History

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Here's the history of MB177805 as of July 2003.

1942 (September) Built in Toledo Ohio for the British army contract 2275. US contract W-398-QM-11423

1942? Registered with British army as M???????

19?? Rebuilt by the REME and re-registered M1501143 (M1550911 is Dec '45, so 50K before that must be fairly early)

1949 Re-registered with the new style British military number 71 YJ 13

1957 "Field Repair" at the B398 Motor Transport Repair Shop? Ash near Canterbury

1959 (17/3/59) sold off at Egginton, near Derby as a single lot. Number 811

1959 registered in Manchester as XNC 278 (XNC Manchester Feb 59 to Mar 59)

???????????????????????????? the dark ages......

1964 Belonged to Willie Halbert of Halbert Brothers Garage in Stevenston where it sat in the garage covered with tyres and stuff for years.

1972 A policeman (Andy McCartney, Saltcoats, moved to USA?) got it from Willie Halbert. Kept it for a few weeks and sold it to Billy Duncan for £100.

1979 It was still used on the road (on trade plates)

1982 Billy Duncan went to South Africa, leaving the jeep with his brother

1992 I bought the jeep from B. Duncan for £200

2002 I registered it as SSL 305 due to lack of evidence that it was XNC 278

During the restoration there were various odd wee features on the jeep, but I didn't really pay them much attention until the jeep was finished and pretty much as it would have looked when new. I've since sorted through the left over parts and examined the remains of the original tub closely. It turns out that my MB was an airborne jeep, fitted with either a No.22 or a No.76 wireless set.

The radio sat on the left hand rear wheelarch which had been lowered about 1.5" so the radio would clear the spars inside a Horsa glider. The wheelarch had been put back to standard-ish layout at some time, possibly during it's REME rebuild.

On the right hand rear wheelarch there was a bracket to hold the spare valves for the radio and one to hold the remote control unit. I made paper patterns of the brackets from the original drawings and they line up fairly closely with the welded up holes .

On the left hand side of the body there are three welded up holes in a triangle. These were for one of the pair of gun clips fitted to that side. The other clip was on the wing.

The spare wheel bracket had been moved 5" to the right. ("N" marks the relocated holes) Most airborne jeeps had the spare wheel mounted in front of the radiator grill, but because the radio jeeps had a cable reel at the front, the spare wheel had to stay at the rear and the bracket was supposed to be moved 5.5" to the right. Presumably this was to clear the tandem towing hitch, although I really can't see how the tandem hitch would work with a wheel in the way.....

Lucas horn button and the "ghost" of the switch on the dash with the welded up BO (black out) light switch hole above it. These horn buttons were used because the standard horn button couldn't be used with the quick release steering wheel.

Base of Lucas axle flood lamp switch which was on the back of the jeep. I had always thought these were bolted direct to either the back panel or the rear crossmember, but this one appears to have been on a bracket of some kind. There's no hole big enough on the crossmember for this chunk of metal and the metal is too thick to have been back panel??

NOS Lucas switch and exploded diagram.

Trailer connector and axle flood lamp which were hanging by their wires at the rear.

NOS trailer connector and plug.

This is a new old stock axle flood lamp which I found tucked away at the back of the local military surplus place. I just need to work out exactly how and where the trailer connector and flood lamp were mounted on my jeep. They were on a bracket of some kind, but there's nothing much left of it and no tell-tale holes left on the chassis to guide me.

Lucas 2J junction box from my MB and drawing of 4J. The British army used these boxes (2J and 6J) as replacements for the standard jeep connector blocks and the 4J box was used on airborne trailers.

This is my jeep's steering wheel and a friends original airborne wheel adapter. If that's not "right", then I don't know what is. I'm a wee bit pissed off at myself for cutting the wheel. Go to Steering Wheel Repair to see how it's repair turned out. I've been trying to find out what the number stamped on the boss is, 1085/6, any suggestions ?? I had read in All American Wonder that the wheels were made of hard rubber, but only the early black ones are rubber, all the green ones are plastic. Perhaps the rubber ones were changed to plastic at the same time as all the other rubber parts were replaced to save on critical materials??

The army rebuilt the jeep at some time after WW2 and removed all the airborne features (except the horn button). They stripped all the paint off, welded up all the extra holes and repainted it with red oxide primer and Bronze Green. At some time before it was sold off in 1959 it was painted Sand colour, did it end up in Palestine with the 6th Airborne in 1945 or perhaps it was used in the Suez crisis in 1956 ??? I'll probably never know.....

Go to my jeep index page for more jeep stuff

Please Email me with any ideas, thoughts, info at chaz@goatpark.f9.co.uk