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18M38 Light Repair and Upgrade.
One of the things that I noticed upon looking over the M38 when I purchased it was that the tailights where in sorry shape. Although the previous owner had installed M561 Gama Goat rear light lenses in order to provide more light to the rear than is available with the correct marker lights, the wiring to the units was badly decayed and the insides had corroded sufficiently that the bulbs could not be removed from the housings. Since I use the same full red lenses on my M37 that I drive in an urban setting and feel that it is a safety enhancement, I decided to retain the lenses and replace the guts of the lights with rebuild kits available from Midwest Military. I also decided to change the passenger side light from a two bulb to a three bulb unit in order to allow for wiring of service stop, tail, and turn signals to both sides of the vehicle since running with only a left service stop and tail light tends to confuse folks in my area...
Similarly to the saga of the rear lights, I decided to replace the civilian marker lights in the front with a set of military lights with the blackout marker lenses replaced with full yellow lenses in order to use the lights for turn signals. I purchased a set of yellow lenses from Saturn Surplus that were listed as "turn signal upgrade kits." The lenses work just fine with the marker lights that I had, but I had to use the original gasket and screws instead of the new ones supplied with the kit. Likewise, the plastic of the lenses was not flush with the housing body, so I had to use a few washers on the mounting stud in order to attach the lights to the truck. The use of a pair of washers on each stud allowed the light to be level while enabling enough clearance for the lenses to be removed for bulb replacement instead of pinching the lens to the truck body and tilting the light slightly up. The use of washers would be avoided by using the correct rubber pad, but that will wait until my next parts order or for when I take everything apart to perform bodywork and paint the vehicle.
In both the front and the rear, the leads in the existing harness for the blackout markers, stop, and taillights will be retained in case I want to swap the lenses or lights in order to return or show the vehicle in its original state.
If you have questions about any of these photos, send me an email and I'll try to provide an answer.
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| Photo 1, 2 | Donor light housing that I had on the shelf since I decided to repair two lights that I had instead of pulling the units off the jeep since I did the work on a rainy Saturday and didn't feel like getting wet... |
| Photo 3, 4 | Interior of the donor light housing showing broken lens, some bug dirt, corroded sockets, and bulbs that had frozen to the sockets (glass turned, but the bases stayed fixed in the sockets...). |
| Photo 5, 6 | The donor light housing once the bulb holder, wiring, grommets, and bug nests are removed. |
| Photo 7 | M561 Gama Goat tail light lens with hardware salvaged from the donor light housing when the guts where removed. The rubber washers with the brass inserts are not included in the rebuild kits... |
| Photo 8, 9 | Shots of the rebuild kits from Midwest Military. I purchased two of the three bulb units. Note that they ship without any hardware but they sockets, wires, and connectors are in good shape. |
| Photo 10 | Shot of the rebuilt light assembly. |
| Photo 11 | Shot of the rebuilt light assembly with new bulbs installed. |
| Photo 12 | Shot of the rear of the rebuilt light assembly ready to install in the truck. Lens has still not been put on the unit as I like to wait until the wiring is all connect to ensure that things are working correctly... |
| Photo 13 | Front marker light and box containing the turn signal upgrade kit from Saturn Surplus. |
| Photo 14 | Lens, gasket, and screws on the left are the original parts from the marker light. Lens, gasket, screws, and washers on the right are from the turn signal upgrade kit. |
| Photo 15 | Original gasket works fine in the new lens. |
| Photo 16 | View of new lens attached to the old front marker housing. |
| Photo 17, 18 | Shots of the light ready to be installed in the front of the truck. Notice that the new lens protrudes out from the housing sufficiently that I used a few washers on the mounting stud to keep the light level and to prevent the lens from binding on the body which would have prevented easy removal for bulb replacement. As stated above, there is a rubber pad that is supposed to be used in place of the washers that I'll get around to installing at some point in the future. |
Also of interest to me is that it looks like my M38 may once have had a high power electrical system installed. From my experience with M37's it looks like the M38 may once have had a 100 amp generating system. There is a torch cut hole in the grill plate next to the radiator on the passenger side which has the excess metal turned back. Additionally, the grill has four holes drilled in two of the bars forming a large rectangle as if a piece of equipment was mounted. These items, paired with the four belt pulley on the engine indicate to me that the 100 amp generator was fitted with the rectifier mounted between the grill and radiator in a manner similar to that used in M37's. Photo A below shows the four belt pulley on the front of the engine and the current two belt pulley on the 25 amp generator currently fitted to the truck. Photo B shows the cut out on the grill where I believe the cables to the rectifier where routed (note that the grill is tilted forward to facilitate mounting the marker lights).
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