M38A1CDN2 Dashboard and Windshield Frame

[Mike Baker]

My M38A1CDN2 has a padded cushion at the top of the dashboard, which extends right across the width of the truck. I have been unable to find this in any pictures of other M38A1s - has anyone ever seen this before?

Also, the colour under the green paint on my windshield frame is powder blue. This raises a bit of a puzzle. I know that M38A1 and CJ5 windshield frames were interchangable, but the factory colour of all early CJ5 frames was black. And if mine is a CJ5 frame it would have to be pre-1959 because I have split glass (only a CJ5 option until 1959) and top-mounted wipers (also an early-CJ5 thing). So my frame is the wrong colour to be an early frame and the wrong design to be a late frame! Does anyone have any ideas what I have?

[Scott Bentley]

Originally Posted by Mike Baker

My M38A1CDN2 has a padded cushion at the top of the dashboard, which extends right across the width of the truck. I have been unable to find this in any pictures of other M38A1s - has anyone ever seen this before?

Also, the colour under the green paint on my windshield frame is powder blue. This raises a bit of a puzzle. I know that M38A1 and CJ5 windshield frames were interchangable, but the factory colour of all early CJ5 frames was black. And if mine is a CJ5 frame it would have to be pre-1959 because I have split glass (only a CJ5 option until 1959) and top-mounted wipers (also an early-CJ5 thing). So my frame is the wrong colour to be an early frame and the wrong design to be a late frame! Does anyone have any ideas what I have?

I think you answered your own question on the frame. Sounds like a CJ-5 frame. I can't explain the smaller details, but the crash pad is def a CJ item.

EDIT: CJ Fenders were regularly fitted to CF M38A1s (my 67 had one), but I can't say i've ever heard of a CJ windshield frame being used, but its not impossible. Maybe Rob Love the resident "M38A1 guy" can chime in with some clarity.

[rob love]

The fenders with the indents for the CJ5s were supplied as part of the body relife program. We never had much to do with that in Manitoba as corrosion here was not that bad, but jeeps we received from the East had the patchkits, and plenty of patches at that.

The crash pad is a CJ thing. I added one to a M38A1Cdn3 once,and it was a bolt on. Hard to say about the CJ frame. I never saw them supplied in service, but I had on occasion seen body parts slavaged from local wrecking yards to fix vehicles. This was more often at the out-of-the-way bases. Or perhaps it was added in it's civilian life.

[Scott Bentley]

Originally Posted by armybuck041

Maybe Rob Love the resident "M38A1 guy" can chime in with some clarity.

This comment should actually read "the resident M-Series guy" and most other things OD