Project: Ember

August 17, 2008: Papa Bruce's Donut Jamboree Car and Bike Show...

Paul, Barb and I took Ember to the Papa Bruce's Donut Jamboree Car and Bike Show. Normally, we don't do car shows but we brought the truck to Newton Falls for the day because the person planning the show was a friend of Paul's. They had a great day for the event and quite a few people turned out for the event.

Unfortunitly, at the event our resident electrician Paul was run over by
a truck with really big wheels. We were able to reinflate him with the air compressor
system on the fire truck. :)

August 10, 2008: Family Visit...

My wife Barb's family was in town and since the truck was only about 5 minutes away at my parent's house for one more night, they came over to check the truck out. The rains stopped long enough for us to pile on the truck and go for a spin around the block. Of course, since they went for a ride and we're part of the crew that day, we took a group shot for the site.

August 10, 2008: Alliance Pump-In and Muster...

Barb, my sister Jess and I took Ember to the Alliance Pump-In and Muster at the Glamorgan Castle in Alliance, Ohio today. It turned out to be their biggest event to date. There were over 30 pieces of apparatus from all over the area. There were trucks from Damascus, Craig Beach, Berlin Twp, Atwater Twp, Beloit Twp, Sebring and Franklin Twp as well as several privately owned pieces of apparatus. There were two Ahrens Fox's, three Mack's, a John Bean/Chevrolet, a Seagrave 25th Anniversary engine and a Sutphen/Diamond T. It was a great turnout and the weather was almost perfect for the event. Don't believe me? Check out the pics! I have more from the Alliance Pump-In and Muster but the ones here all include Ember. We didn't get to try pumping like I had hoped. By the time we got there in the morning, all the pond shore spots were taken and after the parade, several of the trucks that were pumping either left or were shut down while the crews went and participated in some water battles. Oh well, next time. We did however get to meet Fozzie. Fozzie was a very photogenic bulldog which my wife spotted walking around the event. His owner was nice enough to bring over him to our Mack Truck to pose for some pictures. Too cool! Look for a few pics of Fozzie in the photo gallery.

August 6, 2008: Pump Test...

I can't convey how nice it is to have friends who have truck pump expertise. There are some things Paul and I can do but knowing the intricacies about fire pumps isn't one of them. The good news, the pump works but you have to engage it manually right now. The bad news, there are a bunch of leaky valves so we won't be able to draft this weekend at the Alliance Pump In and Muster. We were able to fill up the tank a little with the garden hose and try pumping from that. SUCCESS! We were able to pump water from the crosslay! For the first time since I purchased the truck, it was able to pump under it's own power. Slowly, we will get everything rebuilt and back up to speed but man it was nice to see it pump even if it was just for part of the evening. If we were able to hook up to a hydrant or have someone pump into our truck, we could test the pump out even more. We'll have to see.

August 2, 2008: Somebody's Getting Married...

My good friend Brian and his fiance Beth had a request for me not long ago. see Brian was a volunteer firefighter and I don't know how he managed to convince Beth but they wanted a fire truck at their wedding. What luck, I just happened to have one available :) So we took Ember back into Youngstown to Fellow Riverside Gardens in Mill Creek Park. The weather was beautiful and everyone in the wedding party looked great as well. I got the opportunity to drive the bride and groom and all of the wedding party a short distance to the Glacier Boat House for photos and then back. They also posed for some pics on and around the truck. So for those of you keeping score, that's 1 birthday party, 1 graduation party and 1 wedding so far this summer :) The new Mr and Mrs Brian and Beth Morgan should be getting back to town here very soon. Can't wait to see how the professional photographer's pics turned out. Check out the pics, the really are nice.

July 5, 2008: Lansingville Parade...

We brought Ember back into the city for a brief visit for the Lansingville Neighborhood Parade. It was the trucks second appearance. We had several members of the mahoningvalley.info forums riding with us in the parade including Mr. Peanut. It was a nice parade. We even got the chance to photograph YFD's current Engine 9 who also participated in the parade.

July 2, 2008: McDonald's Fourth of July Parade...

We took Ember to the Fourth of July parade in McDonald, OH. My sister went around the truck touching up the striping with black sharpies and a tube of gold automotive touch up paint. We gave the truck a good wash and polished the chrome the day of the parade. I picked up some flags from K-Mart (and dodged all the old people in the process) and we taped them on the truck. I'll have some photos and video posted shortly!

