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I noticed in the photo gallery a photo of the first aid bracket in a M38. In my M38 I have the lower bracket, but what kind of bracket/device holds the "J" bolt to the bottom of the glove box? Thanks, Kendall

On my M-38 I used a hose / wire type clamp with a screw and nut into the glove box panel... this allows the J bolt to pivot and have some movement...

Hope this helps...

It's a tubing clamp and screw and depending on the size of your first aid kit you may need a longer screw and spacer as shown in this photo:

The wire clamp has two small bolts that fasten it to the bottom of the glove box.

There were what appears to be two types of brackets for the first aid kit.

One had a bend in it with a longer J bolt to accomadate a larger first aid kit.

This change appears to have been in 1952 around vehicle SN MC59353 at 3/52

The latch including the hinge assy, both hinge halves, the J bolt and wingnut all have only one part number each. The part numbers in both the 51 and 55 ORD 9's are the same. The 55 Ord 9 stops production of a first aid kit stowage latch at MC59392. The 55 ORD 9 does not offer any stowage mechanism to replace the early one. They all are discontinued at serial MC59392. The only supersedures were in the screws and that supersedure does not list a serial cutoff. What happened is the metal latch type first aid kit installation was discontinued at MC59392 period.

Willys offered no stowage provision for a first kit on the late M38 and all M38A1's.

The reason I'm sure is quite simple. They didn't need a first aid kit stowage provision. They just put the kit in the glove box of both jeeps. This made it easy to fit any kit supplied by any vendor in any reasonable size in the jeep.

Over the next half century I am sure both the Army and the civvy owners tried various tricks to continue the stowage latch system in use by installing the same or similar parts in M38's that had old ones fail and in M38's that seemed to have them missing but were only MC59392 and after that never had a latch in them.

Thanks to everyone who replied to my request. This has been most helpful. This site is incredible! Thanks, Kendall