How Were M's Prepped for Sale To The Public?

[w30bob]

Howdy Boys,

Did anyone buy their M directly from a government auction? I'm wondering what the Government did to the trucks before they were sold to the public? Did they paint over the stars and unit numbers with OD paint (I'm talking green trucks here), or did they leave them on? Did they put new tires on them or do anything else for safety's sake?

I'm also wondering if anyone has a totally unrestored M in good shape? Meaning in the condition the Army sold it in. Just never see any original unrestored ones in decent shape.

thanks
bob

[WarrenD]

I'm going to offer that the Gov't did nothing or next to nothing to them. Most went from the military to local Gov't or other Gov't agencies who would have been responsible for altering their appearance to de-mil them and doing whatever maintenance/repairs were required.

[k8icu]

It depends on the turn in requirement. If the truck was deamed to have no repairable value and thus determined to be scrap then nothing was done to it. It was just turned over as-is to DRMO and that was that. If however the truck was deamed servicable and was to be turned in due to replacement then all maintence was to be done and the truck "road ready" at the time of turn in. Now that was the by the book....in reality a lot of units just turned it in with out doing much of anything.

Now those trucks that were scrap where the ones that went right to public sale, where as the ones that where servicable were allowed to be picked over by other agencies (Forgien sales, state and local governments etc.) and if not picked up by those agencies then it went to public sales.

Sometimes you got a good one and sometimes you didn't.

[Carter]

Both of these were DRMO sales trucks. The one on the left had a new top and a heater added after the sale, the other is as sold, both did start and run after all the usual prep was done. The spray painted number tens were the vehicle sale lot number, there were four vehicles in that lot and only two were in any condition to be driven the others were missing several major parts like radiators and trannys.. I owned both of these two at the time this shot was taken.

[k8icu]

Also once a vehicle got into DRMO and was not picked for transfer to other agencies the vehicle was considered in the CANPOINT (Caniblization Point) and units that needed a part for their vehicles that they did not have in thier stock or could not get through supply or couldn't wait for supply could go to the CANPOINT and get the parts they needed to make thier vehicle mission ready. So by the time you'de get to the vehicle it might be missing parts as Carter noted. Even between the time you bid on the vehicle and the time you picked it up you could be missing parts that where there when you bid.

[w30bob]

K8, Wow....that's some interesting information.

Carter...thanks for the pic.....it answers a bunch of questions!

[Carter]

Also once a vehicle got into DRMO and was not picked for transfer to other agencies the vehicle was considered in the CANPOINT (Caniblization Point) and units that needed a part for their vehicles that they did not have in thier stock or could not get through supply or couldn't wait for supply could go to the CANPOINT and get the parts they needed to make thier vehicle mission ready. So by the time you'de get to the vehicle it might be missing parts as Carter noted. Even between the time you bid on the vehicle and the time you picked it up you could be missing parts that where there when you bid.

I had forgotten about that
When I was a member of the 574th Ord Co at Knox we used to get a lot of parts for our shop work order jobs from their Canpoint, mostly M135/211 GMC stuff but a lot of M38A1 and M37 things also, none of which was available from the supply system because of Vietman. We supported the training units and those new guys could beat their vehicles to death in short order.

[w30bob]

Huh. And I thought M37s were indestructable!!

regards,
bob

[Brent Newdick]

hello to all of you. The topic here seems interesting. Well, my uncle told me that instead of selling a whole truck, there are instances that they disassemble a truck and sell its parts individually which is very disappointing at my part because M trucks are very useful up to these days.

[k8icu]

hello to all of you. The topic here seems interesting. Well, my uncle told me that instead of selling a whole truck, there are instances that they disassemble a truck and sell its parts individually which is very disappointing at my part because M trucks are very useful up to these days.

Brent,

Welcome to the site. MVs are very useful and a lot of fun to own and operate.

I don't want to say your uncle was wrong...but maybe misinformed. The Army (and the other services) don't part vehicles out. They will sell off parts that have been replaced for what ever reason making it look like they parted out some trucks. Here is an example. For the last few years there has been 6.2 liter GM diesels motors forsale from the government. They are from Hummvees. It looks like they Army parted out a bunch of Hummvees but they didn't. They have been replacing the motors in the trucks with a new 6.5 Turbo Diesel. In some cases those motors are in excellent condition put in a vehicle and drive. In other cases the motor has been replaced because it was shot (spun barings cracked heads etc) and the bad motor is put up for sale. Both motors in the lot look the same but you don't know which is the good one and which is the bad one. But it looks like all the motors came from parted out trucks, but they didn't they came from rebuild programs.

Also when a truck is no longer in service. Meaning they have replaced with a newer model then all the parts in the inventory system are dumped for the old vehilce so the new models parts can take their place on the shelves. That will also make it look like the truck has been parted out, but it hasn't. The military isn't in the truck parting business. I've been around MV for almost 30 years and I've been in the military for 23 years and I've never seen a truck being parted out to sell the parts.