usmc rear reflectors

[chrisolds]

Hello all, I have reciently aquired a 68 m151a1 and am doing it up as a usmc jeep in merdec camo as it possably could have been in the mid 80's. Anyways does anyone know or have a pic of how the rear reflectors were installed when the usmc corner brackets,fording exhaust bracket and antenna mount are installed or was it possable if a1's were ever retrofitted to the a2 style stick on reflectors? Thanks Chris.

[Rickf]

I would think that the chances would be slim that any A1's would have been in active service in Europe in the marines in the late 80's. The Marines were the first to get he A2's. Any A1's left by the eighties were mostly post vehicles and due to the rollover issues they would have been parked more than driven I am sure.

[muttguru]

Hello all, I have reciently aquired a 68 m151a1 and am doing it up as a usmc jeep in merdec camo as it possably could have been in the mid 80's. Anyways does anyone know or have a pic of how the rear reflectors were installed when the usmc corner brackets,fording exhaust bracket and antenna mount are installed Chris.

Chris,
try this..............
Ken

[chrisolds]

Thank you Ken, that is what I was looking for, I guess they attached them to the corner brackets. One other question, were the corner bracket shackles special to that bracket or did anything else use them i.e. the front bumper?
Rick, I completely understand what you are saying, all I can say is I have read either here or other sites like g838 that some A1's were still in service up until the early ninties, what configuration they were in or what they were used for I have no idea but I thought maybe it wasn't out of the relm of possabilities. I have never been a huge 151 guy but have always really liked and wanted an A2 in the 4 color camo but not enough to fork up the $ for one so when a good friend of mine gave me this jeep I decided to do it the way I always wanted one even though it's not 100% correct. I have a m38a1 that I was anal on the restore, this one is just a toy but I would like to be correct on some things like the reflector placement. Besides it is a cut jeep which my friend and I properly redid the cut repair and is solid but probably not worthy of a 100% resto.

Here's a picture if anyone is intrested, I am a month into this project now and not much left to go.

054.jpg (29.02 KiB) Viewed 579 times

[Rickf]

I thought you were talking about the stick on decal type reflector they used in the eighties. They used M-151's well into the nineties but not the A1's Just about all of the A1's would have been gone by 75 or earlier because of the rollover issues. They wanted them out in a hurry. There would have been a few left here and there but nothing in active service.

Rick

[chrisolds]

Oh well now I'm depressed, I still like it though and it will still turn heads, hopefully not too many people will come up and yell at me that it is not right to have an A1 in camo. I was looking for the old style reflector placement or If they might have used the stick on style later on but if A1's didn't serve that long then I guess they didn't. Thanks Chris

[Rickf]

I can tell you right now that most people will not know the difference and if they do they will not care. It is yours so do it the want you want it to be. You will be amazed at how many old men will swear to you, ARGUE with you, that they drove one of them in WWII or Korea. Sadly we are losing those WWII arguers fast any more. I would argue for about ten seconds and then ask if they wanted a ride, argument ended, smiles all around.

Rick

[199th MP]

hi chris---my A1 was painted in 4 color camo by a previous owner, and no one has mentioned it so far. it will be 24087 OD when i'm done, but all that matters is you have fun with it. i drive mine wherever i want to, and when stuff breaks i fix it. i thought that was the whole idea.

[Fil Bonica]

I am working off a pile of A1s that were scrapped in 1986 .
That would lead me to belive they were in service through then.
A lot of the hoods grill bumper etc had the MERDC camo pattern on them.


Fil Bonica

[MrMVS]

I have had several A1s that were camo, one came from pendelton in cali. and the others were from Barstow the barstow a1s were done in desert camo,and were used on base for parts chasing,the last one I just got is done with the carc paint but was a light coat its sanding off to reveal the original od under it, this one is the searchlight unit with 1900 miles on it ....

[chrisolds]

Thanks for the replys, i feel better now that it was possable for a camo A1. funny you talked about the carc paint as mine was painted in carc at one time, it was a pain to weld through you had to clean every little bit off around the weld area or else it would splatter or not weld at all.

