1958 F.W.D.

Paging Mister Martinelli......Michael Martinelli, to the white courtesy phone......... His screen name is E290L103, you can PM him, he has a complete database of Mack fire apparatus.

I absolutely, positively cannot shift my FWD without double clutching. No matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, it just cannot be done.

In the 80's, Mack experimented with turbine power. There were two Superliner conventionals and a Cruiseliner cabover with turbines. The Cruiseliner is currently in the Mack museum. It is not in running condition, for display only. The whereabouts or disposotion of the tutbine powered Superliners has been lost to time.

coolant hydrometer on bottom, battery hydrometer on top. this thread got me thinking that I have not checked the freeze level of the firetruck yet this year, so this morning while I was doing some yardwork, I lit her up and let her run for 45 mins, and then checked- I'm good for -20F, plenty for my neck of the woods as we RARELY see anything below Zero F. Once in a while we'll get down to maybe -2 or 3 but thats it. Measuring your freeze level is critical if you have slow coolant leaks like I do (and may old trucks do) and you add water or mix constantly throughout the summertime.

Vlad there are many many deer here in the USA, and the problem is very bad in the east, and becomes even worse as you get closer to populated areas- the deer are being driven from their land by development. The rural areas right outside of cities are very overpopulated to the point that some places hold no-limits hunts for a weekend or two.

Coolant filters are more common on fleet-spec units, especially ones in fleets that have extremely strong preventive maintenance programs. I dont think I have ever seen a coolant filter on anything other than fleet-owned tractors. They are about the size of a Fram PH8A oil filter (318 Mopile) and have a filter element of course, but also have a time-release solid chemical core that slowly dissolves treatment into the system.

Ken has a very, very good point. If you have a more modern diesel engine which requires the coolant/anti-freeze to be treated with Nalcool (or an equal) system treatment, you need to check that as well. Have you changed the coolant filter lately?? When I worked in the shop at Jevic, IIRC coolant filters got changed every 100K. My tukey baster says check the coolant/anti-freeze at "operating temperature." Hat City, come to my house here in about a month, I'll show you all about needing anti-freeze.

After what I have seen on Staten Island the last three weekends, I wouldnt be surprised if it were real..........

This is absolutely, positively critical to do if you live in an environment with temps that drop below freezing regularly. Buy the hydrometer (looks like a turkey baster with a big-ass glass window with a needle and gauge on it) from any auto parts store and follow the directions carefully- you usually run the engine up to operating temp, draw up the coolant into the turkey baster (MAKE SURE YOU OPEN THE SYSTEM WHEN IT IS STILL COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and check the protection level (freezing level) of the coolant. Adjust it as necessary by adding (I prefer to use 100%) anti-freeze-coolant until it is protected to your normal/average coldest temp and then add 10-15 degrees for good measure.

Was heading E/B on I-78 in Jersey just a while ago, coming back from picking up tools and my shop-vac from mom in law's house on Staten Island. Was in my 2008 Chevy Silverado, had the three boys with me, they were buckled up in the extended cab. Oldest was watching a movie on the DVD player, the other two were asleep. Had the cruise control set at about 72, and in the middle lane. Coming up on the 24 yardstick, had an A Duie Pyle in the right hand lane. We both saw the buck (had a nice rack too) walking towards the road, we both got on the brakes and we both got on the horn. Buck looked as if he was studying the traffic looking for a break.....I guess the horns spooked him because he took off, and got creamed by A Duie Pyle. I would never wish anything bad on anyone but I am glad Pyle took it, because if he didnt, guess who would have....And I'm glad only because I had my little guys with me. When I started laying on the horn, the oldest looked up from his movie and saw the whole thing- Pyle creamed the buck and spun him around a bunch of times and across the middle and left lane into the left hand median. I'm sorry my little guy had to see that- the innocence of a child amazes me sometimes- he says "Daddy, I hope his family will be ok." Little guy understood right away that buck went to buck heaven. Duie Pyle pulled over- I stopped too just to make sure he was ok, barely scratched the truck. Pyle saw my three stooges in the truck and said "I'm glad I blasted him instead of you." We shook hands and went on our way. Stopped at the T/A at Exit 7 and had lunch......Should have offered to buy Pyle lunch too, wish I had.

Happy blonde day...errrr ahhh I mean birthday Bob!!!!

Thank you Lads!!!!

LOOKING for a good "old-school" driveline/clutch shop in the Mill River, Ma. area to rebuild what is probably a 15" 2-plate Spicer (or similar) clutch off a 1959 Maxim firetruck with a 145GZ (F817G) Waukesha engine and a 5-speed (probably a Clark or Fuller) transmission. Must be able to rebuild an older clutch (if it is serviceable obviously.....) Any suggestions appreciated.

I am not turning 39. It is the 18th Anniversary of my 21st birthday.......lol Thanks fellas!!!!!!