July 1, 2008: Hard Suction...

One of the latest projects on the truck was taking the hard suction off and removing the mounting feet from the trays. We then reattached the hard suction trays back onto the truck. The hard suction now looks closer to the way it did in 1981 when the truck was delivered.

June 29, 2008: Part II...

Although the day started rocky, rainy, and muddy, Paul showed up and we did some work on Ember Sunday evening. We were pretty productive. Ember has her deck gun mounted. I bought a booster reel for $50 and we temporarily mounted the utility reel. While we were working between rain showers, we were rewarded with the following scene and what else can I say, it's all good!

June 29, 2008: Stuck in the Mud, $75 and all Ron's Fault...

One of the reasons we decided to leave the truck in Austintown overnight was so that I could get up on Sunday morning, go get the truck and take it to the Mahoning Valley Amateur Radio Association Field Day in New Springfield. I woke up (late), checked the weather (rained earlier), called my friend Ron (said the ground was pretty solid) and so Barb and I went and picked up the truck. The drive to the Field Day site was almost uneventful except I didn't have the car stereo bolted in yet and it fell out of the spot it was in. There was also this car that tried to take us out when we stopped briefly in a gas station parking lot to fix said stereo. We made it out to the field day site in one piece only to hit the mud pit of doom as we came around one of the garages on the property. They say hindsight is 20/20 and in retrospect, I should have stopped and assessed my options before continuing. I could have opted to park on the gravel driveway and walk the rest of the way or I could have accelerated in hopes of keeping my forward momentum. Instead I chose to try and cross said mud pit of doom and a slow speed and all was good... until I got stuck... and sank... about 4 inched into the mud. It has claimed it's first victim. All attempts to extricate Ember from the mud were unsuccessful. Trying to pull the truck out with a 1940's vintage Ford tractor were unsuccessful. Then the rains came and made the mud even worse. Finally after a couple of phone calls by myself and a fellow Amateur Radio operator, we were able to get a Brad's Towing unit to the scene and pull us free. After 3 1/2 hours of waiting, about 45 minutes of pulling the truck out of it's muddy location, and $75 later, we were back on solid ground. Once again free, we took off back to our Austintown location for a much needed rest and hosing off.

June 28, 2008: GRAD PARTY...

Every graduating Senior should have a fire truck at their grad party. My sister did. Jess graduated from Austintown Fitch and we had her graduation party Saturday. She asked if we would bring the truck down and park it in the lot. Being that it was my sister, how could I say no. So after looking at the radar Saturday morning, we made the trek up to N. Bloomfield and came back to Austintown with Ember. We parked the truck in the lot of the church where the party and I got to show off the truck to all our friends and relatives. We made a couple trips around the parking lot and a couple more around the block. After the party was over, we drove Ember a few blocks back to my parents and left the truck there overnight.

June 21, 2008: Reynoldsburgh Fire Muster...

Paul, Barb and I went down to the Reynoldsburgh Fire Muster on Saturday June 21st. Although we went down and had a table at the flea market selling duplicate fire stuff I had, I was also looking to get some much needed parts for Ember. I succeeded in spending more than we made on the table by quite a bit. What did I end up coming home with? Well, I bought a red electric utility reel with cord. The truck originally had one on the passenger side over the quick attack lines. I then bought a pressure relief valve for the pump panel. That was probably the piece I had most hoped I would find. It was the last piece I needed for the pump panel. Now hopefully I'll be able to work on replumbing that. Arch and Don look out, I might be contacting you guys soon! I also picked up a 4 1/2 inch strainer with mounting bracket, two smaller suction caps and a 4 1/2 hose roll for the front bin in the bumper. I also picked up 2 spanner wrenches so we'll have something to break down the hose with when we test the pump eventually and I got a really nice (and somewhat expensive) deck gun! I'm trying to purchase a booster reel now from a a friend. If all goes well with that, I'll soon have a booster reel installed back on Ember. If anyone reading this has a hose bed tarp available or hose available, I really could use some more, contact me at gricker@youngstownfire.com.

June 8, 2008: Happy Birthday to Nicole (now with new and improved spelling!)...

