NOS valve cover

[pfarber]

This valve cover was on an ebay auction, says NOS:

So I emailed and then called the place selling them. Talked to Steve and it seems that they are a huge surplus site as he spoke of thousands of parts and seems to have a good idea what I was talking about.

But the valve cover PAINT was my main concern. Below are the questions I asked and the paraphrased answer:

Were they in GMC boxes: They were in boxes that deteriorated. No legible markings.

Were there any numbers or decals/stickers on the valve covers?: No. Solid color nothing on them.

He then stated that there used be thousands of them.... MANY IN PRIMER(!).

I then said that these could be valve covers off the M135 302 engine. He didn't seem to know that the 302 is an GMC270 with a few mods.

I have doubts that these are GMC 270/CCKW valve covers. Nothing points at them having original paint. The biggest red flag was that some were in primer.

He also states that the PCV elbow was on some, but not others. Thats another red flag. Just because a part is in the SNL doesn't mean that you could order it, and a valve cover surely would be sent with the proper parts to hook up the PCV system (otherwise you have a gaping hole in your vacuum system).

I'm not going to spend $50 and not have some sort of provenance attached to this paint color.

[pfarber]

Let me follow up with these two images:

Look at that valve cover. Thats a GMC 302 from an M135.

TMs are available here: http://militarytrucks.ca/m135.htm

There are a LOT of CCKW like parts on that engine (oil filter!). How can you say that the valve cover from the original post is NOT off an M-135 GMC 302 engine?

[pfarber]

So I looked for an M135 engine in original paint to see if the NOS CCKW cover at the top was a match.

Here it is:

I'm gonna call it a match.

This engine color thing is getting ridiculous. At least I didn't spend $50 to find it out

[retro-roco]

So have you looked into what the paint spec was for M135 engines? It would be interesting to know if it changed, or was the same...

[pfarber]

No. The TMs I got from the site did not have that information.

I'm heading to the Nat'l Archives in MD in a few weeks.. I don't expect to get much done as I have never been there, but I have a list of documents to find. With any luck I'll get one or two questions answered.