M-151 History

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I got this from a friend and thought you all would enjoy it.


M-151 History

I was on Steel Soldiers looking for information on the serial number plate and I found this entry from TNJ Murray what a wealth of information for the M151 crowd! "Great info!!

I have a few other things that would be fun to put out there. The straight M151’s that I have had and seen over the years of demilling them have had differences some have a hole in the rear for the Jerry can upper strap to go through and some mount to the top like the standard 151 a1 and a2 , I've seen some with four latch battery box covers and some with the standard two. Everyone talks about there being no serial number on the body, that I do agree with but did you all know that the M151a2 body kits in the crate and it seems the last run of the a2 had a serial number plate welded to the body next to where your right leg would be where the fuel return and vent line is located.

We cut up about 1500 new a2’s at camp Lejeune right out of supply, they had all the gear packed in them. All of them have these serial number plates on them. Do you all remember when Zecon in Augusta Georgia hand the 300 plus a2’s for export only? They were all rebuilt USMC a2s, they had the new body kits and rebuilt parts installed on them and they all had the serial plate on them. This numbers always matched the one on the dash.

One last thing, I have welded on these late bodies before and I have found that the gage is lighter, the welds will blow through a lot faster than the none data plate bodies. I have a large collection of stamp data plates that we took off of the jeeps we cut up and I also have Ford a2 data plates with the serial numbers on them of jeeps never built. As you all know ford lost the contract to AMC/AM General but Ford had already started gearing up to build the a2. My father and George Pearcy from Highland Auto Truck Parts went to Ford and purchased the left-over stock, that's how I got the Ford a2 data plates. The last a2s that AMG built were in 1986, they were for Pakistan. There were 1014 jeeps consisting of 1000 M825 106 canon jeeps and 14 M718a1 ambulance jeeps. We supplied axle shafts, steering yokes and some transmissions.

I was lucky to get to go to the South Bend plant and see the last of the jeeps being built! It amazed me how simple and hands on the line was that had built so many jeeps over the years. It could have fit it in most large high school gyms. I also got to see the circular line that built the bodies. Remember the plant was 3 million square feet!!! The sad thing was no pictures. I had to keep the photos in my mind!! They then took us over to the Mishawaka plant that they had started building Hummers in, what a big difference, it was a modern production line like you see on the History Channel.

The raw aluminum came in the door and out came a Hummer at the other end. When I was there, they were building ambulance versions for the Olympics in Seoul Korea. My father and I went back out to bid on the remains of the jeep production line, what a sight to see basket after basket on new parts, body parts, you name it! It was hard to figure where some of the body parts went as when you brake one of the bodies down there are a lot of little parts that make up that body. Once again, no pictures!!!! We bid on it all with Highland Auto Truck Parts and as you all may know King William from Red River Truck Parts won the bid and all of the body parts went to the Philippines along with a lot of the parts.

One last thing I will never forget. When I was inspecting all the parts to be sold, off to the side was a caged area about half the size of a basketball court. This was full of all the data plates and the elusive 3m reflectors that we all can't find!! They told me this was not in the sale and slated to be scrapped.

Oh well. I hope you guys find this interesting please respond to any of it or if you have any corrections or things to add.

Thanks,

John Murray.

[email protected]
 
One of my tasks as Assistant Maintenance Officer for a Maint BN at Ft. Carson was the re-tubbing of M151s, The bodies were cracking through and couldn't be welded and reinforced so the Govt purchased new bodies only. We set up a disassembly and assembly line, stripped down mechanically servicable 151s, reinstalled the components on the new bodies and had servicable 151s once again. The 151 series is like a Lego set, everything just bolts to the body. This was 1982, I left before the project was completed.
 
We had 151s up until about 86-87. Great off road but easy a hell to turn over on the pavement! We had several overturned.
 
Used to drive them in the mid 80s at night at Bragg while pulling SOCOM guard with my M1911A1 and 5 rds of .45 ACP.

CD
 
A friend of mine in Indiana has an uncut M151A2. Wow, what a great off-road vehicle. I'd love to have one here on the farm that I could also drive on the road.
 
They still had some in service when I was at Bliss in the mid80s. Had roll cages on them, I wanted one of them so bad.

Sent from notthedroidyourelookingfor
 
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