Paul and I went out to the truck on Sunday. We tried to finish up some little things because it was pretty darn warm. We relocated the wireless backup cam to see if the reception would be any better. Paul fixed the annoying passenger side tail light issue and swapped out the driver side air horn button. Since I had left my cordless drill at home and wasn't able to do a couple of the other things on my to do list, Paul and I decided to take the truck out for a Sunday drive. We've been talking about stopping over at the home of one of Paul's co-workers, Tristan, so Paul called him up and we headed over to the Mecca-Johnston line. Turns out it was his wife's Birthday and they were having a Birthday Party. We went for a truck ride, posed for pictures and had some good food, cake and company. Paul and I drove back to Bloomfield in a brief but nasty rain storm but it cleared up by the time we got back to our "station".

May 24, 2008: Parade Time 2008...

8:30am our day began by putting more Goo-Gone on the stripe adhesive that was still on the truck. I sprayed down the battery tray on the passenger side again. at 10am, we called it quits and drove the truck up to the station to get a quick wash down. Lineup for the parade was at 11:00 and after a slight incident with a baseball (no damage to the truck) we got our spot in the parade lineup. The parade crew consisted of Me, Captain Barb, and Firefighters Jess, Carol, Paul, Anthony and Rob. Now the N. Bloomfield parade is in the running for the shortest parade ever award, it took us longer waiting for the parade to start then to actually run the parade :) The parade is 3 blocks long, see for yourself! [Click for Map] We had a good time though. We got to play some skee ball. The quarter machine was MIA this year :(. I'm not sure when our next work party is or when our next event will be but I'll post it here when we figure it out.

May 23, 2008: Batteries and Goo-Gone, lots of Goo-Gone...

Friday my sister and I took the truck up to Barbes Garage in N. Bloomfield to get the batteries replaced in the truck. We were able to get the two drivers side batteries replaced. The battery slide tray worked on that side. The passenger side was frozen as heck. So we've been soaking it with PB Blaster to try and loosen it up so we could slide it out and get to the other two batteries. Jess spent most of the late afternoon removing the adhesive that held the white reflective stripping on. She has used two spray bottles so far. I also managed to install a stereo in the truck (I know it's not original but It's nice to have something to listen to when your driving to and from parades.) We also put the bulldog's turnout gear on, put the new pump panel into place and bolted down the rear turn signal mounts better.

May 18, 2008: Pumpin ain't easy...

Another Milestone reached (sort of). As you can see from the photo and the gallery link, the thing that sort of resembles the pump panel is done! The stainless steel was cut and the gauges mounted. After the N. Bloomfield parade on Saturday, we'll start working on hooking up the gauges and maybe even successfully draft and throw some water! I'm still in need of a 6 inch Mack gauge, 6 4 inch Mack gauges and a pressure relief valve. Many thanks go out to Don from the YFD shop for all his help and technical expertise.

April 5, 2008: Mirror, Mirror on the Truck...

Spring is here. Even if it isn't I'm going to keep thinking it is. The temperature was in the 60's and no rain. So my electrician, Capt Anthony and I went up to check on Ember and go some minor work. After refilling the batteries, we hooked some jumper cables to Paul's truck and Ember started right up. We decided that we needed to make sure all the fluids circulated adequately since she has been sitting idle most of the winter. An hour later, we pulled back down the service road and put a new pair of original Mack side mirror on. They were a Christmas present from my parents to me and Ember. We also put the rear turn signal flanges back on. I swapped scanner antennas on the roof and replaced the radio in the cab while we were working. I'm going to have to give the dog a bath pretty soon too. Good doggie!

February 7, 2008: A Little Assistance...

I looked through some of the old records in the YFD shop today. I took a snapshot of the Mack records for the 1981 Mack MC and I also got some more information on YFD's 1982 Mack MC which is still in service as a spare (but not for much longer or so I hear). I also got a copy of the Mack Repair manual for the 81 Mack MC. That will hopefully come in handy this summer when we start back up on the restoration.

December 31, 2007: Here Comes 2008!...

