Help a Nubie with a purchase

[72tx340]

Im leaning more to passing on the deal. I see some extra wires under the hood as well. I personally dont think its running all that well. They have a mechanic who went all through it but if thats how he left it then he isnt much of a mechanic. There really pushy on making the deal lots of calls emails etc. makes me think there is something wrong and they may have a 400 mile away sucker to pass it off on.

[Kaiser2boy]

Some times the hair on the back of your neck standing up is right. Dont lose faith , there are a ton of M37's out there it never hurts to back away from something that you are not sure of.

Also if they had a "mechanic" look at it and thats as good as he could get it to run ,,,something not right.
I love salesmen that say ,,it just needs a tune up. Then why didnt you do that so it would run good and be an easy sell??
Answer , its not just a tune up it needs.

[carter davidson]

Also if they had a "mechanic" look at it and thats as good as he could get it to run ,,,something not right.

Maybe a mechanic looked at it but he may not have known what he was seeing.

[Kaiser2boy]

Maybe a mechanic looked at it but he may not have known what he was seeing.

Very possible. I can see it now a mechanic about 30 years old lifts the hood and blinks a few times thinking Uh Oh what the heck is this thing. Where do I plug in the computer..

[Matthew Ziegler]

I'm sure that they didn't see a "check engine" light on and assumed that it's supposed to run that way

[jrodjared]

Yeah those toolboxes look about 22. Salesman. Nice guys I'm sure, who don't know anything about this truck. Granted, I am not all that much older, but I am taking the time to get to know the M37.

That being said, here's my two cents. It's in a lot better shape than most of the M37 trucks I see. Someone said it previously, it depends on what you want to do with the truck. If you just want to drive it around and have some fun, wave at people in parades, it might be a worthwhile investment. Have them send you a video of them doing the compression test though! That will make everything clear. Think of it like a maintenance forecast.

If you are looking to do a frame off restoration, that's a different story.

There's a lot of weird things I saw in the video. First question I had was why is it so hard to start? It idles funny too. Also, when they lifted the hood, what's that little blue canister by the driver firewall? What about the transfer case? Does it shift in to four wheel drive? How are all the seals? I didn't see any major leaks, but I honestly didn't study it for too long.

If that's all good, I say go for it. Why the heck not? It looks like there are a lot of little manageable projects you could do without diving in too deep. I'm sure there's 1000 other things you could check, but then you wouldn't have anything to fix!

First things first though, figure out what that silver toggle switch is for, seems redundant.

<stepping off of soap box>

[Kaiser2boy]

Yeah those toolboxes look about 22. Salesman. Nice guys I'm sure, who don't know anything about this truck. Granted, I am not all that much older, but I am taking the time to get to know the M37.

That being said, here's my two cents. It's in a lot better shape than most of the M37 trucks I see. Someone said it previously, it depends on what you want to do with the truck. If you just want to drive it around and have some fun, wave at people in parades, it might be a worthwhile investment. Have them send you a video of them doing the compression test though! That will make everything clear. Think of it like a maintenance forecast.

If you are looking to do a frame off restoration, that's a different story.

There's a lot of weird things I saw in the video. First question I had was why is it so hard to start? It idles funny too. Also, when they lifted the hood, what's that little blue canister by the driver firewall? What about the transfer case? Does it shift in to four wheel drive? How are all the seals? I didn't see any major leaks, but I honestly didn't study it for too long.

If that's all good, I say go for it. Why the heck not? It looks like there are a lot of little manageable projects you could do without diving in too deep. I'm sure there's 1000 other things you could check, but then you wouldn't have anything to fix!

First things first though, figure out what that silver toggle switch is for, seems redundant.

<stepping off of soap box>

In a prior post he mentions the blue thing. Its a 12volt ignition coil...The switch may very well be how they are hoping to isolate it from the main power.
I have seen lash ups like that and very often there is back feed through the system . All you need to do is forget to flip it off and then you can cook things. If the engine happens to stop with the points closed and that switch is on ,,,the coil is going to get very hot.
The truck does not look like a rust bucket and actually LOOKs ok but that hinky engine is a real worry.

[Matthew Ziegler]

wires

Don't let a few extra wires scare you away, any truck that was fire dept, dpw, usually got "improved upon" cb radios, extra lights, sirens. my truck is ex civil defense, I pulled out a ton of speaker wire, thhn, some trailer cable and even a few feet of bx cable! If you want to leave it 24 volt, reproduction harnesses are available new custom made and kinda pricey, someone down in texas is selling new greek made m37 harnesses pretty reasonable, I hear the quality is very good. If you decide to convert the truck to 12 volts, easier to get new bulbs, turn signal parts, headlights etc. most any hotrod magazine will have at least 5 or 6 companies selling universal harnesses for a reasonable cost with a fuseblock and nice new wire, even an unmolested stock harness is probably 40 years old and kind of brittle.

[WeeksM37]

There's a sucker born everyday!

Well, it's great feedback that everyone provided on this truck.

There's a sucker born everyday... meaning myself. I just so happened to purchase this M37 for myself. Honestly, I am very pleased so far with the purchase.

Sheet metal is as good as advertised or better than expected. The engine starts right away with the right starting sequence. This includes the use of the electric fuel pump that was placed in it. Solid body and even the plywood in the bed doesn't seem to be an issue. The plywood that I've pulled have revealed no serious issues.

Muffler is bad, the Army stars on the door are just too small. But honestly, those are pretty small complaints. Without those, what the heck would I be able to fiddle with. The engine probably ran rough in the videos previously since the carb needed to be rebuilt. That's been done.

In the End, I'm aweful proud to have this one in my garage... and I didn't pay what the Newby stated he was offered previously :)!