1965 Brazilian M606 Restoration

Luiz Felipe F. Santos from Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil

A Childhood Dream

 

My name is Luiz Felipe Fernandes dos Santos. I’m 37 years old and live in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. My passion for Jeeps had begun when I was a child and used to spend my whole vacations in the countryside. At that time my grandfather had a blue CJ5 which I dreamed I could drive one day in the future.

 

During the rainy seasons, I remember that old blue CJ5 bravely crossing those terrible muddy roads, where most of the regular vehicles used to get stuck in and from where they could only be pulled out with a tractor.

The most expected moments happened when my father, while driving the Jeep, needed to shift to 4-wheel drive in order to go through any big mud hole, leaving it behind. As a child I had in mind that the Jeep was the super car that could be driven in any place and for which there was no muddy road that it was not able to cross. Still at that time I dreamed to have my own Jeep when I grow up.

 

 

Finding the car of my dreams

 

Many years have passed by and in July 2000, moved by an unexplained desire or even as consequence of the same “Jeep virus” that caught Mr. Versleijen from Holland, I decided to buy a Jeep in order to feel the experience of having the super car from my childhood in hands.

 

 

 

 

After some weeks of searching I have finally found one in good shape. During the first contact with the vehicle I noted that, for my surprise, the jeep was actually a military model which was acquired in some military surplus auction. In the dashboard there was a plate which described the Jeep as a M606, the military version of the CJ-3B model.

 

Some information as in the plate:

NOMENCLATURE:  TRUCK - 4X4 - UTILITY - M606

KAISER JEEP CORPORATION MODEL NO.:  CJ-3B

CONTRACT NUMBER:  DA.20.113.AMC.03894.T

FEDERAL STOCK NUMBER:  2320-987-8972

MFR’S SERIAL NUMBER:  130227

DATE OF DELIVERY:  1 - 65

At a first glance, the Jeep didn’t seem to be a military vehicle due to some details, such as: color and type of painting, civilian winter vinyl enclosure with doors, civilian tail lights, regular road tires etc. However, after a closer watching, I have noticed that the Jeep still had some special equipment as installed on military vehicles.

 

The fact of being an old military vehicle increased a lot my desire of buying this M606. I spent some time wondering this Jeep restored exactly as it was during its days in Army. So, in order to make up my mind whether bought it or not, I’ve begun searching for some information about the M606 in the Internet.

This vehicle was an authentic Kaiser Jeep and, according to the marking “U.S. PROPERTY” in the dashboard plate, it has already belonged to U.S. Government in the past.

This photo shows the M606 in the same week I bought it. Also in the photo you can see me holding my little nephew and my brother at my side.

Learning about the M606

 

It was a great surprise for me to find the CJ-3B page in the Internet. I never thought I would find such page with so detailed information about a specific model of vehicle in the internet. I’ve read many interesting articles and restoration stories about the M606 all over the world, including the information that was taken from Service Manual Supplement (SM-1018 R1) to the Universal Jeep Service Manual (SM-1002-R5) which describes all characteristics and special equipment installed in the M606, such as: blackout tail lights and blackout stop lights, pintle hook, rear "bumperettes" on either side of the pintle hook, foldout ventilating windshield glass, military gas jerry can, trailer coupling electrical receptacle, blackout lamp on the front left fender etc. All of these special equipment were also installed on the M606 I intended to buy.

The M606 Jeep was a low-cost export military vehicle that sold well all over the world. The M606 term wasn’t used until the mid-60’s. Many M606 were supplied under the MDAP (Mutual Defense Assistance Program) where the U.S. Government supplied friendly foreign governments with modern military vehicles. The U.S. military also used the M606 in some roles overseas, as in the Vietnam War. The M606A2 and A3 models, similar adaptations of the CJ-5, replaced the CJ-3B based M606 models when the old high-hood went out of production in 1968.

 

I talked to some retired Brazilian Army officials which confirmed that the M606 was one of those military vehicles that arrived to Brazil in the mid-60’s, as part of a military agreement between Brazil and USA. These military vehicles were then incorporated to Brazilian Army and the M606 were on duty until the mid-80’s, when they were finally replaced by the Xingu (modified vehicles for military use which were derived from Bandeirante models manufactured in Brazil by Toyota). After this period the remaining were sold to civilians during military surplus auctions.

 

After getting the information I needed, as well as certifying that the engine and other main parts were original and in good shape, I finally decided to buy the military Jeep in order to restore it according to the original. As Brazilian traffic regulations do not permit private vehicles marked as Brazilian Army vehicles, then I decided I would adopt U.S. Army’s markings for my M606.

 

After some research in the Internet, including several other visits to the CJ-3B page, I got the necessary information to begin the M606 restoration process.

 

 

Doing the Check-List

 

Before beginning the restoration process, I made a detailed check-up on the M606. After that I have concluded I was very lucky on finding this Jeep. It was in a very good shape and I hadn’t had to disassemble it completely as I initially thought.

 

I have decided to begin the restoration job by servicing the military taillights. They were inoperative and seemed to be like that for a long time. After consulting the M606 specifications manual I noted that they were in disagree with the M606 taillights specifications. Actually, they were both black-out stop lights and blackout taillights. In the M606’s the left taillight is composed by a regular stop light and a blackout taillight, while the right taillight is composed by a black-out stop light and blackout taillight. In order to let the taillights in order, I’ve bought a second-hand taillight for the left side. As they were all in bad conditions inside, I had to rebuild them by changing bulb sockets, division plates and installing new wires.

 

The engine was really good and didn’t need any special service. I have only changed spark plugs and spark plug cables; the rest was fortunately running well. The engine number from my M606 is: 4J-397542

 

During the first test-drive I have noticed that the shock absorbers were not working well, besides that the steering wheel was working loose what sometimes caused resonance on the front wheels. In order to solve these problems I made complete suspension maintenance, a shock absorbers replacement and also installed another shock absorber in the steering wheel system in order to finally solve the resonance problem on the front wheels. After that the stability improved a lot and the resonance finally disappeared.

 

The following step of the process was to do a checklist to verify what still needed to be done, esthetically speaking, in order to bring back the M606 as it was during the 60’s as a U.S. Army vehicle. By visiting the M606 section at the CJ-3B page, I found some photos of the M606 on duty during the Vietnam War and, consequently, I decided to base the restoration according to these photos. From the checklist I have concluded that the following actions were necessary:

 

· All tires needed to be replaced by new military tires 7.00 x 16, once the existing ones were not military.

· The windshield glass lower frame was rusted inside and needed to be replaced.

· The windshield glass was not laminated type, so I exchanged it for a laminated one.

· The existing windshield-wiper motor from the driver side was electric (not original) and needed to be replaced by an original and complete military Trico vacuum-operated windshield-wiper motor.

· The hand-operated wiper for the passenger side was missing and needed to be re-installed.

· Many components from the hand brake system, such as drum, shoes, lining, adjusting screw, springs and cable were missing and needed to be re-installed.

· All body-mounted reflectors were missing and needed to be re-installed.

· The rear passenger seat was missing and needed to be re-installed.

· The central and right side rear-view mirrors were missing and needed to be re-installed.

 

     Click here to go to The Restoration Process

 

The VIN plate under the hood shows the serial number with the 8105-prefix numbers.