Hardest M37 Part to Find

[52 M-42]

These trucks are now about 50 to 65 years old. The parts are going to get harder and harder to find. Imagine how many NOS 1932 automobile parts were around in 1997. That is what you are facing. These trucks are quickly approaching museum / collector status, which while sad, is not unpredictable, and should not be unexpected.

I used to take my truck out into the woods almost every weekend and climbed many a mountain with it. Now the logging roads are all gated or blocked, and it is almost impossible to get off road without driving for 8 hours or more. Shows are about all that is available any more. Time moves on and things change. Someday fairly soon they will all be in museums or Jay Leno type collections.

[w30bob]

Geeze '52........you're sure not putting a good spin on things.

You can look at it another way..............32 Fords and WWII Jeeps are/were so popular that today you can build one out of a catalog. Just about every part is available. I'm not saying the M37 is that popular, but every time I see one for sale......it's not for sale long. And I've seen some pretty "rough" M37s sell for decent money. I think the interest is there, but like any collector car there's that time period between when the parts run out and get stupid expensive and when parts get reproduced. I mean look at the parts market today. Did you ever think 10 years ago that you'd be able to buy ANY reproduction M37 parts?? The list just keeps growing. So I'm going to be optimistic and see if interest will drive more parts to be reproduced. Only time will tell.

regards,
bob

[MSeriesRebuild]

Charles is right, most of the body parts you see for sale are pretty rusty. Reconditionable I guess, but more than likely they'd be thrown away a few years ago when parts were more plentiful. I've found NOS passenger doors, but finding NOS driver's doors has been fruitless so far. Winch bumpers are getting tough to find, and even nice straight running boards take a good amount of searching. Good useable fenders pop up from time to time, but they'll be climbing in price too. I guess if you run across good sheetmetal snatch it up.....I don't think Dodge...errr....Fiat has any plans of firing up the tooling and making more anytime soon.

later,
bob

All this is very true. The "good" body parts you see advertised are not what I call good at all in most cases; and what you can find will OFTEN be misrepresented; part crook or part ignorance of the real condition on the part of some sellers can actually get you very little when it comes to good condition body components. This is a major factor in a "real restoration" project as body panel repair and restoration that goes into a project that must support a show quality paint job must be done "RIGHT." Doing things right with body panels for such a project becomes labor intensive really fast when lots of repair tactics are a necessity. Bringing a body as a whole back to the best condition it can be generally takes up to 3-4 times the labor hours as required for the best mechanical rebuild, making the best body parts you can find an extremely important issue when overall cost comes together.

Many buyers looking for a good core truck to restore seek for the best truck mechanically not paying a lot of attention to the body. I basically look for the opposite; I'd much rather have a good body on a truck that is in need of extreme mechanical restoration than good mechanicals with a bad body. You will end up with a lesser investment overall because of the labor that will be involved.

[MSeriesRebuild]

Geeze '52........you're sure not putting a good spin on things.

You can look at it another way..............32 Fords and WWII Jeeps are/were so popular that today you can build one out of a catalog. Just about every part is available. I'm not saying the M37 is that popular, but every time I see one for sale......it's not for sale long. And I've seen some pretty "rough" M37s sell for decent money. I think the interest is there, but like any collector car there's that time period between when the parts run out and get stupid expensive and when parts get reproduced. I mean look at the parts market today. Did you ever think 10 years ago that you'd be able to buy ANY reproduction M37 parts?? The list just keeps growing. So I'm going to be optimistic and see if interest will drive more parts to be reproduced. Only time will tell.

