M37 Dually??

[Old Geezer]

I went on a 1 day road trip out of state today with a friend. We passed a place with some military vehicles and stopped in on our return trip.

They had this truck for sale. The sign says it's an M37, and the sheet metal (no bed, just cab, fenders, doors, hood, etc.) tends to confirm that. One interesting feature I haven't seen before is the small oval rear window shown in the picture from the front.

HOWEVER, the rear axle has dual wheels on it. They're a large 5 lug pattern like the M37 (I'm not sure if they're the same bolt circle size) , but the tire is a 20 inch.

The rest of the truck, appears to be M37--flathead 6 with oil bath aircleaner on passenger side, cartridge type oil filter on driver's side, (and what looks like an oil reservoir next to it). The distributor and spark plugs are commercial, not the sealed military style. An odd thing is that one of the previous owners cut a round circle in the hood over the air cleaner, then covered it with a domed piece of metal, as if to allow for an oversized air cleaner.

The transmission shifter looks to be original, the shift handle is clamped to a vertical stub coming through the floor boards.

Unfortunately it was late in the day, and I didn't get a lot of pictures, but the 2 I did will give you some idea of what it looks like.

I'm interested in this as a possible basis for a unique small (1 ton) dump truck, given the dual wheel rear axle, etc., so I'm thinking this is a hybridized M37, with possibly a civilian 6 cylinder engine and a larger rear axle, that also has overload springs in addition to regular springs.

I've done a pretty intensive search and haven't found any other military vehicles that use the same 5 lug pattern, but with a larger diameter wheel. I can't get more pictures very easily as it's a 3 hour drive from my home.

Can anyone help me out to identify what might have been used?

Thanks,

Ol' Geezer

 

[NDT]

Are you sure the duals are 20" rims? Kinda does not look like it. Power Wagons could be optioned with duals back in the day.

 

[Old Geezer]

No, I'm not positive... I was in a hurry when I looked at it and I didn't check a lot of things, like tire sizes. I'm basing this mostly on the appearance from the pictures. I thought that perhaps some previous owner had put an axle from another truck on it, and added the overload spring perches, and that maybe the lug pattern was slightly larger--notice that the holes in the rear wheels appear larger than the front, but I haven't found any wheels with the a big 5 lug pattern larger than 16".

IHC made a truck (M-2-4) in several models. They were rated at one ton and were used primarily by the Marines. Some versions had dual rear wheels, but the hood is the narrow bat wing style that lifts from each side.

Since I want to install a small (8') dump bed on this, the question is if this will handle it. The bed and hoist would weigh about 1,500 lbs. I would also put a more modern drive train in it, a 4BT 3.9 with automatic being my first choice.

 

[Old Geezer]

One unusual thing about this truck is the small slightly oval rear window. I haven't seen this on any other M37s I've seen...

 

[NDT]

The oval window is part of the arctic enclosure. I can say with high confidence that the rear axle is stock, and the duals are 5 hole Budd 16” from a Power Wagon. Dodge did a dump (XM708 I think) on the M37 platform so sure the chassis should be able to take the application. The transfer case can’t take high horsepower/high speeds for very long, gets red hot.

 

[Old Geezer]

The oval window is part of the arctic enclosure. I can say with high confidence that the rear axle is stock, and the duals are 5 hole Budd 16” from a Power Wagon. Dodge did a dump (XM708 I think) on the M37 platform so sure the chassis should be able to take the application. The transfer case can’t take high horsepower/high speeds for very long, gets red hot.

Thanks! That's good information. If I buy it I'll restomod it but use it primarily for runs to the dump, etc.

Regards,

OG