Is your department modifing military equipment to use as fire equipment? And what kind of modifications did you do to them? We have three 2 1/2 tons and a 5000 gallon fuel tanker.
The 2 1/2 ton all have 1000 gallon Plas-Mac polyproplene tanks (www.firetrucktanks.com) sorry shamless plug, with hpx200 hale pumps racks on front with tw0 1"booster lines for wildland fires and a 1" booster reel and 1 1/2 preconnect on back . The tanker has the hpx 200 pump on it and is set up to fill trucks or can be used to for fighting fires.
If anyone has questions about repairing or just general info about operating military vehicles, I might be able to help. I have been working on them full time for the ARNG for 17 years. I supersive 2 ARNG maintenance shops and can still find info for most of the trucks out there.
I wish we had a few 6x6's! They are great for off road. Good angles of approach and departure. You don't say the kind of terrain you use them on. But with the tall tanks I would be nervous about taking any big side hills. If I could make a suggestion you might want to have your department look into new tires. I wouldn't trust those byas plys as they are probably old. I am not sure when the army stopped using them. I work for the army as a fire fighter and have used a 5 ton 6x6 in some bad sand. It slugged through it like it wasnt even there.
They will cover just about any terrian we have some pretty rough ground but our tanks are baffled into small compartments you dont feel the water ever move I work for the company that builds the tanks. Weve been running these 2 1/2 tons for about 9 years and I dont think weve stuck one yet. Weve pulled the other trucks out several times with them though.
Here are the pics I promised of Brush 76. We've made some additions since my last post. Added to the rig were the following:
2-200ft dead lays of 1" Wildland hose (both sides for a total of 400ft of Wildland off either side)
250 ft of 2 1/2 supply line
10 gallons of Foam
Floating Waterous Pump
The Drivers side compartments contain 3 sets of Wildland PPE, "Indina Tanks", and the Engineers Compartment (Nozzles and Hose appliances)
THe Captains Side Compartment contains Rehab supplies, Shovels, Pulaski Axes, Brush Rakes, and Rope.
We added a rear step that is hinged to allow access to the bed area of the rig.
Permalink Reply by Mike on November 24, 2008 at 6:27am
I was on a department that uses a 2 1/2 ton. Only ever had one problem. A modification was never made to the intermediate rear axle which resulted in a rollover accident. During the rollover the tank sheared the bolts mounting it to the bed and came close to crushing one of the firefighters. Of course this was years ago in a rural department, NO department ANYWHERE would still have firefighters riding in an open area of the apparatus, would they? ;)
Permalink Reply by Eric on November 24, 2008 at 7:02am
I don't know how much this comment can help with this discussion, but I do know that one of my neighboring departments has purchased and modified a humvee as a brush truck. I honestly could not give you details as to what they have or have not modified, but I figured I'd throw this in here to show one more department that has old military equipment in their bays.