regards,
bob

Reproduction will improve on some items; but with many the cost will out do the market, thus will never happen unless drastic changes in demand arise. We've had this discussion several times concerning various components, and so the story goes. Common sense tells us all that no investor wants to sink a bunch of $$ into something that will take many years, if ever to show a profit. I knew building our disc brake conversion parts wouldn't be cheap; it ran up way more than even I felt it would to get it right. How did I get my machinist interested; well I caught them at a time when they were calling us wanting to know if we had work we could send them, they were caught up; at one point they told me we were their only customer who's business was doing good. I had asked the same shop owner that we frequently use about doing this prior only to be told, not interested, to much work and expense involved. When they were out of work, then they had interest, thus we made it happen over about a 3 year period and a lot of $$$. Now that all the dies, etc. are built, they want more core hubs so they can machine more components. Same thing with the front fender patch panels we now have on hand, cost of the die build was outrageous just to press a simple 16 gauge panel. All kinds of vocal interest when we first mentioned these 2 ventures; now that we have them available, guess what? If we didn't need both of these items for in house projects; at this point I'd have to call the investments a bust. Bottom line, the market for retailing these items is nowhere near what many believe it to be; I guess you have to be in our shoes before you come into reality on that.

[marc8_2]

Nos 24v 251 distributor

[MSeriesRebuild]

Nos 24v 251 distributor

This one is easy; we can build your 251 distributor to better than NOS in a day. If only everything one might need was this easy; none of us would have any problems at all with sourcing parts.

[w30bob]

Hi Guys,

I totally forgot about this part being hard to find, as it's been so long since I've seen one. It's the beadlock clips for the wheels. They were installed on early M's, and I've been looking for a set forever. My 52 AF M37 had them on it originally, so I need to find these little buggers. I was reminded of them a few minutes ago when I saw a bunch of them for sale on Epay. I'd get them but the seller must believe their made of gold........and I'm not in the market for gold. But keep an eye out for 'em for me and if you run across any for a decent price (a buck or two apiece) grab 'em and let me know.



regards,
bob

[Black Ops]

Hi Guys,

I totally forgot about this part being hard to find, as it's been so long since I've seen one. It's the beadlock clips for the wheels. They were installed on early M's, and I've been looking for a set forever. My 52 AF M37 had them on it originally, so I need to find these little buggers. I was reminded of them a few minutes ago when I saw a bunch of them for sale on Epay. I'd get them but the seller must believe their made of gold........and I'm not in the market for gold. But keep an eye out for 'em for me and if you run across any for a decent price (a buck or two apiece) grab 'em and let me know.



regards,
bob

Hi Bob, 2 bucks each is reasonable but $2.63 each is made of gold? I would have sold them to you cheaper...

[w30bob]

Hi BlackOps,

You have a valid point. I didn't mean to be harsh to the seller, everything is relative I guess. In the past I've gotten a couple clips from guys on this forum for free or $1 each, and I bought a couple from John at Midwest last year for $2 each. I consider John's prices on everything M37 to be as bad as things get price wise, as he constantly adjusts them for the supply vs demand thing. Not picking on John or suggesting his prices are unrealistic, I'm just saying in the military truck parts world where prices seem to constantly go up, I use John as the price barometer. So when I see things priced higher than what John gets, that's considered "gold" to me. Remember, these clips aren't hard to find because they're desirable, they're hard to find because most folks threw them away and don't want to be bothered with them. Sort of like the front bumper shackle mounts........no one is looking for the original cast iron thinner ones that break, everyone wants the cast steel thicker second version.

The Ebay listing doesn't have a "Make Offer" option, so there's no negotiating, like we can do here on the Forum. Sure, $12 bucks, the difference between 19 clips at $2 and 19 clips at $2.63 isn't that big a deal, but carry that on for the 50 clips I need and we're talking $30 bucks more, 50 clips at $2 each for $100 vs 50 clips at $2.63 each for $130. Maybe $30 isn't a big deal either.....just depends on how deep your pockets are.......again, relative.

