willysmjeeps.com

You do understand that ALL M38's left Willys with the US Army numbers on the hood and those numbers are not always in sequence with serial numbers. The Marines would drop the USA numbers in the field and paint the jeep forest green and add the Marine hood number. Again this did not happen in serial number sequence. The Army maintained their vehicle records by hood number not serial number so all the records turned over to the Marines with their new M38's were in order of Army hood numbers which we already know were not always in agreement with serial number sequence.

Yes, I do understand and have learned this here and elsewhere before.

I didn't elaborate on how I had narrowed the numbers which I had asked others elsewhere as I do here what their serial numbers and date of deliveries were if they had original hood numbers and they all coincide with the range of month and year for both Army and Marine Corps, although differ, etc. as you had written. I do know that they were Army first then on to other branches as you had written.

http://www.cj3a.info/sibling/cjv35u/photos/p158.html
Using the above CJV-35 (and yes, I know it's not an M38 but neither are the MB's but the USMC numbers still increased over the years) above as an example, I do my best in tracking down all serials, hood numbers, d o d's, etc. and also know that there are fewer of the Marine Corps and cannot do a sequence guestimate on those as I did the Army for reasons you had written, but again, going by searching other's jeeps I have narrowed it down. I have hundreds upon hundreds of info and photos of both Army and USMC.

One can look up your M38 Data here on the site, compare their serial number to figure out the RANGE that their hood is Possibly Near by a Guestimate. For Fun.
My serial is MC 20965. I see a jeep on your Data portion of this site that has an Army hood number with a serial number near mine and a Date of Delivery.
I subtract that jeep's serial number and see that it's 5,570 jeeps apart. I then take the hood number and add 5,570 to it and get a GUESSED RANGE for my hood to be ABOUT 2391626 just for fun until I wet sand my hood carefully to find my own number. As I had written, if I find no hood number, I'll at least know that the Range for my hood begins with 239 and will finish the rest with my serial number, 0965. 2390965 because as you had writtren, we don't want to confuse future historians and having a partial serial number will make it obvious that it is not an original hood number.
My jeep fell in the range of the end of the 7 digit hood number anyway by the serial number so I know it's in the area.
This does match up pretty well with all of the jeeps out there and their info.

I also do know that it is not accurate by any means for many, many reasons.
This is only a fun guess and is not science.

As mentioned, I narrowed the Marine Corps RANGE that mine MAY be in by asking and researching those that had a jeep that was near my Date of Delivery, Serial Range and had original hood numbers. I also understand that they were not in the serial sequence, etc. but U.S.A. hood numbers as you had mentioned. They were still in the Range though.

Both M38's have been repainted the deep forest green Marine Corps and dad has the "Marine Corps." data plates. I did sand on them enough to find the green over the O.D. after removing the civvy paint but want to take extra care in sanding where there may be markings and numbers later when on vacation.

Also the Ordnance contracts provided a batch of hood numbers equal to the contract's specified number of jeeps. The next contract's set of hood numbers did not pick up where the last contract left off. So we get a large gap in hood numbers between contracts. The M38 went thru 6 contracts. So you will find six separate groups of hood numbers.

That's right...I had forgotten that I had learned that on here and mention that but still had the right range. Taking the serials, dod and hood numbers and doing that math from known sets to another, the hood numbers would still be only be off from 50 to 200 jeeps for every time I compared them as long as I kept it as close as possible like jeeps that were made within a month or two. Not tooooo bad when there would be a few thousand jeeps apart and only being off that little. I've just been lucky so far not to get one of those 6 way-off batch numbers you had written about is all, but if someone still is in the dark of what their hood number their jeep may of had it's nice to at least have the RANGE of what it may have been in and just add the last numbers of their serial number for previously written reasons.

The data plate on my father's jeep is DA-20-018-ORD-9196.
The previous owner had removed mine but I still have the original MC serial plate off of the wheel housing painted with the same layers of paint as the rest of the jeep so I'm sure that it is original (the screwed in corners are corroded from the aluminum reaction on steel). Your M38 Data on the site shows another jeep of my month with the same contract. I know contracts overlapped, etc., but have seen many other jeeps delivered on May of 1951 with that same ORD number elsewhere, so I figured mine may have been in there somewhere.
I also know that my serial rage is correct from the oval differential covers and not the later style as on my dad's jeep of only 3 months later.