and two bolts holding the handle on top of the tailgate 
Should have known that you had it under control 
Coming along great, as usual.
Hi all,
Can anybody please explain what that circular object in the last pic is, between the tiedown and the last upright of the side wall? Its four small protrusions might be rivets, but the larger “pimple” above isn’t self-explaining (to me).
And Tom: What’ll you do to represent the hose around the chain? I’m sure you already have an idea.
Peter
That is a damn good question! All my time in the Army, and I still don’t know. Gino might know, he pretty much knows everything!
Ken
I don’t know everything, but I do know what they are. It is the outer part of a tie down that is on the inside of the bad. You can see them below on an M923 bed as well.
Internal tie-down side.
External reverse side.
Now we all know that we need to drill out those holes and fill them with tie-downs on the inside and the fancy cover on the outside.
Closed tarps anyone?
Edit: PHEW !!! See Ginos post below.
1 Like
The bed in the AFV kit doesn’t have those tie downs, and to be honest, I don’t know whether the M35 always had those or whether those were added in later models. That said, since this vehicle will have a mounted shelter, which is secured to the bed by a mounted wooden brace in the front, and almost certainly had mounting bolts under the bed as well, I’m going to choose NOT to add those tie downs since they would serve no purpose. Could I and should I add bolts underneath. Yes and probably. Am I?
Nah.
But the bed does have molded tie-downs on the outside for the tarp, and even though this vehicle will NOT have a tied down canvas, I am going to go ahead and grind all those bad boys off, and replace them with the PE tie downs in the Eduard kit. That’s my rationale and I figure that’s good enough. 
As far as the chain on the tailgate is concerned, I know that USUALLY most vehicles had some sort of wrapping around the chain to prevent banging and probably chipping paint. If I were going to build the vehicle with the tailgate fixed either in the up or down position, it wouldn’t be to hard to wrap something around it, probably tissue paper.
However strength of materials being what it is, when you try to scale something like this, I’m afraid that any material I could use would be too thick and thus too stiff and inflexible and thus not suited to be able to flex into a loop and then flatten out when the tailgate is down.
So, since I know that not all vehicles always had chain covers, I’m going to take builder’s prerogative and simply leave it off.
4 Likes
No, M35A1/A2s did not have them. They were added on M35A3s, which were only used by the Army National Guard.
Now isn’t this a highly educational forum! Like the girl said, “I learn something new every day” (or was it “night”?) … Thanks for enlightening us.
Peter
Were those cool wide single wheels used on the A1 or A2 versions?
AFAIK they were only used on the M35A3, M36A3 (LWB) and M109A4 (van truck) versions. The tires are Michelin XL 14.5R20.
H.P.
Frenchy is correct. The larger wheels were only used on A3/A4 versions.
Dang! Too much trouble for those cool wheels …
I still wonder why there’s no A3 conversion set available yet … 
H.P.
Today’s installment is the assembly of the shelter. At the front end of the bed is the attachment brace.
Next shows how the completed shelter will look:
I’ve added a few shelves for storage.
This is just a tease to show how the inside will be laid out once I’ve completed things.
These views show the shelter with the canvas added and the initial installation of the door hardware:
Here’s a view of the roof. There are fluorescent bulbs for added brightness and typical vehicle light assemblies as well
And finally the assembled shelter with the hardware painted. The mounting in the bed is only temporary as I’ll need to actually build the truck first.
7 Likes
Fantastic scratching there Tom; I can’t seem to manage even a straight edge when I try and cut plastic card.
Indeed a fantastic scratch build. Is it a wooden box that was used in the past? Sorry fo asking, I didn’t have the complete blog in mind.
No it’s all scratch built from either sheet or strip styrene plastic. Once cut out and assembled, I painted the inside to resemble plywood, which is what the original was made from. The exterior is covered in airplane fabric which I had pre-painted on both sides with Tamiya Khaki Drab and then glued on to the outside, to simulate the canvas covering on the original. For glue, I took regular white glue and diluted it with water until it was the consistency of skim milk and then brushed it on the surface much like you would with wall paper.
Sorry, I forgot to say it’s like a wooden box. I saw these trucks with wooden boxes here in Germany during my childhood.
Really great built!
Thanks. Depending on where you lived you may have even seen this one! This represents the Maintenance Truck from the first unit I was assigned to when I joined the Army. It is from Bravo Battery, 1st Bn. 2nd Field Artillery, 8th Infantry Division, from Baumholder Germany.
Most units which had a Maintenance section and Mess section and were assigned an M35 2 1/2 ton truck built these shelters from plywood because that was a much more useful way for the section to be able to operate in the field than just using the regular canvas covered standard vehicle that the Army issued to the units.