Guy is selling it locally. It will carry 1500-2000 gallons of water, which is my interest. Fight grass fires and wet down road base to compact it. This truck was used by the USAF to deice airplane wings. The boom has been deactivated in a brutal fashion, they just sawed the control box and wires off. I doubt I'd get that working again. But it looks like I could put a gas pony motor on that pump pulley, and use the water pump. One water tank is 1500 gallons and the 2nd is marked "foam" for 500 gallons. If it were a fire truck, foam would make sense to me, I'm a fireman. But foam for deicing wings??? I guess I have a lot to learn. Has anyone ever worked on one of these? It has a 500 cid Detroit, 3spd auto tranny, and 2spd rear. I found one site that could look up the VIN, but very little info other than basics for incomplete vehicle https://www.fordvinlookup.com/C800/1985/1FDRD84N4FVA48978/
That's a C series Ford truck for sure, but I'm not familiar with a 500 CID Detroit engine.
If it starts, runs and moves, that’s 1/2 the battle right there.. As u probably already know, 2 stroke Detroit parts are hard to come by.. and finding someone w the proper tooling and knowledge to work on them, is even harder.. So make your choice wisely..
It's probably a triple nickle worse to get parts for then a 2 stroker from what I've seen
500 CID Detroit would be the horrible 8.2 four cycle, which was put in those chassis by the thousands and hardly anybody knew how to work on them 20 years ago, let alone today. I would leave it be. There are lots of fire trucks with similar chassis available cheap nowadays and you can get a 3208 and a lot more normal civilian parts. But you will not find that many gallons on 2 axles in the civilian stock.
Looking at all the hardware on it I bet it is closer to a thousand gallons total. 1500 and 500 sound a bit overrated to me. But I'm not standing there measuring tank size, so I'm probably wrong.
One of the most quirky things on those old 8.2 fuel squeezers was the injector settings. About 3 different settings on the same engine depending on which cylinder. There was a special(expensive ) tool available but i remember using the end of a dial caliper if i remember correctly. I don’t remember any governor settings though. Its been 30 years
Talk about eating a shoe I went from detroit to cummins now feel like a idiot.
But you are correct as to parts availability.
The C series was a turd, the 8.2 was a turd, it has military specifications that's a turd. Three turds and your out.
I liked the C series in their day. As long as it was not an 8.2
It was a truck that had inadequate air flow to the cooling system. When the system got a little old it had the potential to be a hot potato.
We used ours off road a fair bit. Fire trucks. I do remember yarding the radiator out of one that was plugged with grass. After getting it cleaned out I had a metal frame metal screened fly screen made at a local shop. There were some bolt holes just in the right place to mount said screen. That way grass and leaves could stick to the screen and then fall off later when the engine was switched off. Or be cleaned easier than the radiator core.
Joseph Equipment in Manchester, New Hampshire is offering this for sale. 5000 gallon capacity. https://nh.craigslist.org/hvd/d/manchester-caterpillar-615-scraper/7497620212.html
Well gentlemen, that radiator bidness hit home. It would be used off road here a lot, so that would be a problem.
Sometimes it only matters if you are climbing hills on hot days. If the radiator is less than ideal but all you are doing is putzing around the farm, it might never get a chance to get hot.
Speaking from experience, the radiator hangs down low and scoops up crop stubble, thistle fluff,quackgrass heads and anything else more than a foot off the ground