Paint them if you want, or don't! Stock troop seat slats were painted though. Personally I'm not painting mine as I like the contrast of the wood. If I decide to paint them later, I can. Kind of hard to do the reverse though!
Most of the seat brackets I got from 503m715 were from an M35 too. Since those are so common, it's a
fantastic way to go! I just mentioned there might be a slight modification to do to them. I agree, Joe, that they "should" need shortening, but I can almost swear he had to
add some length to them. Dunno....