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Crazy old USAF truck for sale, could be my water truck

RenoHuskerDu

RenoHuskerDu

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2018
Messages
359
Location
Texas
Guy is selling it locally. It will carry 1500-2000 gallons of water, which is my interest. Fight grass fires and wet down road base to compact it.

This truck was used by the USAF to deice airplane wings. The boom has been deactivated in a brutal fashion, they just sawed the control box and wires off. I doubt I'd get that working again.

But it looks like I could put a gas pony motor on that pump pulley, and use the water pump. One water tank is 1500 gallons and the 2nd is marked "foam" for 500 gallons. If it were a fire truck, foam would make sense to me, I'm a fireman. But foam for deicing wings??? I guess I have a lot to learn.

Has anyone ever worked on one of these? It has a 500 cid Detroit, 3spd auto tranny, and 2spd rear.

I found one site that could look up the VIN, but very little info other than basics for incomplete vehicle
https://www.fordvinlookup.com/C800/1985/1FDRD84N4FVA48978/
LF.jpg
Pump1000.jpg
 
T

thepumpguysc

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 18, 2010
Messages
7,537
Location
Sunny South Carolina
Occupation
Master Inj.Pump rebuilder
If it starts, runs and moves, that’s 1/2 the battle right there..
As u probably already know, 2 stroke Detroit parts are hard to come by.. and finding someone w the proper tooling and knowledge to work on them, is even harder..
So make your choice wisely..
 
Tyler d4c

Tyler d4c

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 2, 2016
Messages
1,827
Location
Salix Pa
thepumpguysc said:
If it starts, runs and moves, that’s 1/2 the battle right there..
As u probably already know, 2 stroke Detroit parts are hard to come by.. and finding someone w the proper tooling and knowledge to work on them, is even harder..
So make your choice wisely..
Click to expand...
It's probably a triple nickle worse to get parts for then a 2 stroker from what I've seen
 
B

Birken Vogt

Charter Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2003
Messages
5,323
Location
Grass Valley, Ca
500 CID Detroit would be the horrible 8.2 four cycle, which was put in those chassis by the thousands and hardly anybody knew how to work on them 20 years ago, let alone today.

I would leave it be. There are lots of fire trucks with similar chassis available cheap nowadays and you can get a 3208 and a lot more normal civilian parts. But you will not find that many gallons on 2 axles in the civilian stock.
 
J

Jumbo

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2010
Messages
689
Location
Black Diamond WA
Occupation
retired
Looking at all the hardware on it I bet it is closer to a thousand gallons total. 1500 and 500 sound a bit overrated to me. But I'm not standing there measuring tank size, so I'm probably wrong.
 
5

56wrench

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 4, 2016
Messages
2,119
Location
alberta
One of the most quirky things on those old 8.2 fuel squeezers was the injector settings. About 3 different settings on the same engine depending on which cylinder. There was a special(expensive ) tool available but i remember using the end of a dial caliper if i remember correctly. I don’t remember any governor settings though. Its been 30 years
 
Tyler d4c

Tyler d4c

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 2, 2016
Messages
1,827
Location
Salix Pa
Birken Vogt said:
500 CID Detroit would be the horrible 8.2 four cycle, which was put in those chassis by the thousands and hardly anybody knew how to work on them 20 years ago, let alone today.

I would leave it be. There are lots of fire trucks with similar chassis available cheap nowadays and you can get a 3208 and a lot more normal civilian parts. But you will not find that many gallons on 2 axles in the civilian stock.
Click to expand...
Talk about eating a shoe I went from detroit to cummins now feel like a idiot.
 
B

Birken Vogt

Charter Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2003
Messages
5,323
Location
Grass Valley, Ca
We used ours off road a fair bit. Fire trucks. I do remember yarding the radiator out of one that was plugged with grass. After getting it cleaned out I had a metal frame metal screened fly screen made at a local shop. There were some bolt holes just in the right place to mount said screen. That way grass and leaves could stick to the screen and then fall off later when the engine was switched off. Or be cleaned easier than the radiator core.
 
Thirty5D

Thirty5D

Active Member
Joined
Dec 3, 2019
Messages
41
Location
Green Mountains
Joseph Equipment in Manchester, New Hampshire is offering this for sale. 5000 gallon capacity.

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https://nh.craigslist.org/hvd/d/manchester-caterpillar-615-scraper/7497620212.html




water tanker.jpg
 
RenoHuskerDu

RenoHuskerDu

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2018
Messages
359
Location
Texas
Well gentlemen, that radiator bidness hit home. It would be used off road here a lot, so that would be a problem.
 
B

Birken Vogt

Charter Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2003
Messages
5,323
Location
Grass Valley, Ca
Sometimes it only matters if you are climbing hills on hot days. If the radiator is less than ideal but all you are doing is putzing around the farm, it might never get a chance to get hot.
 
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