Can someone please tell me where I can get a "Fire Engine Buying 101" lesson?

[Guest]

[Guest]

[Truckman]

[quote name='station76rit' post='301821' date='May 1 2009, 13:09 ']freedom vfd is selling there 1959 mack pumper for 3,000 if your interested in a mack fire truck let me know[/quote]





What model, pump, tank size, condition?

[1958 F.W.D.]

I wrote this and I think it may have been posted on this very forum 2 or 3 years ago. I know that since then, it has appeared in several variants (all with my name as the author) in different newsletters and publications of various SPAAMFAA chapters and antique clubs.





You have asked an excellent question, which, unfortunately, many antique owners do NOT ask prior to making their first purchase. This, more often than not, leads to many owners either storing their rigs outside (leading to weather decay, vandalism, problems with neighbors, etc) or them having to prematurely sell their truck due to being financially unprepared.



Let’s start with the most basic requirement of owning an antique: The almighty dollar $$$$$$$$$$. You gotta have the bucks to have the toys. It’s as plain and simple as that. The bigger the toy, the bigger the bankroll you will need. Are you prepared to:



-Buy a rig (Purchase price, taxes, transfer fees, registration, etc)

-Restore it (at a minimum, making it SAFE and ROADWORTHY??)

-STORE your rig?

-Insure your rig?

-FEED your rig (GAS/DIESEL/OIL/ETC)

-Take care of your rig? (And I don’t mean polishing it on the weekends, I mean routine preventive maintenance)



The second basic requirement of apparatus ownership: TIME. Self explanatory. Don’t buy it if you don’t have time to play with it!



I will now touch on the points that I made. Buying a rig: What is it that you are buying? Is it something in a field rotting away with trees growing through the wooden hose bed that will require a major body-off-frame restoration, which WILL cost thousands of dollars and possibly take several years to do, depending on how much TIME you have to work on it? Or will you be buying something that has recently come out of service and is officially an antique, not requiring much work? Example, I know of a 1978 Hahn 1250/750 with a 671T Detroit with an Allison HT740 Automatic Transmission. It will be for sale in the late spring/early summer of '07. In relatively good condition mechanically, it will require SOME body work in order to stop some cancer. If the cancer is not stopped in its tracks, it will eventually take over the rear half of the body, as well as the back portion of the cab (under the jump seats where many Hahn’s were prone to rot.) If you were to consistently work at least 4-5 hours every weekend over a winter, and had adequate resources (metal shop-auto body skills/tool/equipment/knowledge) you could probably rid this truck of the vast majority of the cancer without having to pull the body.



If you are considering a purchase, you need to really look hard at the following:



-Tires & Wheels: (good rubber with life left in it, no dry rotting, cords showing, bare/worn spots.) Wheels should be in good condition, no cracks, etc. Check the torque of the lug nuts. Check for proper air pressure.



-Brakes: Check with your local DMV or DOT for brake requirements (this is why I encourage a professional mechanic) check the pads, check the actuating devices (air or juice brakes? Brake pots or wheel cylinders?) Check the rubber pieces of the pots or cylinders. Dry rotting? Wear and tear? Check the hoses from connection to connection! Look for worn spots, cracking, etc!!



-Steering arms/linkage: Check for slop, tightness of connections, condition of bushings....Look for bent pieces....



-Check the condition of all motor mounts.



-Check the pump for obvious signs of distress. Check the packings, pump mounts/flanges



-Check the driveshaft for slop. Look for worn U-Joints.



-Open the transmission gear lube fill hole. Is the lube at its proper level? What does it look like? Smell burnt at all??



-Check the clutch......open up the access plate and take a peek at the friction plates and the mating surface on the flywheel. Does it have wedges, if so how many are left, can you take any out if the free play is too much or the finger springs are weak? How about the cable and spring, or is it a hydraulic clutch (slave cylinder?) Check the condition of all of these.



-Check the engine (well duhhhh!) Does it run? If so, check all fluids, and bring it up to running temperature. Shut it down, and check all the fluids again. Look for water or green on the dipstick, which could indicate coolant in the lube oil. Look for foaming in the radiator, which again, could indicate lube oil in the coolant- this means big problems. Can you drive the rig around in order to place a load on the engine? Driving it one time will not be the tell-all of the engine condition, but it will give you a good idea of how it's gonna treat you. I would let it run (drive it!) for a few hours, really crank it hard. Then when you shut it down, let it cool for a while, then go back and check all the fluids again, paying attention to not only the level, but the condition of the fluids.



If the engine does NOT run........Does it turn? If not, right there, no questions asked, you are looking at a total tear down/rebuild. If it does turn, a good-quality compression gauge can tell you many many things!



So, in a nutshell.....What do you absolutely positively need to have or check/maintain??????



Drive train. Brakes. Tires.