That off-brand firetruck there towards the end with the two driveshafts is a fine looking masheen. The driver is pretty handsome, too.

I have a bunch of print pix of that LA City Fire Dept Heavy Rescue wrecker on the Hayward F-Model Chassis, as a fire service antique nut AND as a Hayward F-Model nut AND as a wrecker nut, I would give my NUTS to have that rig!!!! LA City Fire also ran one on a Crown Firecoach Chassis, which has been fully restored and is now privately owned.

I thought PETA meant "People Eating Tasty Animals"??

His couch SUCKS!!!! LOL

Things have settled down for me. We only lost power for 24 hrs, about 2200 Monday night to 2200 Tuesday night, which was a blessing. However, as I think I mentioned (if you are a facebook friend of mine perhaps you have been following the saga on there....) My Mother-In-Law's house on Staten Island got raped. She lives on Hull Avenue, 6 houses up from the Collanade Diner on Hylan Blvd, in one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods. The house is intact and structurally sound, however the finished basement completely filled with water at one point. Fortunately, MIL moved to Vegas back in June, so the house and the basement was empty of most of the contents. House was under contract to be sold with settlement scheduled for 11/26, however no one has heard from the Real Estate Agent or from the Buyer to see if he has backed out, which is the assumption. I spent Weds/Thurs/Fri last week prepping for my "adventure." We got word from the neighbor (she was watching the house) that the basement was filled up. So I assumed the worst and prepared for the worst. I borrowed a 275GPM dewatering pump from a friend's VFD, and also rented another 175GPM one from a local tool rental place. (doing the rough math, a 30x50 basement at 8' high of water = 96,000 gallons (again worse case) I also borrowed a generator from work. In the meantime, the wife wanted to help out FDNY families who lost everything, of which there are about 50 families that we know of that indeed lose everything, mostly on Staten Island and Queens. So she started gathering up stuff in the house, and she put the word out on her facebook. Which took off like a firestorm- her and her friends gathered up so much shit that I had to borrow a 8x14 trailer from a neighbor. And let me tell you, when I left home, that trailer was PACKED TIGHT with mens/womens/childrens/baby clothes, diapers, baby wipes, bottles, formula, toys, canned/dry foods, cleaning supplies, dog and cat food, and some toys too. She enlisted the help of a friend of ours who is a chiropractor who has a large patient base, and he had his secretary call patients who had appointments scheduled for Weds/Thurs/Friday to bring in goods and he would wave half of his co-pay for the office visit. He also allowed honey to use a large unused room in his office as her gathering and sorting point. Together they conned a local supermarket out of several boxes of baby supplies, and then some of the employees of the supermarket bought and donated stuff out of their pockets. And then Honey loaded up her minivan not once, not twice, but 5 times to get the stuff from his office to our garage. Friday night was packing night. Remember the movie "RED DAWN"? In the beginning when the kids were in the father's sporting goods/camping store and they were grabbing anything and everything they could from the shelves? That was me in my garage and tossing into the pickup bed. I took anything I thought I could possibly use. If I remember right, I had the following: Big pump and 2 12' suction hoses/2 discharge hoses, small pump and 2 12' suction hoses and 2 discharge hoses, generator, 4 extension cords, 2 sets of craftsman 500W work lights/tripod, 2 shop vacs and hoses/attachments, 2 rolls of visqueen, 1 roll of heavy duty large trash bags, set of basic mechanics tools, WD40, 3 rolls of duct tape, battery powered drill, battery powered circ saw, charger, 3 LED flashlights, 2 flat shovels, one spade shovel, one snow shovel (great for scooping wet/crumbling drywall) and enough gas in cans to blow myself to mars and back- I am sure you are all familiar with the gas problems and the lines and let me tell you what, I saw one line that stretched for 5 city blocks with my own two eyes. I let the house and got on I-78 E/B at 0630 on Saturday AM. As I crossed over Jersey I was met with a beautiful sunrise as I came over the mountains. I was hoping it was a sign of bright things to come. I got to Staten Island in short order, no traffic, no roadblocks, nothing. Smooth sailing the whole way. I arrived at the donations deliver point which was a business owned by the Staten Island Borough Trustee for the UFA (uniformed firefighters assoc- the union) and he called Engine Co. 151 who came right over and with their help, we had the trailer unloaded in 15 mins flat. He has a list of contact numbers for the families and is calling them to come to his business to pick through what was dropped off and take what they need. Then I picked up little Bro In Law, who lives right near the Guinea Gangplank. We headed down to the house, and when we got there, the water had drained out and was only 1-2 feet deep. So first order was get the pumps running. Once we had both of them going, the bulk of the water was out in 45 minutes. Then we lit up the generator, and BIL put on mud boots and wend down and plugged in the 2 sump pumps which took care of the residual. SIDE NOTE: I mentioned that MIL lives near the Collanade Diner, which is a famous diner on Staten Island. BIL's father, who MIL is diovorced from, is the head chef there. While we were waiting for the pumps to do their thing, we walked down to the diner to say hello to his father. The Diner was devistated- they were taking people out by boat at one point. The basement was filled completely. All they had were two pissant electric pumps. So I told BIL's father- "when we get her basement sucked out, we'll bring the pumps down here and light them off. Which is what we did. Had them sucked dry in about 6 hours (we went back to MIL's house, left the pumps in their care....) Me and BIL started removing what was left in the basement which was various junk and lots of fallen drywall and paneling. I also shut off all the utilities and drained the HWH and all the pipes (going to get cold) I guess the furnace, HWH, and the washer/dryer are garbage. Last thing we did was spray a fine mist spray of water/bleach all over the entire basement walls, ceiling, floor to limit growth of critters. Spent Sat night on BIL's couch- will never do that again. Sunday we went back to the house and lit up the generator one more time to run the sump pumps once more and got about 20-30 more gallons of water. Left MIL (who is flying out today) a bunch of tools and supplies, and headed out. Dropped off BIL at his place, and my next stop was a friends house in Port Monmouth NJ- their house was fucked worse than MIL's- no basement, just a 4' crawlspace but they had water in their first floor all the way up to the doorknobs. I sucked about a foot of water from their crawlspace, and headed home Sunday night very exhausted. I was just glad to get home, see the wife and kids, and take a good hot shower and collpase into bed.

