Does anyone else run HME rigs, and if so what are your thoughts on them? We just recently purchased on in service december 07. Great truck with awesome tyrning radius.
No im talking about HME, we recently went from a KME and bought an HME pumper. It was about 100,000 less than the same KME. HME has a 52 degree cramp angle in the front end. I was told that it is the best turning radius in the industry. They started under the Ahrens-Fox name. Check out; WWW.HMEAHRENSFOX.COM
KME was started when part of the company was sold by HME.
To boot Cal. Fire has taken delivery of almost half of 120 engines ordered through HME.
We buy from Ferrara Fire Apparatus and they offer HME cab/chassis with their beds on em. We have 2, a custom which went into service Dec 04, and a quint that went in service Nov 07. Both handle and ride very well and the cab space is more than enough for our equipment and whats mounted in the rig. I personally wish they came powered by detroits, but we haven't had any problems with the cummins in them except for an idler pulley that went bad. I'm sure you could get a different power option through HME, but Ferrara only offers with the cummins.
We have 2, a 2006 Silverfox 2200 GPM with CAFS, and a 1998 1500 GPM with a Four Guys body. We have had no trouble, but if we did- our chief is an HME/Ahrens-Fox dealer. Both of our are on 1871 chassis. 40 (the 2006) has a Cummins 400-ISL with a 5-speed automatic, while 42 (the 1998) has a 500 Detroit with a 4-speed Fuller automatic-not too many trucks around here can keep up with this old gal! When we get around to replacing our tanker (1991 International with a '77 Four Guys body), we'll probably go HME.
PS my pic. is Engine 40.
we have had small problems with the pump levers being so short also. They are very hard to open. We have two 2.5" discharges on the operators side and they are the only hard ones because of the short throw.
Just a heads up you might want to check the 7/16 bolt that holds the arms into the valve. The first fire we were on the lever pulled really easy and we didnt get any water. The bolt had fell out. Most of ours were loose.