Fire truck

Somebody earlier was talking about an older fire truck and mentioning about it being slow. I heard about the 1956 International where I used to live. They got called in a mutual aid call to the next town up the valley. They went with lights and siren going just as hard as they could at 45 MPH. Traffic was stacking up behind them because normal traffic flow was closer to 65 MPH. I guess it was quite a sight.

differential for hilly off road country.
my guess.

Truck power and speed as we know it was nonexistent prior to the 1960s, and maybe even before the 1970s. Back then, it was miserable getting behind any kind of medium or heavy truck on the road. They took forever to get up to speed, and their top speed was not very fast. Climbing a grade made matters even worse. One old retired trucker I spoke with a few years ago said that there were some trucks built in the 1950s that were so underpowered, there were men who refused to drive them. Then the pendulum swung and you could get a cabover with a Detroit V12 in the 70s. Today's trucks are like hot rods in comparison to the 50s.

I can relate to the low/high HP firetrucks as I've worked on both at my place of employment! Worked on a mid 90"s unit with a 6V 92 Detroit and had to road test it. Drove it like I was mad at it, foot on the floor and it was decent. Worked on a later model with a C13 Cat (435 HP!!) and it"s "come on , lets go!, could keep up with/out accelarate vehicles from the lights!!

A 1979 Brockway Fire Truck chassis I worked on (when new, it was shipped with no charging system) It had an V8-92 with a turbo over supercharger. 13 speed Allison. It was very quick as it had no body on it, only a cab. Squawked the dual tires on every shift till it hit 5th. Jim

In late 1964 Grandpa ordered a new 1965 Chevy C-50 with a 16' steel flatbed, 5 speed transmission and splitter and of all things, a 292 straight 6 engine. He didn't like power steering so he didn't order it, so it had a "wagon wheel" steering wheel as Dad called it. This truck gave him good service every grape harvest hauling 8 hampers in to "the plant". This was most times at 35 miles per hour or less. Everyone but Grandpa hated this truck. Wasn't difficult for a 20 mule team to pass it. We never could get Grandpa to upgrade the engine in this. He even drove our 68' Chevy C-60 with the 427 and power steering (a real hot rod by comparison) a couple times but liked his truck better, even though the 427 was better on gas under the same loads than the 292.

My first rig was a '36 Chev pickup- 206 OHV 6 (the 216 came out in '37). Flat out was 37 MPH- thats when the valves floated. Dad said I could probably coax another couple of MPH out of it if I put in new valve springs, but didn't seem worth it.

It moved quite a bit more smartly after I put the 283 V8 in it. Burned up the Powerglide after a couple of weeks because I didn't realize you had to hook up the kick-down rod from the carb to the transmission. Parked it for awhile, then sold it to my cousin in about '74. I think its still up at his place, in pieces.

The fastest Fire Engine I ever drove was a
'69 or '70 AmericanLafrance. I don't remember what engine it had, But it would do 0 to 60 in
an 1/8 mile. With 1000 gallons onboard.
Janicholson, You might remember this engine from
Chesterton. It was used the night the Beverly Shores fire station burned.
The irony is, Twenty years later it replaced the John Bean engine that burned that night!
In the last 30 yrs I've driven some engines that were dogs. We had a '75 International engine that it was nothing for the tanker to beat it to the fire. The Chief did'nt like when that happened!
God Bless all the Firefighter out there.
Steve A W

I remember in the early 70's you could tell the trucks with turbos just watching them on the hill outside our house.

Our local VFD, which I used to be a member of when I lived in town, has a '53 Chevy fire truck that they keep for parades. It looks like a brand new one. In the early '70's, it was our only truck. One night we were called to a rural fire about 12 miles from the station. We were ripping down IL Rte. 3, along the Mississippi river, with the lights flashing, and two semi's passed us. We just looked at each other and laughed. I think the engine had babbetted rods. It had a loose rod once in it's life, and there was a hand painted sign on the dash that said, "Speed not to exceed 50 MPH". One of our firemen was a milk truck driver, and we were always glad to see him drive it. He's slip it up in neutral as we topped over a big hill, and it would fairly fly. The tires and brakes were always on my mind. They were the original tires - 20 years old and cracked so bad they looked like a road map of Georgia. And the brakes - one call we pulled out of the firehouse and coasted up the driveway across the street because the brakes were gone. Ahhh - the good old days when times were bad. . . Thank God they have better funding now. I think they now have six trucks, counting the '53.