Mackman private messaged me and humbly declined offers of help at this time, that he and his family are with relatives and that they were ok for the moment. He also said if the need arises for anything, he understood he could approach his "new family." I gave him my name and email and told him to reach out to me. Although I am not exactly next door, it wouldnt be difficult for me to get to him, either.

10-4 on that one. I assume MACKMAN probably has limited access to internet, and that (no offense) BMT.com is the last thing on his mind. MACKMAN IF YOU HAPPEN TO SEE THIS, LET US KNOW WHERE YOU ARE OR PRIVATE MESSAGE ME YOUR REAL NAME AND CONTACT INFORMATION LIKE A CELL PHONE NUMBER WHERE ONE COULD REACH OUT TO YOU. I WILL RESPECT YOUR PRIVACY. IF YOU ARE ALONG THE NJ COAST AS I SUSPECT YOU ARE, I COULD PROBABLY DRIVE OUT TO YOU WITH SOME CLOTHES, DOGFOOD AND TOYS/OTHER ITEMS. THIS MESSAGE PM'D TO MACKMAN.

Well folks I am back on the air. We lost power about 2200 on Monday night, and got it back about 2230 Tuesday night, so just about 25 hours without power or heat (gas hot water radiators but with a modern electronic ignition/computer controlled boiler with a 110v blower fan) We stocked up on supplies thinking worst-case scenerio and got batteries, some LED flashlights, food, propane for the grill and some cast iron cookware to use on the grill. We also had about 50lbs of ice which we never used. Some lessons learned: Need to get a gen set, wife and I have been humming and hawwing on that one, every time we start to save for one something comes up and the money gets diverted. But now we are adament- we need power to have heat, so it must happen for the sake of the kids, plus the freezer (we always buy meats in bulk.) Another lesson learned is we need to get a Coleman lantern to get a good amount of light so we can play board or card games. I used to have one from when I camped a lot, but coincidentally it was destroyed at my parents house when their basement flooded a few years ago. Another lesson learned is you need to make sure all the flashlights and the lighters get to one central location so that you dont have to play "hunt for the flashlight" when it gets dark. I have a large cooler with a built-in battery powered AM-FM radio which came in real handy. We decided that we are going to keep a few of the LED flashlights, batteries and some candles inside the cooler for romantic occasions such as this again. Good to have it all available. The only damage we had was a few sections of our 6' stockade fence blew over, and some limbs from our 100' tall pine tree fell on our neighbor's house, does not look like there was any damage though. All things considered, we were very very fortunate. After seeing the news from Staten Island, I am not bitching at all about anything. Professionally however, I wont get into specifics, but some of the shit I have seen the last 48 hours as a building inspector make me think we need more chlorine in the gene pool. And Mackman, please let us know where you are- if you are within driving distance perhaps we can get you some stuff including toys/clothes for your daughter.

MACKMAN- where are you located????

That was really cool to watch.....as long as its not your rubber......lol

Hellertown, Pa (exit 67 of I-78) at 1630 hours today: Right now we have pretty moderate rains, and the winds are definitely kicking up. I estimate constant winds of 20mph with occasional gusts of 40-50mph. They say it will get real bad starting after 1800 hours and will rock and roll all night long. The candles and flashlights are close at hand and a pot of chili is slow-brewing on the stove.