Most normal people spend New Year's Eve at parties, my wife and I took advantage of the nice 40 degree weather to go up to N. Bloomfield and check on Ember. We hooked up the generator and the battery charger and gave the batteries a little time to charge up. She started up on the second try. We moved her temporarily to the other side of the garage so that Roger could store his latest acquisition (an ALF ladder with V12). I took several shots of my two rides, my new Saturn Vue Hybrid and my Mack MC Fire Truck :)

October 14, 2007: N. Bloomfield Fire Department Open House...

We took some time to celebrate National Fire Prevention Week with the M. Bloomfield Fire Department. We had Ember on display along with N. Bloomfield's trucks and several other departments in Northern Trumbull and Southern Ashtabula Counties. The hot dogs, dog handlers and missing hunter incident were pretty cool too.

October 6, 2007: Heavy Metal...

This weeks update will be brief. We finished cutting the large piece of diamond plate to put over the pump area. Now we can walk across the back of the truck and not have to balance beam over the pump area. Eventually, I'll get a booster hose and reel to put back in this area.

September 30, 2007: I Drove All Night...

Ok, maybe not all night but we did work late into the evening. The truck always looks cool at night with the lights on. We don't know how many more nice weekends we will have to work on Ember but we'll keep pushing and doing what we can until the snow comes.

September 9, 2007: I'm Definitely Liking the Amber signals...

This Sunday we had 4 people help work on the truck. I would like to thank Ron, Rob and John for their help. We were able to install the new amber turn signals on the back of the truck. We were able to swap out the front warning lights as well. It took a while to find screws to fit but we managed. Rob and Ron did a great job of destroying the old door locks but it was ok because we had new door locks to install from the Mack dealership. Both of the cab locks went in pretty easy. I now have the ability to lock the cab and the first cabinet on each side of the truck. We took the truck for a drive around. I'm glad the rain cooperated with us and stayed away. Our trusty electrician was MIA today :) Next weekend... maybe.... slim maybe.... we might be able to start in on the pump panel! We will have to see how the parts scavenger hunt pans out. Stay tuned for that and much more.

August 30, 2007: Where did ya go?...

I haven't been able to work on the truck much in the past 4 weeks. My wife and I spent 2 weekends in Florida with friends. I had some other things come up on other weekends as well. I did manage to get the compartment locks reinstalled. They are now working. The cab door locks are proving to be a little more difficult. I somehow managed to lose one of the guts of the lock. Luckily it wasn't the key and tumbler part. All attempts to find it have been unsuccessful. I may have to visit the Mack dealer once again and get the locking piece. I also had some problems getting the complete lock set installed back in the truck. I ran out of time so I'll look at that again this weekend. I also bought several packs of light bulbs for the tail lights. I'm sure I'll break many others in the course of the project. In other news, I received a package from Oneonta, NY today. It was some Mack parts I had ordered. I'm very excited. I had ordered 2 six inch gauges for the pump panel, 2 rear amber directional turn signals and 2 complete bulb and chrome ring assemblies for the front wig wags on the truck. I had been making due with makeshift bulbs and rings. Now that part of the truck will have authentic parts again. I also picked up a 4 inch grinder and some grinding wheels in the hopes to again move forward on the body work. I also ran across a new tool box to store all my screws and extra parts in. It's not much but sometimes it's the little things. I should be working on the truck this weekend or at the very least, running parts up to her and taking her for a spin. I'm excited to be able to move forward again.

July 16, 2007: Deflectors Up, Go to Red Alert!

It was good weekend for just about everything but welding. Saturday's work party was cut short due to rain but Adam managed to get one of the rear sections of rusted body removed and new metal welded into place. I installed the new deflector hardware (that is the official name for the metal panels that grace the sides of the front window.) I also tore apart the passenger side spotlight in the truck. I haven't been able to get the last screw in place that holds the handle to the spotlight arm. I'm sure I'll get it eventually though. Sunday, Adam and I were joined by Paul, Capt Anthony and Allyson. Adam burned up his grinder cutting some diamond plate for the pump cover so his day was cut short. Paul wired up a new light bulb making the bumper side marker operational again. He also installed a 200W AC/DC power inverter in case we need to power something from the rig. We were also able to get the back brake lights working correctly. I did drop the bulb and broke the filament. I bought a new package of lights so next week, I should be able to get that finished up. Capt Anthony, Allyson and I cleaned all the sticker gunk off of the doors where the old reflectors once were attached. Capt Anthony then put on brand new door reflectors. They look nice. Then to end out the day, I popped out all 4 door locks that were on the truck and I'm going to try and get them repaired or replaced and rekeyed. The fire department took metal and stuck it in the locks so no one could lock the doors to the truck. I would like to be able to lock up the cab and the compartments after a parade if we go walking around the festival. So hopefully next week, I'll be able to replace the locks.