So some will read this post and conclude I'm a tight-ass when money is concerned, and others will agree the asking price is too high. Everybody has a different price in their head that they think is reasonable for every part, for whatever the reason. I apologize if I insulted the seller on Ebay (is that you?). Forums are for stating opinions, which not everyone will agree with. Mine is the asking price of those clips is too high. But that wasn't the point of my post.......it was that those clips are a hard to find M37 part (for me) and if anyone has any or runs across them in their travels............my tight-ass is willing to give them up to $2 a piece for them.

regards,
bob

[Black Ops]

Hi Bob, yes those are my clips on eBay. No need to apologize for your opinion, everyone has their own and I only value some people's. I'll agree that the bead clips belong in this thread though, I've personally never seen any for sale and many m37 guys don't know they exist. They sure are a pain to save when breaking down 60+ year old tires, we spent a lot of extra time to make sure we didn't break them because someone out there is looking for them. I think the reason they are so rare is they are not absolutely necessary to the function of the truck, and the time it takes to remove them can cost you more than they are worth.


Keeping this thread on track, has anyone seen a kit for adding military side clearance lights to an m37? I have a kit I bought from a friend of mine who is a parts dealer. In the dual wheels thread there is a picture of a truck with the same looking set-up. I have seen clearance lights on a m151 pictured in the early 1970s but have never seen a picture of an m37 in service with them. I'm not 100% sure the kit is for an m37 but the brackets for the front fenders are completely different from the 2.5-ton/5-ton ones and fit the m37 fender angle.

[just me]

The hardest part to find is that one I bought months ago and put 'somewhere safe' until I needed it.
Well, I need it and can't find the damned thing!

[Cal_Gary]

Hey Bob,
Bert and I will be in Topeka this month and can watch out for a set (Bert, hope you didn't mind me volunteering us)!
Gary

[MSeriesRebuild]

Another prospective; parts vendors are of course in the business to make money selling parts; thus if they have what you want; expect up front the cost will be premium, especially if the item is considered rare. Some will raise the initial price just to see how bad you really want the item. That is simply the business world, and the way it works, so if it's a must have item for you, well. With us here at M Series, it works like this. We save many items that have accumulated over years, some rare stuff; some of which will be sitting here on sale day somewhere out in the future or when the world ends as we know it and nobody cares anymore. My guys ask why don't you get rid of this, we never use it. My thoughts are if someone wants to build a totally accurate truck; well in a lot of ways we have stuff to do it. On the other hand, shelf space is tied up with "stuff we never use." We aren't a parts vendor; but we do have items I'd sell outright, we also have stuff I don't care to sell, because there may come a time we can make a client really happy because we can add a hard to find component to their dream build. If I'm selling something that has been around for years, in the majority of cases it will end up going for a lesser price than I feel it's worth just because I figure it has laid around long enough and it's time to go. I look at that situation as freeing up much needed space and someone found something they had looked for years in some cases, and got it at a price they could afford. So keep looking for that special item; you just never know.

[w30bob]

Gary/Bert, I sure appreciate that!

Just me.........great point! Many of my M37 parts are rare simply because the odds of me finding where I put them are rare. I have attempted to fix the problem by putting all my parts in large moving boxes labeled like the ORD (Engine, Cooling, Electrical, Steering, Frame, etc). Now I just have to look thru all the boxes of one subject to find something.

regards,
bob

[Elwood]

Gary/Bert, I sure appreciate that!

Just me.........great point! Many of my M37 parts are rare simply because the odds of me finding where I put them are rare. I have attempted to fix the problem by putting all my parts in large moving boxes labeled like the ORD (Engine, Cooling, Electrical, Steering, Frame, etc). Now I just have to look thru all the boxes of one subject to find something.

regards,
bob

When I realized that I had been ordering parts that I already had on hand, but had forgotten I had them, I knew it was time to organize my inventory.

I resorted to something similar, Bob, although I use banker's file storage boxes, since I have a ready supply of them, they're strong enough to stack, and the separate lids make for easy access. Since I have more than enough parts in some ORD groups to fill more than one box, the boxes are numbered, e.g. "01-02" for ORD Group 01 (Engine), box No. 2. The box numbering makes it easy to find large and oversize items (they get their own "box" number) that aren't stored in a banker's box.

I also keep an inventory in an Excel spreadsheet, with each part keyed to a specific box number.