[75ct]

Without any doubt, many A1's were in service long enough to get the 4 color camouflage paint job.
I remember in the early 90's picking through a dozen M151A1's at an out of the way, somewhat local junkyard. There was even one early M151 in the lot and one A2 but the A2 was burnt so bad nothing was left to salvage off it.
All of them (except for the early M151) were done in 4 color camouflage and all were direct from the DRMO sales in the early 80's before they had to be cut in half. These all had a section of the visible front frame rail cut out as well as the drive shafts and suspension arms cut.
It was a little dangerous to pick parts off them because they were stacked on top of each other 3 and 4 high. Quite wobbly when you were up on top.

Edited to add evidence of the 4 color camo paint usage. Visible on the jeep on the left, you can see the grill (the one installed on the jeep, not the grill sitting on the hood) and windshield frame are in the 4 color winter pattern and are clearly of the M151 / M151A1 type. They are sporting their original military paint, they have not been civilian painted. (picture was taken by me some years back of jeeps I had owned at that time.) The windshield frame is even early enough to use the canvas bumpers on the upper edge.

[75ct]

Here are a couple close up's of the WSF on the jeep on the left.
In the top picture you can see the 4 color camo pattern on the outside of what is clearly a M151A1 windshield frame (note the canvas-over-metal bumpers on the top of the frame).
In the bottom picture it is also worth noting that this WSF (windshield frame) also has the wider defroster vents covering the later 4 slots versus the earlier, narrow 2 slots.
This WSF can be dated to a specific year of manufacture as the serial number of the jeep it was on is stenciled on it (visible on the inside in white and not so visible as a ghost image under the camo on the outside).

The existence of this particular WSF in it's original military paint disproves two commonly stated myths.
One of those myths is that all M151 and M151A1 were phased out of service before the 4 color pattern was adopted. (obviously false. M151A1 were still used long after the 4 color camouflage pattern was adopted)
The other myth is that the canvas hood bumpers were used only on very early M151A1 vehicles with the 2 vent defroster ducts. (once again, false)

Enjoy!

[Rickf]

Without any doubt, many A1's were in service long enough to get the 4 color camouflage paint job.
I remember in the early 90's picking through a dozen M151A1's at an out of the way, somewhat local junkyard. There was even one early M151 in the lot and one A2 but the A2 was burnt so bad nothing was left to salvage off it.
All of them (except for the early M151) were done in 4 color camouflage and all were direct from the DRMO sales in the early 80's before they had to be cut in half. These all had a section of the visible front frame rail cut out as well as the drive shafts and suspension arms cut.
It was a little dangerous to pick parts off them because they were stacked on top of each other 3 and 4 high. Quite wobbly when you were up on top.

Edited to add evidence of the 4 color camo paint usage. Visible on the jeep on the left, you can see the grill (the one installed on the jeep, not the grill sitting on the hood) and windshield frame are in the 4 color winter pattern and are clearly of the M151 / M151A1 type. They are sporting their original military paint, they have not been civilian painted. (picture was taken by me some years back of jeeps I had owned at that time.) The windshield frame is even early enough to use the canvas bumpers on the upper edge.

Sir, the half cut demill order went into effect in 5 Feb. 1973 until 8 April 1981 when it was changed to a quarter cut.
As I said before, in US forces there may have been a few A1's running around for a while in the 70's but they would have been base queens. They would NOT have been active service. I cannot speak for other countries services. I can also tell you that the style of bumper on that windshield went out in 1963, that does not mean that that windshield was not changed from another vehicle at some point. It only takes a minute to change. If they have an A1 with a broken glass and they have a 151 sitting in DRMO with a good windshield I can guarantee you that they are going to swap them. There is even an order covering that.

[chrisolds]

Very cool, either way some A1s did get the camo treatment, as for combat jeeps maybe not but the reserves and the guard kept their vehicles for a long time. My brother has a friend who was in the motor pool in the reserves in the late 80s through the early 90s and they still had some m38a1s, he said if a unit liked a particular vehicle they would keep it as long as they could. Thanks for the replys, Chris