July 13, 2007: We Just Got a Letter!

Friday the 13th turned out to be a great day for me, I came home from running errands and took a second to check the mailbox. To my surprise, there was a packet from the Mack Museum of Allentown, PA. Located inside were a decent size stack of papers which I had requested a month or two ago all about my fire truck! A couple of highlights... my truck was born (ok she rolled off the assembly line at Mack's Allentown construction plant) on March 5th, 1981 (That makes her a Pisces too. Her owner was born March 7th!) and the truck was originally manufactured for Winchester, Virginia, order number B351-A0026. I need to play some more fire truck genealogist but that's not a bad start. I just need to figure out why Winchester, VA couldn't take delivery and how it ended up in Youngstown, OH.

July 8, 2007: Thar She Blows!

I went to the truck this weekend to enough air horn connectors and tubing to install the air horns in the back of the truck if I wanted :) With the help of Barb and her Uncle Jim, we were able to install the plumbing, troubleshoot the air horns and go for a ride around. I bought a pull chain valve for the truck from the local Mack dealership but it appears that the air horns use a push button setup to activate and let the air compressor kick on. As it stands, you have to press both the horn button and the pull chain simultaneously to get it to work. I'll have to look into that more next weekend.

July 4, 2007: Happy 4th of July

We skipped the 4th of July parade in Austintown this year but we did take the truck to Austintown and parked it in my parent's drive while we had lunch. From there, we drove over to the village of McDonald to participate in their July 4th festivities. It was a really nice parade and our crew consisted of myself and my wife Barb, my mom and sister, Paul and Capt Anthony, Ron, Kerri and Ron's niece Michelle. Thankfully, the rain held off until after the parade was over and we had a chance to walk around the festival. They even had the coin pushing games at the festival. So cool!

June 30, 2007: Parade Time 2

Saturday was a good test of the truck. We made 2 parades, one on the South side of Youngstown in a part of town called Lansingville. The other parade was in Niles, Ohio. We had an interesting crew for the Lansingville Neighborhood Parade. Thanks to Maxina, webmaster of mahoningvalley.info, Mr. Peanut, and my wife Barb for being our afternoon parade crew. We then took the truck to Hubbard and Paul and Capt Anthony and I worked on a few things between parades. Paul cleaned up some of the rear wiring and grinded down the side jump seat grab bars. At the Niles parade, our crew consisted of my wife Barb, Paul, Capt Anthony and Bob. Unfortunately, we seriously miscalculated our candy supply and apologize to everyone later in the parade who didn't receive any from us :) It was a long, but fun, day! We have 2 more parades planned for Wed, July 4th. One is in Austintown and the other is in McDonald. Don't forget to check out the other 6/30/07 photo gallery with some great shots of the truck taken by Dean DeMain!

June 24, 2007: Looks Like a Fire Truck....

We have lights and horns (although the horns are not hooked up). Thanks to Paul and Captain Anthony, we got the Federal 184s installed, hooked up and running! We also bolted the new air horns to the roof. I still need to get some air horn parts and rerun the air lines to the horns. Capt Anthony made me help him get the axe mounting brackets in place. They look really sharp! Check out this short video clip of the truck...

The video above shows the truck with all of its *NEW* lights operating :) Sweet!

June 23, 2007: Pieces and Parts

Went to Reynoldsburg, Ohio outside of Columbus for an Open House and Fire Muster at the State Fire Academy today. Talk about a kid in a candy store. I bought a skull saver, a pair of Unity spotlights, several assorted clips, some axe mounts, and an assortment of 6 inch and 2 inch steamer caps. Now we have lots of stuff for this weekends work party! I also received the 2 24-inch Grover air horns for the roof and we have the Federal 184 lights to install and get working. I can't wait.

