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I was reading of a fellow who upgraded his M37 with a Diesel engine larger dia tyres ,gearbox etc and said he done 250k and rebuilt the diffs 13 times !!!!!!! and that the accepted Military life of a M37 was 15k ,said the standard diffs could not handle the extra power and torque !!! ummm err mmmm

Axles might not be up to the task. 3rd member is plenty tough. Unless driving style is, well, not good.

The axles could/would break under the right conditions with the stock L-Head 6. I've gone through many with my V8 conversion, but mostly because of the abuse I subjected them to. It all depends on how you use/drive.

That would be me. Back around '73 or so, I finished up a restoration of my M37, and did a Diesel repower.

Yes, 13 sets of ring/pinion gears, none of which were aftermarket. The majority were complete NOS drop-ins when they were available.

Never broke anything, other than a few axle shafts in really hard pulling work.

Eventually the rear end would start to get noisy on decelerating, and go on to really grinding in forward. When they were pulled down, the teeth looked like razor blades from wear. I tried various brands of gear oil & additives. The only difference there was some (Moly stuff) made the seals leak like crazy.

My engine was a bone-stock 3-53N Detroit, coupled to a Spicer 3053 OD 5-speed from an M35 Multifuel. Initially I ran stock 9.00-16 non-directionals, later on to adapted Gama Goat 11.00-18 setups. It would pull heavy loads and my modded M104 1.5 ton trailer with ease over 65 MPH/2800 RPM, and logged many freeway road trip miles over 20 years to lots of Western US destinations.

The one weak link in it was those gears, they just couldn't handle the load at those RPMs.

The 6 gas engine military service life was from an Army Motors document I read in the Test & Evaluation Command library at Yuma Proving Grounds (I taught some classes in that building back in the mid-70's). They kept data from a lot of the little Dodges, and arrived at that 15K figure, finding that sustained road speed in keeping up with the newer generation of MV convoys was hard on the long-stroke flathead. Then again, 15,000 miles on a tactical is very high mileage...

Dennis, aka the PrinceO'Weird

Well THAT's a LOT of miles on an M37. Regardless of being repowered. Are there any other parts that failed more than once? What parts are problems long term?

A few U-joints, not many. They just got a bit sloppy, no catastrophic failures. Rebuilt the generator with new bearings & brushes.

Lots of tires, several brake jobs. 3 sets of seat covers, 3 repaints. The radiator developed a leak, resoldered to be OK.

Some seals on the transfer. A new clutch & pressure plate. A couple dash gauges R&R.

Really, not much past normal wear & tear. Not counting the ring & pinions just wearing out at about 20K mile intervals.

PoW

Yeah, that sounds like pretty normal stuff. Thanks...

BTW, the front axle never needed any service in all those miles,

I did blow up 2 Warn M13 hubs over the years when really working it in 4WD.

PoW