New M151A2 Purchase

[Hambone]

The MC job is a little PITA, the bending and twisting is rough on us older guys, as Horst said, pull the whole assembly out, also pull the instrument panel for better access to the dash mount bolt.

[glcaines]

I haven't received my new brake parts yet, but I went ahead and took a sample of the brake fluid. It is definitely silicone so I'll go with DOT 5. Interestingly, DOT 5 is normally purple when new and in every case where I've found it in former MVs, it has always durned a slight yellow color with age. The fluid in my A2 is crystal clear, no color at all. I took the sample by cracking the brake line fitting on the MC and depressing the pedal and collecting a small sample in a plastic cup.

[rickf]

I would get a turkey baster and suck all the fluid out of the master cylinder and replace it with new fluid once you replace the wheel cylinders and you are ready to reattach the lines to the cylinders. When everything is in place do not hook up the lines yet and do the fluid change at the master and then just wait for a while and it should gravity bleed out of the lines. Once you see purple start hooking up the lines. The fronts will most likely be first since they are the short ones. Once one back has clean fluid the other will be right behind it since the line splits at the rear. Once the cylinders are all hooked up then you can open each one and let them gravity bleed out. This is going to get 99% of all the air out of the system. You can do a normal bleeding after this just to be sure. Now you KNOW you have all new fluid in the system, Mark the master cylinder or under the hood with the fluid type so you know for future reference.

[glcaines]

I apparently don't have an M151A2 TOW Carrier like I was told. It now appears that I have an M151A2 TOW Launch. The TOW launch has the spare wheel mounted on the right side and not on the rear like a standard A2. A friend of mine looked at it and showed me the mounting holes for the spare wheel mount on the side. When I received my A2, the side mount had been removed and the spare move back to the rear. From a lot of photos I've seen, some have a spare fuel can mounted directly behind the spare on the right side. Mine had a fuel can mount on the drivers side front. Man have I got a lot of holes to fill! At least now I think I know what I actually own.

[glcaines]

I've successfully installed the new MC. I re-used the copper washers by sanding them down with 600 paper and heating them up to soften the copper. Unfortunately, they are leaking. I've ordered replacements.

[rickf]

Are you going to restore this as a TOW or are you going with a standard A2? A friend of mine has the TOW ammo carrier and it has the front side mounted spare tire. What a PIA to get in and out of!!!!! He also has all of the tubes and holders in the back so it is useless for carrying anything else. Restoring as an A2 would be much more practical unless you already have all of the TOW stuff.

[glcaines]

I don't have any of the TOW stuff. I'm going to restore it as a regular A2. I've already removed the ROPS, which left even more holes. I occasionally drove an A2 when in the Army, along with a lot of other MVs. My MOS was 11D20 so I mostly drove M114A1E1 and M113A1 APCs. I also had a lot of time in deuces, M37s and M715s. We were just getting Gamma Goats when I got out.

[Cliffaliff]

On my 77 A2, with ROPs, the gas tank needed to be removed. I removed the bolts on cage nearest the gas tank. I used a come along strap to hoist the rops just enough to get the gas tank out .