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Older fire apparatus and fuel issues..
So to give you a little back story as to why I am writing this post.
So during my time as a volunteer I have had the pleasure to work with about 4 separate volunteer departments. Now only one of those departments equipment was newer then 2000 for their entire fleet. Most of the departments had an aging fleet that were still in great shape due to good mechanical upkeep as well as the pride the department had in their equipment. The major issue that I have been seeing in these departments is with the lack of calls and the equipment being ran all the time is when the apparatus is started it kinda sputters and doesn't run quite right. Now the one thing I have noticed in all of these trucks and these smaller departments is the want to save money. The major factor in that across the board is that departments don't want to pay for premium fuel or any other ethanol remover. So those of you out there that have older trucks that run best on non-ethanol based fuels, what are your recommendations.
Me: I say pay the couple extra dollars for ethanol fuel and use a fuel stabalizer in all your trucks that seldom turn a wheel, and if you do switch over to a non ethanol fuel run something like seafoam thru the tank to help clean all the residue from the ethanol based fuels out of it. Now that may mean spending a few extra bucks but saves a truck breaking down or even having to purchase a new truck, when the truck you have just needs some tlc and the proper drink.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Zachary Wolf on
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most of the older fire apparatus are all gas powered that I have came across but even running something like stabil thru the tank since most of the apparatus are at outlying stations and dont turn a wheel very often, one thing that we did at one of my stations is once a quarter we would run the trucks until they were under a quarter of a tank thru pumping and drafting ops then go refill with fresh fuel. But always put stabil in all of our trucks and saws since most were older saws
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that would work for the smaller tools like saws, vent fans and porta pumps but would be really hard to fill up a 35 gallon tank with it depending on cost
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awesome thanks Kyle.
Just dont want to see any more trucks down for carb repairs when it can be avoided with simple maintenance
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Permalink Reply by Kevin Fox on
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The worst thing you can do for a motor is let it sit. You don't need calls in order to run the apparatus. You can fix the problem simply by ensuring that the apparatus is run frequently enough to not let the gas go bad or the ethanol to eat the seals away. I know they want to save money, but by just letting them sit, it's costing more in the long run due to repairs. Those gems should be taken out of the barn and run regularly.
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