What decals and markings on a M38

[GregS]

Does anyone have a reference/photos of what decals and markings would have been on a M38 and their placement?

I know there will probably be a difference from how they left the factory to what was applied in the field. I am just looking to get an idea of what is out there.

Greg

[wesk]

Greg,
The only exterior marking from the factory was the hood numbers. Different services and different units in the same service all had they're little goodies. Some units had tire pressures stenciled above the wheels on the side of the jeep. Some had bumper markings and some didn't. Some had stars applied in the field and some didn't. By the way the hulla balloo over stars has always intrigued me. They were rarely used stateside. They were only applied in the field if the area commander felt they were needed. If your doing a factory resto it's simple, just hood numbers. If you're doing a motor pool resto then shop around the web sites with photos of in service M38's and pick what you like to use.

On the interior the earlyy instrument cluster with the circuit breaker and clip mounted on the back had a white decal "High Beam" under the high beam warning light. The late Instrument cluster without the circuit breaker and clip on the back had the same decal plus a white "Fuel" decal below the fuel gage.

[GregS]

Thanks Wes,

When I was working on my tub I did find traces of the sticker on the dash advising of the bell housing plug in the glove box. Any evidence/or educated guess if that was factory applied?

Greg

[wesk]

Can't find a reference for hardly any of the decals in the ORD 9's. For that reason we can only ponder the date of installation of the decals.

[Ryan_Miller]

Greg,

The fording bell housing plug decal is in the TM 9 8012 1956 at the very front around page 6 or so.

[wesk]

There are plenty of sitings in the TM's but none in the ORD 9's. Without a ORD 9 entry or a factory drawing or reference we will never know when they appeared.

[RickC]

Pictures in My Dads photo album from 1952 show M38s with Tire pressures over wheels and others with larger Tire pressures IN the wheel wells.
Rick C

[wesk]

Rick,
Those are stenciled on by the using units. As are the stars if called for by the theater commander and unit ID's.

Why don't you share those hard to find photos with us. Either scan post them here or email them to me and I'll post them.

[hillbilly21]

Link onto WWW. garbee.net then look for m38 pages markings !! That is where I got most of mine at... Good Luck