June 17, 2007: The Hot and The Not So Hot

The Hot - The way Federal Model 184's look on my truck.
The Not So Hot - Federal Model 184 lights that don't work :(

Ron, Jess and I worked for a couple hours on the truck Sunday. The weather was hot. We managed to take the old temporary light bar off and put the Federal 184's on the roof. We didn't have bolts long enough to bolt the lights to the roof so we hopped back in the car, cranked up the AC, and went to Lowe's to get long carriage bolts to install the lights. Once we got back, we put the lights in place, bolted them down and tried to hook them up. One light was missing the bushings that allowed the lights to make contact with the rest of the motor assembly. The other light had a bad ground. We took both lights back home and rebuilt one light and tested the other. Both lights are in perfect working order again and all bulbs check out. Sunday we'll go back out and put them back on the truck. Hopefully we will have some other goodies from the Reynoldsburg fire muster that we can put on the truck. Hopefully the air horns will arrive by then. As always, check out the pics of the new lights. I'll get some video once they are on the truck and working.

June 10, 2007: Note to Self

Note to self: Don't tilt the cab all the way unless you have 3 or 4 guys to help you push it back up! We worked for about an hour on Sunday evening. We installed the bottom parts of the new rear grab bars. To do this, we had to tilt the cab all the way to get access to where the bars attach to the truck. Installation went pretty quick. Next time we need to tilt the cab, we're going to make sure that we have 3 or 4 guys around to help push the cab up. Next week we'll see if we can get the bars cut to size and finish that installation. I hope both lights come in this week so we can work on that as well.

June 9, 2007: Strobes - Check, Hard Suction - Check

I think we made enough progress to make up for the lack of work last weekend. Paul, Capt Anthony, Jessie, Michael Sr and Michael Jr and I made some significant headway on the truck. The temporary rear rotators were removed and the new strobes installed. The hose bed lights are operational again. Our electricians installed the marker light bar under the back bumper of the truck. I installed the scanner back in the cab of the truck and worked on the light bar. The light bar will hopefully be going away next week since I managed to purchase two Federal Model 184 beacons which originally were mounted on the roof of the truck when it went in service. We purchased a 24 ft ladder for the ladder rack so the truck again has an extension ladder. My sister Jessie worked miracles with some stuff from Wal-Mart called Liquid Metal. She used the toothpaste like substance to fill in the corrosion holes in the diamond plating. After drying and a quick sanding, it really looked good. The most exciting part of the day by far was installing the hard suction trays and hard suction on the truck. They've been sitting next to the truck for weeks and really bugging me. We had to drill all new holes to bolt the hard suction trays to the truck but it was well worth it. They look great! You can see photos in the current photos gallery.

June 3, 2007: Brief Visit

This weekend definitely wasn't conducive to working on the truck. We did drive out with a good friend of ours from Arizona and took the truck for a spin but that was about it.

May 27, 2007: Ember at Night

Here is a great video we shot in the parking lot of the Bloomfield Fire Department after the parade. It was dusk and we were getting ready to take the truck back to its home and call it a night.

May 27, 2007: Parade Time

Since the truck was already in Bloomfield and it was looking pretty decent, we entered it in the local N. Bloomfield Firemen's Parade. We were one of 11 fire trucks and in retrospect, I think that our truck saw more fires than all the other trucks there combined!! The truck ran great and we took home the Oldest Unit trophy. We parked at the Bloomfield fire station after the parade and spent a while at their small but fun firemen's festival. It was a very enjoyable evening! Special thanks to our Bloomfield Parade crew, Paul and Capt Anthony, my mom Carol and my sister Jessica.

Parade video. Our Mack is the second truck. Thanks to my dad who was shooting the video for us.

May 27, 2007: Work Party

Paul, Capt Anthony, and I were productive today. We met about 9am at the truck and between 9am and 3pm, we were able to get the backup camera in place, Paul wired in a set of rotators on the back and hose bed lights. We also were able to mount the siren box and the install the scanner (although the scanner has technical difficulties and doesn't work.) Prior to Paul's arrival, I got the back lights in place and mounted to all he had to do was wire them in. I also worked on installing some temporary lettering for the truck. We also equipped the truck with 4 rolls of hose. We also discovered how to tilt the cab of the truck and got our first look at the straight 6 engine. We were trying to get as much done as we could because at 3:00pm, we drove the truck up to the local gas station and filled up the gas tank and then we registered the truck for the N. Bloomfield Firemen's Parade.

