willysmjeeps.com

It's probably a little late for me to be asking this since I have painted my tub, but before these military jeeps were painted, were the spot welds and other imperfections in the metal panels filled in with bondo or something?

From what I can tell on my jeep, I'd have to say heck no!

Infact, all over my jeep, if on the tub or on the chasis, anywhere where there was a weld, you could almost guarentee that there was extra weld metal left over.

You gotta remember, these vehicles were ment for functionality. The military could care less if there was left over weld metal, dings, dents, dirt, etc etc. For example, I found about 8 layers of OD plus the primer. And in between each OD layer, there was dirt...mounds of dirt under the paint. Im surprised any of it stuck at all!

This is not to discredit military mechanics. They definitally did wonders with these vehicles. Im just saying cosmetics probably wasnt a priority to them.

On my M-38 CDN, I did not find any filler material on the spot welds other than paint... however it was in bad shape and there would be a hard time finding the original paint to begin with...

If the welds are not too bad I would not worry about them...

My opinion...

No, not deliberately to cover normal production welds and marks.