fuel pump.
This was actually difficult for me, until I read CUCVRUS post located here with the advice from another forum member:
Mechanical fuel pump replacement | SteelSoldiers
You really do want to remove that Gen2, because the angles to get to the fuel pump bolts are horrible if you don't, not to mention you'll be able to throw some grease on the pivots for your generator to make it easier to tighten those belts.
I used a 1/4 ratchet, with a 1/4 swivel that I taped with electricians tape to firm it up, and a 7/16 socket.
Of course the push rod dropped down to the mounting plate so I had to pull that off because the push rod got wedged. Do the grease trick on the push rod and shove it back into its hole, then put on the new fuel pump (MAKE SURE YOU BUY THE CORRECT PUMP, THE ONE WITHOUT THE VISIBLE SPRING UNDER THE LEVER). Once I took the generator off it was much much easier to install than it was to take off.
On to the broken fuel line. Once I realized I would have to take the intake manifold off to replace that, I decided *for now* to just bend up a smaller hard line and use rubber for the rest so I could get the rubber line under the intake manifold and attached to the fuel filter (I still have the original square filter).
Time to crank it up. A 10 second push on the glow plug switch, and a turn of the key and the truck fired right up (which was suprising because I didn't even bleed the fuel line)...then died 10 seconds later.
I opened the air bleed line and cranked a few more time then suddenly a rough grinding noise...
Uh oh. What did I mess up?
The fan wasn't spinning up front and my immediate thought was "did I just seize this mother f*cker?"
Went and got the 24MM long handle and turned the engine. Turned no problem. Phew.
Called the bro. He said it just sounded like the starter. I cranked a few more times and then the starter just spun like the bendix wasn't making contact with anything.
Pulled the starter back down.
Grabbed the jumper cables with the starter on the ground. Ground to body.
Hit the S terminal with the positive cable and the bendix shot up. Teeth look worn.
Jumped the S to hot with a screw driver, the motor spun, bendix shot up but sounded like crap. Ordered new starter, will probably rebuild this one.
Checked the flex plate....teeth completely missing from this spot in the plate. Ugh. New flex plate ordered from Summit. I guess a combination of running the starter on low batteries and not having the rear bracket holding it in place, and then me fixing those issue was too much for the old plate to handle.
Next move changing out the flex plate. Should be an interesting job, but I needed to check that parking pawl in the transmission anyways and give it a look over.
To be continued...
Edit 12/5/2021 : All of my video will be uploaded to this playlist: Squibbly's M1009 CUCV - YouTube
Having been inspired by my much older and uglier brother who is a member of this forum (heh heh), I went out and found a M1009 CUCV. My bother is a former Marine who worked in the Motor-T during desert storm, while I went off to the Air Force and worked on F-16s. I knew he knew a lot about these vehicles, currently owns two (M1008 and M1028 ). and has brought many vehicles back from the dead over the years. Since my brother and I are older now, live in different states and rarely have occasion to speak, it seemed like a good project. So I embarked on a journey to find a CUCV and located one on Facebook within minutes, and only about 40 minutes from my house.
When I went to view the vehicle from the PO, it was clear that he knew nothing about the vehicle.
A few giveaways.
He had no idea how many batteries were in it.
He told me it had AC, but it needed recharged.
He was using it to store his trash that clearly had not been picked up from his house in weeks.
The vehicle wouldn't start (slow crank from 12 year old batteries) so he got out and sprayed some starter fluid into the air box.
As I walked around the truck and analyzed the "visual" damage, there was very little rust. The passenger side rocker needs some work, there is a small rust hole in the cab roof the size of a nickel, and a dent in the door. The rear window wouldn't roll up and the crank was missing. The PO just yanked the window up with his hands to get it to go half way. All fixable items. Frame was solid.
Parking gear is non-existent, finding the other gears was a chore, the lack of transmission fluid potentially explaining some of it.
Once started and driving, it seemed solid enough and was switching gears. So engine turns, transmission kind of works.
As I looked over the truck again the truck stared back at me with a "help me...please..for the love of God.." look in it's headlights, so I had to liberate it. The PO had "lost" the title even though he had only had it a few months, so there was that issue to contend with. I found the previous owners registration, located her on facebook, and she graciously took a copy of a title transfer to get it notarized and sent it back to me, so situation handled.
Once I got it home and could do a semi-real inspection a few things I noted (along with face timing with bro).
Almost no oil.
Fuel pump was leaking like a sieve and hard fuel line from pump had a pin hole leak, which I found after my brother told me to change out the small rubber line going into the fuel pump on top of the intake manifold with some clear line to look for bubbles indicating a leak.
Front and back of oil pan leaking. (My guess was oil pan gasket in the front and rear main seal in the back)
Oil leaking out of torque converter inspection cover.
