About 3 weeks ago the wife gets a call from someone telling her that there is a military jeep advertised on the local internet classifieds. While she was searching for the ad she found an ad next to it from a small town who were inviting sealed tenders for their old 1956 town firetruck. They did not list the model but as soon as I saw the serial number in the ad I was certain that it was a C500 as well. To save myself a trip, I google earthed the town of hartney and after a virtual tour of the town I found the firehall. Sure enough, in the background was a short wheelbase C500 with many features just like mine.
So an hour or so drive and I checked it out in person. It had not been run in two years (amazing that a town would still be using a 53 year old fire truck) but the engine turned over OK. After appraising the vehicle, I left a bid and waited.
Like a kid at Christmas, I called the town office the day after the long weekend to see how much it went for. The lady informed me that no decision had been made yet as it had to go before the town council, which sat that night. I heard nothing the next day so I called around 3 PM and again asked what it sold for. When she told me, I mentioned it was a coincidence that my bid was exactly that. She informed me at that point that I had won the bidding, and there had been some other bids that were close so that made me feel good.
Today I fired up the old 5/4 ton and hooked up the trailer for the drive. I stopped in at the town office, paid for my purchase, and headed over behind the firehall to pick it up. The guys at the town workshop had the key for it, along with the original owner's manual. The fellow mentioned that the truck was mostly being used to water trees at the golf course, or for cleaning out the culverts in the spring. An hour or so later I was back on the grid roads home.
Anyway, here is my parts truck in all her splendor. The plan is to take the body and tank off this chassis, and transfer the DND one over. I'll salvage the fenders and grill from the new truck. along with the control panel and gas tank. The military truck used a wajax mk1 portable firepump to draw and pump water. This truck has a frame mounted pump. I may stick with this pump until I can find a working wajax pump.
Anyway, enough of my long winded story....here are the photos.
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