Buying a LMTV on GovPlanet Wasn't How I Expected

This proves the army was lying, you can drive these without an ACH, current dispatch, PMCS checklist, a ground guide and nobody dies.

Double check your air-ride cab selector, the cab is not elevated like it’s supposed to be, causing a rougher ride. Used to maintain several of these trucks and the Operators always failed to engage the air-ride cabs. It’s a very nice ride and very capable truck! Congratulations!

So, for the unfamiliar: these trucks, and all military vehicles to a certain extent, are designed to be cheaply manufactured and simple to operate. What that means in practical terms is you've got a bunch of manufacturing shortcuts taken with a vehicle that will probably be driven by 19 year olds with no sense of their own mortality. By the time they reach their retirement, they're beaten to hell, everything that can leak will leak, the electronics may or may not be on the verge of explosion, and the less said about the drivetrain the better. But. They're also designed to be maintained and repaired without any proper workshop support. A half decent mechanic willing to put in the time and effort can get one running and keep it that way until the heat death of the universe. Just don't think too hard about all the pops and rattles, and make sure to keep the fluids topped off.

Im sure many of us can personally attest to how fast these things can be off road, as many of us have suffered through ride after ride with some random PFC flooring it down range roads lol

A Gatorade or Powerade cap fits perfectly over the buzzer, by the way.

Funny story - Many moons ago, you use to buy directly from the Government Surplus Office. My high school buddy and I won a bid for a Jeep ambulance, we were so excited with anticipation of converting it into a camper. We borrowed a flat bed to bring it home. When we showed up at Fort Dix, in New Jersey we showed our paper work to the guard at the gate who directed us to an office building. There we were escorted to a warehouse and showed our purchased lot. It was a pile of oscilloscopes. We tried to explain we bought an ambulance but this guy insisted that our documents was for this lot number and it was electronics not a vehicle. We took the junk home and for many years we each used one of the oscilloscopes as a coffee table. They actually powered up and displayed waveforms.

I worked at Stewart and Stevenson in Sealy Texas for 13 years building these trucks. Great to see it still being utilized and appreciated. Good luck with your FMTV.

Steve, the truck you bought from GovPlanet is an Air Drop Truck. The upper cab folds down into the interior to accommodate C-130 / C17 transport. Better check the motor mounts to see if this truck has been airdropped. If it has, they will be broken. Good Luck!!!

Watching this was a trip. I fixed these for years. "Alternator blew and the truck rolled to a stop, dead on the side of the road." YUP. I'd still buy one without hesitation.

I really enjoyed the troubleshooting part, particularly that swapped relay start inhibit. It was almost as if some instructor had set it up to test mechanic students.. lol!

I discovered and fell in love with turbochargers because of these LMTVs. I was hauling a water buffalo and damn-near a platoon, and their crap, when faced with an extremely steep incline. I told the TC I didn't think this piece of shit could make it up a hill that steep and he's like "yeah, it will. Just give it the gas". I tried to get a fast run-up, but I could hear the RPMs dropping before the hill even got started proper. Soon after was my first experience hearing the turbo spool up, and it did. Once it got some good pressure going, I realized that all the driving I had been doing in the thing before that wasn't really using the available power at all. Those things really really go. They're miles better, and funner, than a HMMWV.

As a former Infantryman, I never thought that I would be missing being in an LMTV. Thank you !!!

I had the same problem with GOV PLANET getting my title. The problem is in Florida NO MATTER where it was bought YOU MUST register in 20 or less days otherwise you get a very steep fine. First they sent me a bill of sale (I never asked for I wanted a title) DMV refused it after around 5 months I got the title and had to pay a $550 late fee plus tag $200 (that is JUST THE COST OF A PLATE NOW), plus title $50, plus registration $99 a year. The small claims court and GOV PLANET and I went the rounds they sent their lawyer and they LOST !!! They claimed they have up to 6 months to send title judge told the 30 days and not to show up in court room for this problem again or else

Your GP truck is a rarer LVAD Low Velocity Air Drop LMTV issued only to Airborne and Special Forces units. The hard top lifts off using the spare tire lift and the windshield, side windows and upper rear wall fold down for palletized parachute drop. The Special Forces rigged them up like Mad Max into support gun trucks for the ODA Ground Mobility Vehicle GMV Humvees.

I love how your online community is supportive of you with every aspect of your project.

When i was in Iraq I did an engine to one of these and gained mad respect from the motor pool. I told them it didn't need an engine, it was a bad injector wire but they didn't listen. So I said fine, I'll replace the engine in a day. They laughed and said it couldn't be done. I waspped it in about 14 hours. New engine, same issue. So they sent it to the contractor mechanics. Next week it came back with a new wire running from the power board in the dash to the injectors. Ran like a new engine. Injectors are mechanical and electrical. Needs 24 volts.

As someone who drove these trucks (MOS: 88M) this man is telling me stuff I didn't even know. We never really messed with the mode selector on the transmission select pad. and I never drove one with the tire inflation system working. it was always broken

I have no idea those were being sold for so cheap. I drove around in Iraq for a while, I remember flying down the road with the lights off and taped up dodging mortar holes in the pavement to deliver fresh guard duty. Got really good at dodging those potholes, so I ended up having that detail a lot.

We followed one of these pulling a trailer near a national guard base and I thought “Wow, I wonder what you could haul with that.” Then we took a hard right turn and a huge box fell out into the road, spilled open and toilet paper rolled out. It was disappointing.

When I was buying trucks from Govplanet auctions it was usually an adventure in one way or another. I helped a new truck owner pick up a Deuce from Ellsworth AFB in SD and it was in the middle of winter and when we got to his Deuce the fuel cap was off on the fuel tank, OK I had told him your going to need new batteries and all new fuel and oil filters plus a plethora of tools. Well we dumped 10 gallons of fuel into the truck and got the batteries installed, this truck did not have the flame engine heater but it had an ether injections system on it but of course the can was empty, so I craked the hose on the intake and he gave it a shot of go juice while I turned it over and it fired up and ran very good. We then proceeded to the nearest truck stop and fueled it up and hit the road we had a tow bar and pulled our CUCV behind the deuce. We covered about 200 miles that day and the truck was running great. We got a motel for the night and there was a truck stop right next to the motel and we fueled up again and hit the road, I got about 10 miles down the road and the engine was not happy as soon as we got out of town I hit the clutch to pull over and the engine stopped. I new we had a filter problem, I changed the primary filter and got it running again and went for another 30 miles when I saw an implement tractor dealer and pulled in there, they let me use one of their bays to work on the truck, first thing I did was drop the bung on the fuel tank and I got about 8 gallons of water out of that, apparently there had been and iceberg in there that didnt melt till I added fuel that morning. Got all the water out of the tank and changed both secondary filters and all was good! I picked up an M925A1 from Kansas from Gov Auction beautiful truck brand new overhauled engine trans etc. and brand new batteries, drove the truck 600 miles home not a problem. After a few days the batteries started behaving oddly and wouldnt turn the engine over, they showed full voltage on the charger and ammeter but wouldnt turn the engine over. I finally put a load tester on the batteries and they were junk. After I replaced the batteries I started to look at the brand new batteries that were in the truck and found the date codes on them and they were 8 years old! There are a million stories about peoples experiences with Govplanet some good and some just unbelievable! My best words of advice is be prepared!