So, on the M939-series trucks, the batteries are normally located inside the passenger seat in the cab. There’s a battery relocation kit that moves them to underneath the cab; I think it was intended for use in trucks with added armor that interferes with the normal battery box, and many collectors add the relocation kit just because they like having the batteries outside the cab, or so that they can replace the big box seat with a spring-ride or air-ride seat.

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I found that I have a lot of trouble changing the transfer range when stationary. The lever easily pops into neutral, but then I have a hard time getting it to engage either range from there. I can hear the small air dump when pushing the button on the end with the engine off and the master switch on, and nothing suggests to me that I’m having trouble with any of the interlocks. It just seems to be hard to get it to engage either gear. I’ll need to look into this further. I haven’t tried changing transfer range while rolling yet. Low range is fine for my local dirt roads, unless I need to stop and back up; then I’d need to get it back into high range before shifting to reverse.

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So, the truck is ready for a spin around the neighborhood now! Unfortunately, by the time the truck was ready, I wasn’t. Getting old stinks! I’m exhausted, and my back, hands, knees and elbows are killing me. Oh, well, next weekend for sure!

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The M1102 has an aluminum bed that’s similar in construction to the HMMWV’s body. Rather than a little fold-down rear support leg, it has two beefier rear support legs that stow on the front, and pin onto the back. It has a tongue jack with a wheel, rather than a simple landing leg. The bows and cover are similar in construction to the cargo covers on the HMMWV. It has an added cover support along the top of the bows that wasn’t present in any of the covers I’ve used on my HMMWV. I don’t know whether similar supports might have been added in newer versions of HMMWV tops.

The bed has many folding, rotating tie-down loops, and a surge brake system. All in all, this is a nice trailer! I don’t know if I’ll keep my M101-series trailer that I bought for my HMMWV many years ago.

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The tow truck driver (he’s the manager of the company, as well) was able to start and drive the truck in the GL (Government Liquidation) yard in Barstow, and this was quite fortunate because he says that the trucks were all packed in there like sardines. If he wasn’t able to drive it, then he would have spent hours dragging it into position where he could load it onto his Landoll tilt-bed trailer. The power steering came in handy then, too!

When he arrived at the end of the pavement about a quarter mile from my home, he correctly realized that it’d be silly to drag his low-bed over-the-road rig over my local rough dirt roads when his load is a well-running off-road tactical truck. So, he offloaded at a convenient clearing, called me up for the go-ahead, and drove the truck the rest of the way to my property. It was delightful to see that giant beast driving up the road to my property!

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Well, except for one small detail: Actually dispatching the truck driver. (note: See below for update; all is cleared up now.)

I called the towing company around 15:30 to see if the truck driver had an ETA yet, and the lady who answered said she’d need to check and call me back. When she called back, she let me know that the paperwork got lost under a pile of other papers, and the truck never got dispatched. She scrambled the driver out the door, but I had to explain a couple times that he couldn’t just show up at a locked contractor’s yard on an active military base in the evening, and expect to pick up the truck.

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The truck is in Barstow, CA. It’ll be a while yet before I can pick it up, since I’ll need to wait for End Use Certificate approval by .gov folks. Here are some pictures from the auction listing:

I’m looking forward to receiving this truck! My current plan is to look for a nice knuckleboom crane to mount on it, and then sell my M543A2 wrecker. My M35A2C 2.5-ton 6×6 will probably also go to a new home, but I’m hanging on to it for now because I may want to use its shorter bed (12 feet long vs.

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I’ve reconfigured my truck several times. After its initial state of embarrassing nudity, I’ve fixed it up as a 4-door cargo truck with soft top (both with and without the cargo area cover), a 2-door cargo truck with troop seats and cargo area cover (when I moved from Lake Forest to the rural outskirts of Riverside, most of my junk traveled in the back), and finally as a communications shelter carrier. That last make-over was the most complex so far, as it involved finding the proper shelter mounting frame and upgrading the rear suspension with longer springs, different spring seats, and different lower rear A-arms.

Along the way, it’s received various other upgrades: brush guard (the old angle iron style), rear “airlift” bumper, VRC-12-series radio set, fiberglass “X” doors, and probably other stuff that I’ve forgotten.

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If you know what radio set(s) this MT-702/U goes with, please comment below.

Update:

Dennis Starks identified my new mount:

Your pack board is equipped with the later style Korean War vintage mount for use with a BC-1335 & it’s companion dry battery box.

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I plan to experiment with outboard audio processing to see if I can improve the unit’s classic military audio sound, which is intelligible but not very clean-sounding. I am interested in experimenting with that stuff, but I would prefer to avoid modifying the transmitter’s innards as some other T-368 fans have done. So, my goal will be to see how much I can improve the stock audio using only outboard equipment. I’ll post any favorable results.

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