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I am cleaning and painting many of the nuts and bolts for the final reassembly of my M38.
In a grab-bag of unmarked fasteners (yeah, I know, must have lost my Sharpie pen that day...) I found eight nice 1/4-20 5/8" slotted round head BRASS screws. I discovered they were brass when I hit the heads on a wire wheel to remove three layers of paint.... the bottom layer being OD..
They may be from some of the "custom accessories" added by PO's, or maybe there is a special place on a 1951 M38 for brass fasteners! I took a quick scan of the Part Manual, but didn't see any Brass screws that were that big.

Any ideas or suggestions? If not, I may use them for attaching my Guide A-2 reflectors...

See photo next post

Jeff

I used brass screws on the dash plate holding in the high beam indicator and the night lights. Also for the light switch mounting.

per ORD 9 Hi beam Ind. screws are steel 8-32 and the Main Lite Switch are steel 10-32.

Jeff, I would suggest that you just lay them aside and as you re-assemble the jeep use the ORD 9 as your guide and that way the correct hardware will end up where it belongs. If you do not come across any requirement for 1/4"-20 brass round head slotted screws just toss them in the spare hardware box. The reflectors called for Steel 1/4"-20 screws in the ORD 9.

It is not uncommon over a half century for many folks who had their hands on your jeep to substitute a few fasteners with whatever they had on hand.

My arctic top came with brass screws in the door handles. Didn't see any brass screws when I did my off frame restoration.

Thanks Gentlemen!

I put the 1/4-20 brass in a 'special place'.
I did also notice the little brass screws used in the instrument panel. What I found interesting was, they were all brass, except for 2 of them, which were steel... Because they were painted, I didn't notice that most were brass in disassembly. And I'm pretty sure I was the first one to ever take apart the panel, as the gauges were all original and untouched,
Upon reassembly, I went looking in the ORD_9 for the special place the two steel screws went... there must have been a good reason for the use of two steel screws amongst a sea of brass!! Right??
Well, the ORD-9 lists all the little screws as "cd or zn" plated, which would not be on brass.
I guess the day they made 23923, brass screws were en vogue.

66 years to swap parts. Trust me you are not the first one to unscrew anything on your dash. As I posted above:

It is not uncommon over a half century for many folks who had their hands on your jeep to substitute a few fasteners with whatever they had on hand.

Another place brass is used is brass nuts for the exhaust manifold.

I use a lot of brass, stainless, and grade 8 bolts and screws in place of the old rusted out ones. Once painted, no one knows and they will be there when the rest of the jeep is rusted away. I can't help it.

Im with you. Replace old rusty with new, but closest match possible. I can't help myself either. But I don't submit my jeep to scrutiny by the Jeep police either, so who's going to complain?

The exception being the MB. It was fairly unmolested so I am lucky to have a vast majority of its original hardware and it will remain with that Jeep.