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After much effort a local VFD, Philomont in Loudon County, VA drove a retired 2001 pumper to Port Arsansas, Texas this past week to the Houston area to donate to the Port Arsansas FD. This will replace a rig lost in the floods. Its kind of a sad comment, but they had a really hard time getting anyone in TX to help them find a recipient for the truck even though there are places that are still in need of help there. If any other FD is interested in helping the Houston area FD's out the contacts they finally developed were the Texas Fire Chief's Association and the Texas A&M Forest Service Helping Hands Program. PM me if you need any more information.

I don't want to imply that all the folks who needed help over the years were stupid; most weren't and just needed help. But here are some of my favorite examples that I actually ran over the years...(With a tip of the hat to Jeff Foxworthy) You might be stupid if: You picked up a running lawn mower by the blade case to use as a hedge trimmer. You placed the ashes from your fire place in a paper bag on the wood pile in your garage or on your deck. (This happened several times a year) You put a log that was not burning fast enough in your fire place on your wooden balcony. You used a grill on a wooden balcony with a wooden balcony above you. You heated a pizza in the box in the oven with the broiler. You used gasoline to get the leaf pile burning faster after it was lit. You tried to clean your husband's greasy clothes by adding gasoline to the washing machine. You drove when you were too drunk to realize that the car you were about to hit had blue flashing lights on it and a big red fire truck next to it. You don't understand that if you use an open Coke bottle to pleasure yourself the suction will make it impossible to remove. You have a knife fight with your son over who gets to open the Christmas presents first on Christmas Eve. You put your hand into a running meat grinder to clear a jam. You put your hand into a running snow blower to clear a jam.

That's what the pool is for. Nothing like a quick skinny dip to keep your spirits up on a hot day in the shop.

I never said they were practical, just unique. My thought is if you are going to the time and expense of doing something like an MB than you ought to at least do something unique.

The other side of this is that I have a nice house because stupid people kept me employed for 32 years.

Changes tend to make current knowledge less important. I can't drive a horse and buggy but my Dad did every day of his youth. Most new drivers cannot drive a stick shift because automatics have supplanted them. So what? They may never be in a vehicle that is standard shift in their life. Change is inevitable and we have to accept it whether we like it or not.

Darwin applies here; if they are too stupid to use common sense than the hope is they kill themselves before they reproduce and thus improve the genetics pool.

A friend has one in his garage and in his master bath as well. I always thought it was pretty neat. One of my requirements for a house site was that I had to be able to pee outside anytime I wanted. Therefore there was no need to add a bathroom to the Garage Mahal.

I used H&J to have valves made for my AB and I was very pleased with his work.

There were chain drive Sterlings that were used by Rosenfeld Concrete in Milford, MA into the 1970's that ran at highway speeds. More moving parts and a greater parasitic power loss is why they ended, not because they couldn't do high speeds.

If your hot to do an MB find something unique like the rigs the NY Port Authority used to keep the tunnels cleared. Just my $.02, but most MB's are so ugly they deserve to die a quiet death. They made hundreds of MB fire trucks and even those are not widely collected.

I thought about the same thing, but mirrors also break. If it is done right it will be impossible to wipe a camera off the side of the truck like you can do with a conventional mirror. I think this is a real win-win. Both visibility and aerodynamics are improved. My bet is that in the long run cameras will even be cheaper than mirrors.

Quality and relying on a sole source supplier would make this a pretty hard pill to swallow for the auto manufacturers. Being held hostage to your supplier while not being able to control costs would also make this an unwise choice. There is a reason most very large manufacturers are vertically integrated.

Yep; I have a terrible tool addiction. I've tried rehab, adhering to a 12 step plan to only use hand tools, but I keep backsliding and now that Amazon is around I can feed my habit without even leaving the house. I do keep a list of tools I thought I might like to have, but did not need right away to get a particular job done, as a potential Xmas list. I use a lot of the tools my Dad and Granddad left me and it is pretty special to me to be able to think about them while I'm doing something and to realize that they probably did the same task at some point in their lives with the same tools. A very good friend of my Dads who was a cabinet maker was diagnosed with fatal cancer and given a very short time to live. In response he had all of his friends come by and take one tool from him of their choice. He said that way every time the tool was used they would think of him and keep his memory alive. I still use a router he gave my Dad and I do think of him when I use it.

I have a Milwaukee metal cutting saw that is basically a skill saw with a metal cutting blade in it that would work great to cut the metal and provide a clean line to weld it back together. https://www.amazon.com/Milwaukee-6370-21-8-Inch-Cutting-Circular/dp/B0000WUQI4/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1512309992&sr=8-9&keywords=metal+cutting+saw They also make blades for battery powered circular saws that work pretty well if you are in a tight spot.