Voltage gauge doesn't work.
Shift indicator broken.
Turn signal lever not catching.
Rear windows only goes half way up because the regulator gears are stripped.
Manual glow-plug switch and no glow plug card.
Breather tube to the front axle (diff) snapped off.
...and of course noticing all of the cool items in the truck that you don't see on everyday vehicles (M16 rack, plates, blackouts).
So again I stood there looking at my hands that looked like I had dipped them into black paint, and came to the conclusion "My wife is gonna be pissed when she gets home and see this", and this put a smile on my face. In a surprise reversal she actually liked it and wanted me to fix it up, which is a first.
My very first purchase was Dickies blues, and boxes of Borax and Washing soda, because let's face it, the wife isn't going to be so kind if I F up her laundry.
Then some brand new 1000 CCA NAPA Commercial Batteries. The ones that were in the truck were 12 years old and had about 200 CCA left.
Off to harbor freight I went to get the torque wrenches I'd need for the first job (Rear main seal). That went relatively smooth, once you realize just how much force you can put on the transmission lines (as well as the angle to pull them from) to get them out of the way of the inspection cover. I noticed while I was taking down the inspection cover that there was a crack in it directly over the starter. Looking at the starter (and a quick check with the bro), and I realized the starter bracket had never been reattached and was shoved up above the starter a millimeter from the positive terminal (yikes), so that needed to come out and get done right.
Interestingly when I pulled the main bearing, I noticed a black, oily rope like item hanging out of where the rear main seal should be that had mostly disintegrated. My brother informed me of something called a "rope seal" although he had never seen one used in this application. They are usually installed on much older trucks.
I noticed that the flex plate teeth (the ones I could see) looked kind of worn, and I suspected that all the grinding from the PO's low batteries were the cause, but figured I'd be fine for now.
Once the rear main seal was done, new gasket put on, and everything bolted back up, I moved on to the fuel pump.
This was actually difficult for me, until I read CUCVRUS post located here with the advice from another forum member:
Mechanical fuel pump replacement | SteelSoldiers
You really do want to remove that Gen2, because the angles to get to the fuel pump bolts are horrible if you don't, not to mention you'll be able to throw some grease on the pivots for your generator to make it easier to tighten those belts.
I used a 1/4 ratchet, with a 1/4 swivel that I taped with electricians tape to firm it up, and a 7/16 socket.
Of course the push rod dropped down to the mounting plate so I had to pull that off because the push rod got wedged. Do the grease trick on the push rod and shove it back into its hole, then put on the new fuel pump (MAKE SURE YOU BUY THE CORRECT PUMP, THE ONE WITHOUT THE VISIBLE SPRING UNDER THE LEVER). Once I took the generator off it was much much easier to install than it was to take off.
On to the broken fuel line. Once I realized I would have to take the intake manifold off to replace that, I decided *for now* to just bend up a smaller hard line and use rubber for the rest so I could get the rubber line under the intake manifold and attached to the fuel filter (I still have the original square filter).
Time to crank it up. A 10 second push on the glow plug switch, and a turn of the key and the truck fired right up (which was suprising because I didn't even bleed the fuel line)...then died 10 seconds later.
I opened the air bleed line and cranked a few more time then suddenly a rough grinding noise...
Uh oh. What did I mess up?
The fan wasn't spinning up front and my immediate thought was "did I just seize this mother f*cker?"
Went and got the 24MM long handle and turned the engine. Turned no problem. Phew.
Called the bro. He said it just sounded like the starter. I cranked a few more times and then the starter just spun like the bendix wasn't making contact with anything.
Pulled the starter back down.
Grabbed the jumper cables with the starter on the ground. Ground to body.
Hit the S terminal with the positive cable and the bendix shot up. Teeth look worn.
Jumped the S to hot with a screw driver, the motor spun, bendix shot up but sounded like crap. Ordered new starter, will probably rebuild this one.
Checked the flex plate....teeth completely missing from this spot in the plate. Ugh. New flex plate ordered from Summit. I guess a combination of running the starter on low batteries and not having the rear bracket holding it in place, and then me fixing those issue was too much for the old plate to handle.
Next move changing out the flex plate. Should be an interesting job, but I needed to check that parking pawl in the transmission anyways and give it a look over.
To be continued...
Edit 12/5/2021 : All of my video will be uploaded to this playlist: Squibbly's M1009 CUCV - YouTube
Last edited:
. and has brought many vehicles back from the dead over the years. Since my brother and I are older now, live in different states and rarely have occasion to speak, it seemed like a good project. So I embarked on a journey to find a CUCV and located one on Facebook within minutes, and only about 40 minutes from my house.
