About two months ago I picked up a very interesting rig in Massachusetts which I’ve since learned has a bit of history with a few members of this forum.
This is Ed Pruss’s old GMC fire truck and it has made it a long way from Colorado. It currently lives in Maine. I’m working on getting as detailed a history on the truck as I can get, and a few things I’ve found may be of interest.
Very clearly painted on the side of the doors “Highway K Volunteer” is a volunteer fire department located in Doniphan, Missouri. Underneath that is very very faded, but it was the original department name. It took me a couple of weeks to figure it out, but eventually came up with Hopewell-Stow Creek in New Jersey. I sent the department a message and they were kind enough to take the time to dig up some old photos of it. The truck was ordered from the New Jersey Fire Company of Dunellen, New Jersey, and delivered in August of 1954. The fire apparatus was built by Oren and sold under the brand name “Great Eastern”. There are some amazing photos of the truck in action at what I believe would be a controlled burn. Although I reached out, I have not yet been able to make contact with Highway K yet, but I will try again soon.
The truck starts and idles excellent, half a turn and it fires up every time. When cold it has quite a hesitation on acceleration, and I believe I’ve narrowed it down to low compression on cylinder #1. Doing a compression test (working from cylinder #1 to #6) I got 60,120,120,120,105,120. Cylinder #4 jumped from 105 to 120psi with a few squirts of oil, cylinder #1 has no change. Compressed air down cylinder #1 makes its way out cylinder #4. Valve lash is good, I’m thinking that my leak is either in the bottom end or the head gasket. I have a spare head gasket and hope to this week or next drive the truck over to a friend of mine’s shop and pull the head and oil pan to do some further investigating. I’m not sure how far into the engine Ed made it, I discovered his posts on this forum two nights ago and have found that he has milled the head and done a valve job and guides already and my problem may be deeper.
My plans for this truck are first to get the engine up and running properly and next work on restoring the cab close to its original livery. I intend to use it often as I have a sawmill that needs to be fed, and will be mounting an auxiliary engine for the crane to limit the 503 to driving hours only.
I never met or knew of Ed Pruss while he was here, but I can tell from his work that he must have been dedicated, resourceful, and a wealth of knowledge. Those at the Stovebolt forum who knew him must have been very fortunate.
If anyone else has any information or pictures of this truck or stories to share about Ed I’d be very appreciative to hear it. Thank you all for the add to this forum and I look forward to being a part of it!
-Tom
Windsor, Maine
Edit by Editor:
HERE IS ... the link to Ed's Passing Lane story.
This is neat to see this unravel. One of our hopes is keeping the TRUCK story alive, especially as it rolls from Bolter to Bolter. Thanks for keeping it going. 