When I first bought the 52 I removed a five gallon bucket full of wiring and everything still worked. Apparently the answer to any electrical problem for the Richmond City shops was to run a new circuit and just leave the old wiring in place. Talk about a rats nest. Took the old girl to a local Christmas parade yesterday and the turn signals didn't work. I'll get to that sometime this winter as I won't take her out again until next spring. I had something occur in my travel trailer that is applicable to truck wiring as well. The battery was not charging, so I replaced the old transformer based charger with a new electronic version and all seemed well. The next time I used it the battery was dead again so I assumed I had a loose or broken wire between the battery and the charger. I had 12 volts at the battery and 13.6 at the charger, so I started measuring the voltage along the wiring and much to my surprise I had high voltage on one side of a circuit breaker and low on the other. The circuit breaker still allowed current flow, but apparently the contacts had become pitted over the years which made it a resistor. I replaced the breaker and now the battery is receiving the voltage it should. Something to keep in mind if lights are dim or other low voltage gremlins appear.

Thanks. Funny how time just rolls on whether you want it to or not.

It was in our local paper. I was in 7th grade and of course being in MA it was enormous news.

This makes me think about how once a builder or industry starts down a path it almost never varies from it. Trucks have always been powered by a hydrocarbon fueled engine driving direct power to the drive wheels. Yet locomotives used diesel engines to power electric motors when they had the chance to re-engineer their product when steam faded out. Could diesel/electric be better for trucks? We'll probably never know since truck builders have so much invested in the current way of building they have little incentive to change. Then someone from outside the industry comes along that has no current investment in the industry like Musk. He sees something that he believes is better and has the courage to try it. We'll see if it works out, but every great once in a while revolution takes over from evolution and the industry must change or fade from relevance over time. If it were up to the big 3 we would still be driving boats that rusted out every three years, but the Japanese had a better idea and kicked the shit out of Detroit until they changed to meet the new model. We'll see if Musk does the same to the Class 8 industry.

Wiring a vintage truck is pretty simple to do one wire at a time if you choose to do so. You basically have two options; remove the existing harness and make a new one to match it or pull each wire individually using a container to run the wires through such as asphaltic wire loom. I solder every connection and use heat shrink to make the connections look like the originals. It is kind of tedious work, but after you master the soldering process it is pretty straight forward. I make up a rack from plywood and conduit to hang the rolls of wire on so you can pull multiple wires at once to make up a loom. Have you checked with Brillman? https://brillman.com/ A friend uses him to make harnesses for his restorations by copying the existing harness. I use him for supplies. He had a fire that cost him his wiring loom machines, but I think he has replaced them. RI wiring has a stock harness http://www.riwire.com/ A bit pricey at $1129.00, but you will always be able to look at the finished product and think to yourself that you did it right instead of wishing that you had. The cost will fade over time, but the less than perfect job will be there every time you get into the truck to remind you that you cut a corner. Just my $.02. Another thing to consider is using marine power outlets (cigarette lighters). They are plastic and can be wired to power a modern accessory no matter the ground without running a wire all the way back to the battery. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RJVJJCI/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'll play the devil's advocate..What do you gain by going to a negative ground? If you want to use a modern electronic device like a cell charger or GPS it's much easier to make a negative ground auxiliary power box. I made mine out of wood to keep it isolated. You can also run most electronics "backwards" by hooking the power side to the chassis and placing the ground to the truck's "power" side as long as you isolate the device from the truck's chassis. Converting means changing gauges, possibly the starter motor, as well as moving other wires around. I just don't see the great gain for the work involved.

I thought they were at Graves Mountain, but the pics did not look right. Its been years, but last I heard of Bob he was in PA and had been shot responding to a medical local.

Thanks. I rode at 42 a few times when I was in recruit school. Bobby Monn was a member of my class (We won't go into more about that). We ran with 42 quite a bit when I worked at Penn Daw back when 42 ran with "driver only" most of the time. I do remember the CF at Chapel Oaks. I live near Culpeper and I have never seen the trucks.

When did 21/42 trade the C model for the Pirsch's? It was gone when I came on the scene in 1971. (It looks like the Pirsch is in the background)

My home town Clockers (Ashland) lost 35 to 33 to the Hillers (Hopkinton). Oh well its good training for the coming Red Sox season. It was still a great Thanksgiving though. For all of the MA transplants out there here is a run down of the Thanksgiving day games; http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/high_school/high_school_insider/2015/11/thanksgiving_day_football_scoreboard