May 26, 2007: 30 Minute Worker

Barb and I ran up to the truck to drop off some parts for our work party tomorrow. We were only there for about 30 minutes but we put the red lens for the warning lights in and we managed to get the front grill taken off so we could take it home and replace the MACK lettering.

May 20, 2007: Lights

Paul, Capt Anthony, Ron and I worked on the lights today. We were able to get the Mars 888 in place and working, the front warning lights were done with temporary head lights till I get the actual bulbs. We were also able to get the light bar on the roof installed. Also, Paul and Capt Anthony were busy. They got the SVP siren box installed and hooked up to the big honkin speaker (or BHS) much to our surprise. Ron and I were able to get the stainless steel temporary pump gauge cover panel in place and screwed in. It looks pretty nice without that ugly hole there. I’m still waiting on the strobes for the rear of the truck. I don’t know if they will ever get here.

The video above shows the truck with all of its lights operating :) Sweet!

May 13th, 2007: Ridin with my Homies

Barb and I and my friends Jim and Jessie came up to Youngstown and we rode out to the truck. We took a short drive in the truck and called it a day. The guy in the photo to the left is Jim.

Took the new Mars 888 light up and got it wired in but the light didn’t work. So I took it back home to get bolts for it for next week. I also wired up 1 of the back jump seat lights. Nothing major. We didn’t have a lot of time to devote to working on the truck this weekend.

The UPS guy dropped of the Mars 888 Light I won on an EBay auction. It is one of the integral character pieces for my truck. Also, the mailman delivered my Historical Plates today.

Thanks to Ron, Paul and Anthony, we now have the man bars back in place, a backup beeper installed and the Mack Bulldog hood ornament and mount installed. We were also able to get parts off of Roger including the hard suction trays, 2 pieces of hard suction, air pack clamps, a set of grab bars, a big electronic speaker for the front bumper and some more hose. We also were able to pressure wash the truck. Not a bad days work.

My sister and I worked on the truck today. We did some running around for screws and parts. Thank you’s go out to Scott Rollin and Bob Sharp. Scott donated 2 back lights for the truck and 2 man bars since the FD kept the original ones. Bob was nice enough to hook up with Scott and bring them back to Youngstown for me. My sister replaced quite a few of the screws in the cab of the truck which greatly helped cut down on the noise due to vibrations. I replaced several bulbs throughout the truck and got the turn signals put back in. My friend stopped up to see what needed done welding wise on the truck. Eventually, he will be cutting out the rusted areas and welding in new metal. My sister also managed to find some new panels and interesting electrical components. Unfortunately, the screws I got for the man bars were the wrong type so those will have to wait till next weekend.

Want to turn some heads, try driving a fire truck :) My friend Roger and I picked up the truck from it’s current location on Andrews Ave in Youngstown to N. Bloomfield, Ohio. We had no problems driving the truck and when not loaded down with 500 gallons of water, the V6 and turbocharger really give the truck some pickup. The missing water did give the truck a little more bounce but it wasn’t too bad. I was really glad we didn’t experience any mechanical difficulties in our travels. Special thanks goes out to the convoy consisting of my wife Barb, Roger’s wife Heather and Paul and Anthony who followed the big red truck to it’s new temporary home. Now we can begin working on her.

6 days after purchasing the truck, I have the title transferred, temp tags, insurance and I’ve been in contact with the Ohio State Patrol and their commercial division about license requirements. Not to bad considering this is my first time doing this. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll get the truck moved to its new home.

April 13th, 2007: You Bought a WHAT?

I found something that is even more shocking than ”I’m pregnant”! Try telling your family that you just bought a fire truck :) My sister wanted to know why we couldn’t just buy new windows for the house like normal people. Here I hope to post updates about the progress we’re making on restoring that fire truck. It’s not just any truck, but an ex-Youngstown fire truck. Many of the trucks who protected the city over its long history are gone. Many were disposed of and scrapped. A handful have been preserved by collectors and historians. My truck is one of two Mack MC’s that the city bought in the early 1980’s. During the 80’s and 90’s, one of the two Mack MC were present at just about every fire in the city. This blog will hopefully be updated with our progress.