Or, will you be purchasing something that is completely 100% restored in prime time condition? If this is the case, you most likely have money falling out of various orifices of your body, and the storage of your rig is not a problem- you also have money to buy or rent some means of storage! Have you considered where will you put your rig? In the past, this has presented quite a controversy for many antique owners. Many guys simply want to park their rig outside their homes, with no regard for their neighbors feelings or concern for the zoning ordinances/laws & regulations in their community. Oh, sure, they will throw some sort of cover over it, but think about it- a huge truck with an RV cover on it sitting in someone's back yard or in their driveway month after month (not to mention leaking oils & fluids) would tend to annoy me if I were a neighbor. Many older apparatus owners have the feeling that "It's mine and I can store it in my driveway if I want to!" Tell that to the Judge when the Code Enforcement/Zoning Officer brings you in front of the local District Justice! Not to mention this violates one of the commandments of antique ownership: "Thou shalt not store thy toy exposed to the elements." One of the worst things you can do (especially to a fire truck that has been stored indoors for its entire life, only to be relegated to some outdoor location overnight) to an antique is park it outdoors. If you can not secure an indoor location for your vehicle, consider NOT purchasing it! Your storage location doesn’t even have to be heated/air conditioned/etc. As long as it is secure from the wind/rain/snow/ice, you are ok (BUT DONT FORGET TO WINTERIZE YOUR TRUCK IF THERE IS NO HEAT!!!!) I admit to breaking the indoor storage commandment, and I pay dearly to this day- I stored my toy outdoors for just about one year, under a good quality RV cover which cost me 300 bucks. I'll never do that again. Now all my chrome has rust on it that I just can’t get rid of. But at the time, money was a factor- the wife and I were looking to buy a home and needed to save. So I stored it at her father’s auto repair business, which had a secure back lot with an 8' high fence that was always locked. But what a pain in the *** if I wanted to get it out for a parade or other event! Something else to consider- if a friend or acquaintance offers you space, what will the impact be on them/you/and your relationship if you keep bugging them to get your truck out every weekend in the summertime? And another consideration- My wife and I had to keep the truck in mind when looking at homes! We either had to buy something with an existing space for the truck, or something with enough land (and local ordinances would allow the construction of a garage!!) We happened to luck out in the search for a home; the detached garage was large enough for the truck with modifications to the framing around the door opening (plus the installation of a commercial-style “roll-up” door….)



Keep in mind the condition of your vehicle when considering storage space- are you buying something that will need an off-the-frame restoration, or will your purchase require minimal amounts of work, and you only need storage space that is basically the size of the footprint of the vehicle? If you need to do a lot of work on your unit, you will need more space! Take my 1958 FWD for example- the "footprint" (the MINIMAL size storage I need) is 24.5 Length, 8' width and 8' ht. What if I had to do a full off-the-frame to it? You'll now need at least QUADRUPLE the space I would think! Analyze it: The footprint for the frame. Another footprint for the body and cab. Another footprint for workspace/workbench/etc. And another footprint for your tools/equipment/raw materials.



Now that the storage problem is out on the table- what kind of skills do you possess? Do you have knowledge of: Engines (gas AND diesel), Transmissions, axles, springs, tires/wheels, transfer cases/PTO's, pumps, electrical systems, body work, metal work, automotive painting, etc etc etc???? Or, do you have money falling out of various orifices of your body and can afford to have someone rebuild AND maintain your truck for you?



Do you know how to drive a non-synchronized manual transmission?



Feeding your rig is another consideration. Do you have the money to put gas or fuel in it every weekend in the summer? Parades/musters/car/truck shows/etc etc etc......My toy uses 2-4 MPG (Yes, two to four!) on a GOOD DAY! A ride down to the Philly area from where I live in the lower Lehigh Valley area (using 4MPG for the calculation) can run me 10-12 gallons of gas!!!!!! How about the registration fees for various shows? I enjoy taking my toy to various antique car shows. These usually have fees that average 15 bucks- this takes care of the trophies, advertising, food, and other costs of the event, so I don’t mind paying at all. How about the 2-3 quarts of oil I will burn on a ride to Philly & back? Insurance, from Metropolitan Life, through Condon & Skelly Inc. (Maple Shade, NJ) runs me $68.00 per year. This includes $5000 value for full loss, and "comfortable" liability protection. The only condition of my policy is that the vehicle can not be driven between dusk and dawn, and mileage may not exceed 2500 miles per year. This isn’t a problem as the most I have done in the 5 years I have owned it is about 600.



I highly recommend Condon & Skelly, Inc. For anyone’s antique insurance needs. They specialize in antique vehicle coverage, and have the staff with the knowledge to give us the best "insurance bang for the buck." They are located in Maple Shade, NJ. If you go to your (every day vehicle) current insurance provider, he/she may not possess the knowledge of how to properly insure an antique!



Anyways, sorry for the rambling on. I just want you to get a full understanding of what happens when you buy an antique truck. It's kind of like when you have your first child- All your friends who have kids say "Oh you just wait to see how your life will change!" And you brush them off. Then, after you DO have that first child, you say to yourself "My gawd they were RIGHT!"



You just can’t understand the pros/cons of antique ownership until you do it!



If you need ANY help or advice, give me a holler! yardo@rcn.com

Randy Yardumian, owner 1958 F.W.D. Model F-725 750GPM/500 Gal. Serial F80438 Ex- Bryn Athyn, Pa.

Hellertown, Pa.

[Guest]

Pump size is darley pump 750gom tank 350 gallons, 3208 cat motor, converted it from gas to diesel in 1979. also it has a allison transmission truck is in great condition.... any questions ?

[DonRobbie]

I drive (but not own) a truck for a living so I'll put out what I can.



Well, a current DOT/State inspection is a big plus. This won't help you with the firefighting bits but it should provide some assurance that the truck doesn't have any glaring safety defects. If it hasn't had one, getting one done along with a PM is a good thing to spend a little money on. For an ordinary truck a PM and an inspection could be done for $200 or so. An oil analysis might be a good thing to do as well before sinking a lot of money into the truck. Probably getting recommendations, finding a shop, and getting an approximate idea of what they charge would be a good thing to do before buying the truck.



If you are not able to get a mechanic to check the rig before you buy, my suggestion would be to grab your state's CDL manual from the local DMV and look over the sections on pre trip inspection and air brakes then run through the pre trip inspection checklist when evaluating a vehicle.

[Guest]

[Chasselber1]

I also have Condon & Skelly for my rig and my dad has them for his muscle cars. Great people to work with!!