Warbird Information Exchange

No,it's not what you think, but pretty neat...

https://midwestmilitary.com/news/fully- ... -for-sale/

Signing a Dodge weapons carrier is a good choice considering many were used as crew transports during the war. I

If one had a warbird collection, this would be a neat adition

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

Oh good! (goes to blog to check out restoration photos)


Still a fine restoration. Is that the going rate for one that's been fully redone?

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

Beautiful! Now if I just had $19K burning a hole in my pocket.........

I'm attempting to get into military vehicles...that's how I found this.
Who knows, I might end up getting one.

Some background....
I was going to buy a surplus HUMVEE but the state won't let me license it for the road. I asked the bureaucrats in Olympia why...The only thing they said is...
-It's too heavy.
The gross weight for a basic pickup is 5600 pounds, less than some heavy
duty pickup
-it pollutes too much
[i]it has the same engine found in GM diesels
-It's Handling is dangerous
it has the same steering and suspension as the civil HUMMER H1, sold by TH across the country.

Basically, they just don't want people to have one.
Probably afraid that owning a surplus truck will lead to gun ownership and watching Fox news.
And they wonder why about half the country wants less government.

A state representative and senator are working to end the ban if the HUMVEE is used as a historic/collector vehicle.


Oh, back to the Dodge, author David Doyle who has written a lot of Aviation books for the "In Action" series and Schiffer...had a New two volume book U.S. Dodge Trucks...1941-1975 which includes weapons carriers as well as the Korea-era M37 series.
The book has several shots of trucks near aircraft.

From what I'vevseen, this one has a fair price for a restored truck. Less than a very good WWII Jeep.

_________________
Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

For that quality restoration it's a fair price, I'm surprised it isn't a little higher.

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Always looking for WW2 Half-Tracks and Parts.

The main negative about the HUMVEE is that so many thousands of GI's lost their limbs, lives , and experienced TBI's. Many thousands. I know when I see one it's the first thing I think about when I see one going down the road is "what a death trap." The up armored ones were made to help the troops feel better but they are also death traps. Ask some Iraqi war veterans or any recent veteran and they'll probably tell you the same thing.

No IEDs in my neighborhood.
Just potholes and deep snow in the winter.

They were a part of my time in the service, and being too late to get a cheap surplus Jeep, it's the next best thing.

Your comments about the truck can be applied to any military machine...Sherman tanks (they didn't care well against German Tigers) for one.
Heck, you can say the same about B-17s being deathtraps (daylight missions had their critics), or the P-40 or F4Fs that has to go again A6Ms, or the early B-26s, or asking pilots to fly early jet fighters that had dreadful accident rates in the 50s-70s. Look at all the kids killed in Hueys...

I get misty-eyed looking at a B-17 when I think about the loses.
That doesn't mean I want the survivors taken out and scrapped.

The HUMVEE has gotten a bad rap because it found itself in a war it wasn't designed for.
It was meant to serve in Europe as a high-tech latter-day Jeep, to defend against Warsaw Pact ground forces.

Being a light and unarmored, if course it didn't fare well against home made land mines and roadside bombs (duh!). It wasn't meant to be an armored car. That's what Bradley's are for.

Blame the Army for using it in situations it wasn't designed for, but don't blame the truck.

Your criticism sounds a bit like the media in the recent DUCK tragedy...really, taking it out during a storm?
Might as well blame Cessna when a guy flies into a mountain when scud running.


Still, I think some are worth preserving, because young guys and girls went to war in them.

_________________
Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

I had an M998. Licensing in California was no problem. As a truck, I needed to get a weight certificate (and a VIN verification).

My observations:

1. Loud. I wore earplugs for highway driving. Not too loud around town.
2. Slow. Faster than WW2 stuff but still only 60 MPH.
3. Parts are expensive. You can get pretty much anything from the specialized dealers (not the civilian HUMMER parts sources, they didn't have 24v parts) but at the time I owned mine there weren't a lot of surplus parts around.
4. Size. They are very wide, tall and long. Won't fit in a standard garage and if you have a side-by-side driveway, hard to get your passenger car around. Street parking and parking at the mall/supermarket are very difficult.
5. Inefficient. I got about 12-13 MPG. One might expect more from a diesel.
6. Fumes. I had both the standard exhaust and the fording exhaust. The fording exhaust threw the exhaust a bit higher and farther away but even so, when I came in the house my wife would tell me I smelled like I had fallen into a barbecue pit.
7. Security. Not good, no locks anywhere. The saving grace was that nobody knew how to start it unless they had driven them in the service. I used a battery disconnect switch as an additional measure.
8. Reliability was OK. Had to replace a CV joint and a thermal switch that screws into the intake manifold (I've forgotten the exact term for the part but it stranded me). For such a large truck, they are difficult to work on.
9. No park position in the transmission. You start it in neutral and the parking brake is ineffective at best. I always used a pair of chocks. I knew a guy that had his HMMWV roll down his driveway, across the street, and into a tree where the aluminum body was heavily damaged.
10. Tires are expensive, hard to balance and the run-flats are difficult to deal with. The tires are really hard to seat on the bead without the run-flats in place. If you have 8-bolt rims you should only use bias ply tires. The radials require the 12-bolt rims. The rims I'm referring to are the rim flanges not the where the wheels bolt to the axle hub.
11. Old-fashioned turn signals. You have to turn them off manually, they are not self-cancelling.