Posted by David Sherman on Thursday, January 18, 2007 at 05:25:26 :
In Reply to: OT - Surplus Army truck questions posted by Todd Wilson on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 22:44:18 :
I bought three from the Ft Lewis DRMO back before GL took over. They were all on the "dead line", having been delivered to the DRMO without batteries. Every one of them push-started with a forklift and I was able to drive them home (30 miles on the freeway) with no electrical system. It was a crap shoot, but I got three working trucks for about 6 grand total. They issued form 97s with them and I was able to get clean titles.
Now that GL sells them, the advantage is they tell you if the truck runs or not, and they'll usually let you start it up in the yard, which you weren't supposed to do in the old days even if it had batteries in it. The disadvantage is the prices have gone up due to internet bidding and GL won't issue a form 97 unless you get it inspected by some state agency and then pay them extra money for the paperwork. This is a rotten deal and I won't buy any road-worthy vehicle from them for this reason.
If you just want one truck and you need it to work and be safe right from the start, it's definitely worth buying one from a dealer. It will have been gone through and you can check it out all you want.
I found a lot of problems on my surplus trucks due to stupid mechanics -- the wrong fuel filters in the cans, so they weren't filtering, rocker arm nuts loose so I suddenly lost one cylinder, toe-in set to 1", headlights wired up wrong so they worked at half-brightness in one position somehow. Also had to replace all the steering knuckle boots early on, rebuild a rusty transfer case and deal with a lot of gunk in one fuel tank.
As for why the army's surplusing them, it's because they've long since quit using them in active duty (Desert Storm was the last war they were in, and many were hastily repainted in desert camo), and from what I hear even the reserves aren't using them any more. The guard still has a lot of them. The ones they sell to the public have already gone through screening, which means no other agency wants them. They tend to be fairly tired, but _usually_ have nothing major wrong with them. They've switched to FMTVs and some commercial trucks, partly because the M35s don't meet smog, and partly because they don't think women can drive the old trucks with the stick shift and armstrong steering.
If buying from GL/DRMO, beware of any truck that has any engine parts disconnected, especially injector lines, fuel lines, etc. It means somebody was trying to troubleshoot something and gave up. Also look for signs of a blown head gasket (bubbles when you crank it, or oil leaking down from the head). Especially the earlier mutlifuel engines blew gaskets too easily and they're expensive to replace and take a special wrench to get the head bolts in and out.
I wouldn't recommend what I did -- push-starting the truck at the base and driving it home. I was just lucky that the engine and gearboxes had oil in them and the brakes worked.
As for low hours and low miles, remember that these trucks wear out at a lot less miles than a modern vehicle. Also, when the tach (hour meter) or speedo is replaced, they don't attempt to set the new unit to the same hours or miles as the one they took out. A rough guess should show about 30 times more hours than miles. If the ratio is way off from that, one gage or both have probably been replaced.
All in all, whether you buy from a dealer or GL, the M35s are the great military vehicle bargain of our day. They're not that hard to drive, they don't require a CDL, and they just can't be beat (except maybe by a unimog) for hauling heavy loads on bad roads or off-road. They're incredibly overbuilt for their load rating. Chain them up and they'll go through some pretty serious snow too. The multifuel engine is also a neat thing. I've run mixtures including diesel, gasoline, stale gasoline, old furnace oil, used motor oil, used gear oil, vegetable oil, and kerosene in mine with no perceptible difference in performance except that it's harder to start on gasoline.