since we all know that our cab and chassis were built by detroit what firetruck manufacture built yours and who's pump did they use and where was it built?
only one that i know built both truck and pump. bonus question who was that and they are still in business today?
the Ashton is a 51 gmc 350 series (two ton).
the builder was luverne fire apparatus, luverne minnesota.
even though the pump tag has "luverne senior pump #xxxx" attached to the pump panel, the pump was not built
by luverne
the darley pump company out of wisconsin was the pump manufacture.
disregard the link, it popped up when i submitted the post
pump features:
500 g.p.m. two stage (two impellars) centrifical.
pump shaft sealing is accomplished by a mechanical seal not adjustable rope packing
pump priming is accomplished by engine vacuum with a douple float priming system to prevent sucking water into the engine.
to keep the pump from freezing it has a exhaust jacket around the water jacket in the pump casing. it uses engine exhaust before the muffler and diverts the exhaust via a valve when needed into the pump casing and is vented out the bottom of the rear of the pump casing.
to maintain continous desired pump pressure it is maintained by a pump governor which is connected to a butterfly valve that is positioned below the throttle butterfly on the carb and intake manifold. pressure drops engine speeds up. pressure increases engine slows down. pump pressure is set at the pressure chamber next to the carb. once the desired pressure is obtained on the pump panel a valve is opened on the panel which charges the pressure chamber and is adjusted by the pump operator. to the unknown thoughts were that when they saw a hood open it was because the truck was runing hot. it was open for the operator to access the pump governor.
there is also a liquid to liquid heat exchanger that allows water being pumped to cool the engine from over heating from working hard on hot days without enough cooling from the fan alone. the heater hoses are tee'd off and that is what supplies my heat exchanger with engine coolant. my engine cooler is bolted on under the truck and takes a line off the discharge side of the pump and returns it to the suction side of the pump carrying heat from the engine coolant and is a closed system from the engines cooling system.
im amazed how the luverne engineers of the time utilized everything from the engine that it could deliver.
Last edited by 51 ashton; 02/21/2010 4:06 AM. Reason: disregard link
