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Have a great one! And don't be grumpy; being 65 beats the hell out of being 6 feet under.

Wow, good for you. Nice to see old iron with a family history saved.

Wasn't the B model with the extended hood that was for sale at Macungie equipped with a factory Cummins?

I think that may be an ex-Ca. Dept. of Forestry (CDF) truck. They were used to haul forestry tractors on lowboys.

My point exactly. Replacing tires every few years adds up. As for bearings, I don't understand why any trailer bearing goes bad when automotive wheel bearings last basically forever without any maintenance. Like I said a Godsend but a PIA to keep up.

The Chrysler 413 was used in a series of B model fire trucks that was built for the U.S. government. I wonder if the U-400's with the 413's were also built for the government, possibly as tankers for the Air Force FD's.

Looks very neat. Doing the wiring is my favorite part of doing a truck.

Trailers are a Godsend, but they are also the biggest PIA of any piece of rolling stock. If it's not bad tires than it'd a bad bearing, or it needs annual safety inspection, etc. I have several, but the maintenance is a constant headache. The good thing about a truck if it is used regularly is its' so much more reliable.

My vote is a vacuum leak also. Try spraying the intake side with ether. You will hear a substantial difference in the way it runs if the ether gets sucked into the leaking area. If it has a brake booster you need to check that and the lines running to it, especially the filter if so equipped, and depending on the pump you may have vacuum lines running there as well. A quick check would be to block the vacuum lines running to those areas to see if it makes a difference.

And yet every one of the trucks in the picture features a massive air dam for a bumper and sacrifices streamlining for external stacks, etc. so I'm guessing that this operator doesn't value high mileage so much. My thought is that you can't blame Western Star for making and marketing the trucks that fleets actually want to own, not to fit our image of what a truck should look like. Unless you are a small niche builder you aren't going to be in business long if you don't make a product the customer actually wants to buy in sufficient numbers to be profitable.

Have a great one.

Yep, and it amazes me that more are not bought up as engine donors for OTR trucks since most fire apparatus outside of the urban areas are retired with less than 100K miles. I also believe that most post 1990's apparatus will not be collected as they are pug ugly and all look the same, so you will probably see the price of used stuff go down even more.

The casinos can set the win rate on any given slot, so the house never loses. I was told the airport slots are set for the highest win rate so it suckers you into playing at the casinos since no one spends much time at the airport. Probably another urban legend. Gambling has proliferated throughout the U.S. You cannot stop at any rural gas station in South Dakota that doesn't have slots for example. And there are casinos in almost every state we visit. Unfortunately it has really become a form of regressive taxation with those who can least afford it spending the most in the hope of hitting it big while the states take their share of the money as taxes.

Apparently fuel mileage means less to the Aussies than it does to North American operators. If you want to make them streamlined they are all going to have the same basic shape.

The other thing that drives the compact tractor pricing are the financing incentives. Kubota is offering 7 year 0% if you buy their insurance and pay about 3% more for the unit. Kind of hard to buy a fairly low hour used unit when the builders are offering those terms on new units.

My very astute DW went around the house cleaning out all of the loose change jars, old travelers checks, and un-exchanged foreign currency to fund our gambling in Vegas. Her logic was that we basically didn't have that money anyways, so if we lost it no big deal. I don't gamble much, but she managed to come out ahead at the slots. I did win at the airport slots on the way home and damn near missed the plane because I would not quit. We loved Vegas. Lots to see and do and almost everyone seemed happy. The few times I have been to Atlantic City on business it seemed like no one was happy and all of the players had that look of grim determination resulting from a fear of losing. One of my co-workers made the observation that AC must be where they send folks who are too old to be in nursing homes and God help you if you try to take over one of the 20 or so slots all of the old ladies play each.

Happy Birthday Mike. Any new trains for the birthday boy?

The story of this truck is pretty interesting http://www.radnorfire.com/content/current/1954_mack.cfm John Statts (Firemack) gets the truck out to the shows using his Mack MH, formerly a Smith Horse Transport unit, pulling a low boy trailer.

Due to the high purchase price of new one ton pick ups I am going to get a hoopdy to run errands with in order to keep the mileage down on the new truck. I almost bought a used low mileage diesel Chevy Cruze because it is getting close to 40 MPG and it has twice the power of the gasoline version, but I dicked around until it was gone. The best hoopdy I ever owned was a 1980 Audi 5 cylinder diesel I got for free because the injector pump was bad. A $500 rebuilt pump and I drove it for 10 years until number 2 son wrecked it. I keep a newer truck because I want the comfort and reliability. The DW and I travel with our fiver quite a bit and I just don't want to worry about reliability and repair costs while we are on the road. I almost always buy a new fully optioned truck so they are under warranty and as long as I stay on the merry-go-round of selling and buying every 100K miles or so the cost is not much more than buying used.

I recently went to a 2016 Chevy 3500HD dually to tow my gooseneck and fifth wheel trailers. I am pleasantly surprised by how well it rides, even in comparison to my 2011 3500 srw truck. My guess is that since GM has been building these things since Capt. Marvel was a Lieutenant they have been able to keep refining the suspension to achieve the ride that the truck delivers. I just don't see any other practical solution other than a body on frame design for those of us that need a true heavy duty pick up. Do I wish I could get better mileage? Sure, but averaging around 15 MPG in town and 20 MPG on the highway is not terrible either.

I'd say just the opposite, cars and light trucks are much better built that they used to be. In the 50's, 60's, and 70's many came with the rust already installed at the factory resulting a total rust out with in a few years. That just doesn't happen anymore. The cars my Dad bought were worn out when they hit 100K miles, now a car with 100K still sells for well over 50% of it's original purchase price and may run well past 300k with decent care. They are also much safer now. Things like air bags, collision avoidance systems, etc. have reduced fatalities per year while the number of cars and miles driven keep going up. I do agree that the middle class is taking it in the shorts, but that seems to be what the middle class wants economically based on their voting patterns. Social issues seem to be more important than economic ones these days. It seems to me that as long as a politician says what the electorate wants to hear about social issues than the voters are perfectly willing to keep making the rich richer while lowering their own standard of living.

If you still have some of the gunk you removed I'd do a little experimentation to find a solvent that will dissolve it. If it came from a solution, the fuel, it can be put back into a solution with the correct solvent. I'd try acetone and/or lacquer thinner to start. I assume you can get the sending units out. If so that should give you enough room to work some kind of a tool into it to stir up the mess so it will dissolve. Obviously you need to drain the mix off; do not try to run it through the fuel system. My guess is that this stuff has been accumulating for years and the introduction of ethanol fuel has caused it to morph into a tar like substance.

If you plan to put the "Farrar" insignia back on the hood they are pretty hard to find, but I've seen a couple over the years. Based on the picture of it leaving Plymouth it would probably pay to ask around the PFD to find out who has the souvenirs taken from it. My home town of Ashland, MA also had a Clarence Farrar special 1968 Loadstar front mount pump. He delivered a lot of similar trucks around New England.

Very nice. What are you planning (hoping) to do with it?

That truck was bought new by an acquaintance of mine. He told me that one was one of his favorites out of many that his company owned. He dissolved the company and sold off it's assets a few years ago and he was quite thrilled to hear that the truck showed up at Macungie. Since it still has his name on the door I assume it is a show truck only.