Denver Metro Fire Apparatus

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Last Bancroft rig... Rescue 4 1982 Ford / Pierce Shaun Ryan Photo

BANCROFT Rescue 4 82 FORD F700 PIERCE_ShaunRyan.JPG

Great photos, Eric.  I am really happy to see Bancroft photos I haven't seen before (BTW - I've sent a private message to you). 

 

I had NO idea that Bancroft had two Ford F7000/3-D's!  That explains why the rig in Montana or wherever is still in Bancroft yellow (it was P-16), since P-15 was repainted into West Metro Red/White in the 90's (just sold a couple of years ago, I think).  I am very curious when they sold P-16, since it was never in service when I worked there from 1992-2000. 

 

A funny (true) story about the Ford/Pierce rescue (you may have heard this already), but there were actually three rigs bought from 3-D in 1979 (BTW - all the Ford F-series mediums are 1979's; Ford changed the cab design to the newer style in 1980).  Two were the "Fast Attack" pumpers and one was a maintenance truck ("M-1").  The maintenance truck looked very much like the pumpers, but was 2 wheel drive and (obviously) had no pump.  Sometime in the late 80's, the 79 Ford/Pierce rescue's chassis was getting pretty worn out, so they "swapped" the chassis on the maintenance truck with the one under the rescue body.  If you compare the photo above with this one, a couple of things are immediately obvious:

1) The grille on the original chassis was painted steel; this one is chromed + they didn't move the Pierce emblem

2) The original chassis had the diamond plate steps below the doors with integral battery boxes; the one below has stamped steel steps

3) The original chassis had a Federal Aerodynic light bar on it, the one below has a twinsonic (they didn't bother to swap the light bars, they only moved the Mars 888).

4) The last thing that isn't obvious is that the original maintenance truck had a 2 speed rear end with a 4 speed manual transmission.  The original rescue chassis only had the four speed manual.  After they swapped, there was a lot of retraining of everyone who had to drive the rescue to get used to double the number of available gears!

 

I never got a photo of the maintenance truck, but do recall that it had the aerodynic light bar on it after the swap.  It didn't get used much, so it was fine with the worn out rescue chassis.

 

Bancroft/West Metro 1979 Ford F-750/Pierce Rescue ("R-4") - After chassis swap with "M-1"

   

Michael Block photo