The GMC CCKW

I know this site is primarily a truck site, although I remember as a kid playing in the family's 6X6 and 4X4 WWII surplus trucks with the multiple gear shift levers, PTO levers and winch controls on the floorboards my question is a little off of your guys main subject if you guys don't mind.


I have a 1943 cat D4 that has OD green paint underneath that I was told that my grandfather received either during the war or after from surplus.

I was wondering if anyone would know what the correct green paint code for something that was built in early 1943.

Golly, it sure would be nice to see more photos of this great project. Is there a jealous smilie?
Barry

Here are some more pictures hope they come out at only 256k.

A couple years back the rings pistons liners were replaced the cylinder head was stitched and new valves, seats and guides were installed. Also the brakes were relined, now on to paint.


I am still trying to figure out the original paint. Doing some light sanding and careful stripping on the underside of the tractor after getting through 4 coats of Cat yellow the original paint looks like a dark green or a green/blue or a green/gray color.

After looking at colors on the computer not actual paint cards I am heading towards:

Federal standard 34227 or 24052

Fed Std 24087, 34079, 34102, 34151 also look like a possible matches, however these are colors that I found on the computer not actual paint card matches.

There are several choices for a WWII paint color for the D4 Cat. It was the same color for the Cat as any of the vehicles of that time period.

# 33070 is the Early WWII Lusterluss Olive Drab used thru 1943

# 319 Late WWII Lusterless Olive Drab 1944 and 1945 A little lighter shade than 33070

# 34087 Lusterless "Khaki" Olive Drab not as brownish. Most common on restorations.

I like the Gillespie Paint and buy it from several MV parts suppliers. Have used plenty of 319 and 33087 but never tried the 33070. There are other brands of paint but these are the WWII colors.

Here is a picture of a restored WWII D4 (Me driving) not sure which paint color was used on this one.



Show us more pictures of your project. The D4 is small enough to trailer and show with a reasonable size truck and trailer. Great project well worth saving and restoring.

Cat Man

Catman did a fine job of covering the correct color applications based on the manufacturing time frame.

I would like to add that I have painted my fleet of vehicles in either 33070 or 319. The decision was strictly based on the year of the vehicle or equipment being refinished.

While there are several other paint manufacturers that allegedly have exhaustively researched what was the exact color some 70 odd years ago I still like Gillespie paint. I have been using it for a number of years and it flows well for this novice painter. My toys will never be award winners. I paint with what I like and what I can afford.

My preference is the 33070 as it is a little bit darker than the 319 and seems to fade less as time goes on.

Nice dozer. Enjoy it.

Bill

Thanks for posting the photo of the D4. I see that it has trunions for attaching a dozer to the track frames.

Before you blast the 4 layers of Cat yellow off, we would encourage you to carefully hand sand the sides of the engine hood and the front of the radiator and or the dozer frame (front and rear) to see if you can identify the US Army registration numbers on the hood and if you are very lucky the unit markings on the front or rear. That would get you some documented history of its military use. It takes some time but is well worth the effort. Go slow and careful. Once the old paint is removed the history is gone forever.

The unit markings can be any where on the front and rear surfaces on construction equipment. Here is a picture of what the WWII military numbers look like on a D7. Also a picture of what the numbers look like on a truck hood when you are sanding thru 6 layers of paint. Look for bits of white or drab blue as you sand thru the layers. The first letters and number should be USA 9XXXXX





Save all the history you can.

Cheers

Cat Man

I have a manual for the D4 with LeTourneau hoist and blade. It is named to an African American soldier who worked on the Alcan highway. These manuals are out there and are nice manuals. One other thing- a friend of mine who was in the Field Artillery in the South Pacific said that each of the Artillery Battalions he worked for had several D4's. They were used to tow artillery off the landing craft, and were better than the trucks for positioning artillery and building gun emplacements.

Thanks for everyone's help when I started this paint project over thanksgiving I thought that finding the color would be only a few clicks away on the internet.
Looks like there is a lot of ambiguity about the color in the hobby and I hope I don't piss anyone off. It's not going to be a show piece I just want to be somewhat close.

I have enclosed another picture of the gear shift selector and the paint is more of a green. The top color is 34087 "olive drab", the center is 34077 and the lower color is 34052 "green".
I went to http://www.fed-std-595.com/FS-595-Paint-Spec.html copied the RGB Hex Code for each color and went into Photoshop and painted a swatch next to the green for a comparison. But then again this is a digital photograph not an actual paint chip comparison.
33070 and 319 were not in the listing for its code so no comparison. 34087 is more of a brown then the color that I have uncovered.
34077 or 24052 are the closest match and 34083, 34092, 24158 all seem to be in the ball park on the proper color.

I also found this web site for color matching http://scalemodeldb.com/paint
Once again going off of a picture on a computer, but either using a picture or copying the RGB hex code from Photoshop it will show you possible matches

I am starting to wonder if this is some type of Marine or Navy color. Being on the west Coast I would assume most of the equipment out here would have gone to Alaska and the Pacific theater.

No need to worry about me blasting away history. Slowly I have sanded through the fuel tank and rear portion of the seat trying to find any stenciling.
I have found across the back of the seat is =D4= and Caterpillar Peoria Ill but there is still yellow under that the front of the diesel tank had a 6x9" starting instructions sticker and the gas tank had a green safety cross decal. I have not moved onto the hood and other tin work yet.
I have found this new low voc paint stripper is good for removing one layer of paint at a time it seems to loosen the primer between the layers and the paint almost comes off as a sheet. Not something I would expect compared to the good strippers of that we used to be able to get but it works good for this application. Once I get the top two layers of yellow off I move to some sandpaper, a 3m "rust and paint stripper" disc or a wire cup wheel to work my way down. At this point once I find all the numbers on the Green paint buying a larger sandblaster or taking all the sheet metal to a professional blaster it looking like a better option.

The trunions were for a later added cultivator bar that was used on my cousins farm in the 1950s and 60s for making furrows or wide raised beds for irrigated vegetable type crops.
As far as I know there was never a bulldozer on this tractor. The bolt holes in the front of the engine that would normally support the front hardnose still had cork in them and the engine side panels still have the knockouts in place that would cover these holes. The side panels have the same green paint underneath that the rest of the tractor has so I would assume they are original.