our last truck was a early 70's ford cab over, had a weird sized engine, was a 5oo something gas, real dog though, no power and used gas like you wouldnt believe, it replaced a 1946IHC, IHC sold for 300 bucks with 1400 miles on it, I shuld have bought it but passed on it, now we have two new IHC trucks sure is nice having the power you need when you need it.

I recently sold a 48 Seagrave, 65" ladder truck with a Seagrave V-12 engine. On a good day it would get about 2-3 mpg and top end was 40 mph. But it was fun to mess with and still operated. Have spent my career with diesels and easier operation for sure.

we had a 1941 Ford fire truck that was still making fire runs up until 15 yrs ago ,,It was not fast , but it sure was dependable,, still sits in a nice barn and makes it to annual parades

We have a '56 Intl R200 ex Fire Truck, 6 cyl 5 sped tranny, runs right along at 60-65

I have a 1963 GMC 4000 with the 305 V-6 engine, 4+2 transmission and rear end. It has 7,000 miles on it, and was purchased new by one of our local communities for rural farm fires. Department wanted a front mounted pumper so they could drive into the narrow farm driveways facing forward and easily position for pumping water. Truck was in full service until 2008. It runs smooth as can be and drives excellent yet. With 800 gallons of water in the tank, 45mph is about average, touched 50 mph going down hill in a tail wind, is what I was told by some of the veteran fire fighters of the community.

Having been a volunteer for 48 years, or longer if you count all the time I spent at the firehouse with my Dad, I've seen the entire gamut with truck engines. The newest engine we had when I went in was a'59 Dodge with a 318, and two older cornbinders. One was a '51 with a 6. It wouldn't get out of it's own way with a 500 gallon booster tank on it. They even put straight pipes on it, which went back to a muffler because it was so loud you couldn't hear the radio. The older one was a 1000 gal tanker that would go through snow like it was plowing it. She wasn't real fast, but did go. We later got a '66 Dodge with 400+ (413?) cubes which would run like a scalded dog. The next one we got was another cornbinder that got the nickname of 'Chicken Little', because in the first two years of service never made it to a major fire without breaking down. Since then, every one has been a Detroit or Cummins. But those old gassers did the job somehow. They only had 500 or 750 gpm pumps, but were quite dependable and easy to maintain. The latest monster is a 1000 gallon quint rescue on a 10 wheel chassis with a 1500 gpm pump. It has more bells and whistles than a carnival carousel,and is so dam complicated there is almost always something broken on it. There is electric this and electronic that. There are cameras for backing, and buzzers to tell if any door is open. It's so big, it has trouble making turns and can't get back in rough lanes. If it wasn't for 9-11, I don't think we'd have it, but there was a gummint grant that paid for a lot of it. It cost over $800,000, and closer to $950,00 with all the buttons and ribbons.

Guess I am getting old. I can remember the arguements over whether a Dodge or IH, engine or tanker, and splitting hairs over the $30,000 price tag. What happened to the 'good old days'?

Due to the low HP & Torque of the engines from the "50"s most of the medium/heavy duty (1.5 ton and larger) trucks from that era had rear axles with 6.00:1 and higher gear ratios. These gears allowed the low power engines to move a heavy load but obviously top speed was severely restricted.

Yeah, lots of those old rigs would not go very fast. Which in one way was good, because their stopping distances were incredibly long. Our fire district had an old GMC tanker that carried about 3000 gallons of water. It had an early Pontiac V8 engine, but I don"t think it would exceed 45 and it took miles to get it up that fast. It would stop eventually, but you wanted to think about stopping way before you had to.

But it was what we had for a tanker back in the 60"s and it hauled a lot of water for us. Too much weight with too little power and really inadequate brakes. Kind of scary sometimes! We got better equipment a few years later.