The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Big Bolts 1954 GMC 630 Firetruck - Taking up where Ed Pruss (RIP) left off

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.

I have quite a bit of history with Ed, and his truck- - - - -it spent most of a summer stranded at my farm in south central Tennessee, after it broke down just about a hundred miles north of Cullman Alabama where Ed bought it. He got as far as Columbia Tennessee and had to stop. He had a laundry list of problems while trying to drive it home to Denver- - - - -a dead alternator, a head gasket leak, and front brakes that refused to release, causing the rig to bog down. Ed put out a call for a rescue on the forum, and I was the closest member willing to help out a brother stovebolter. I escorted him back down I-65 to my farm, called a parts distributor in Nashville I'd been doing business with for 30 years, and discovered that the closest available head gasket set was in Canada!

I escorted Ed back to my farm to store the truck, drove him to Nashville to catch a plane to Denver, and spent the rest of the summer patching up the old rig enough to drive it to the stovebolt reunion in Kansas City, where Ed flew in and drove it the rest of the way home. At that time, the bed was 12 feet long, the frame was a LOT longer, it didn't have the crane onboard, and I hauled my Honda Gold Wing 1100 on it for the trip back to Tennessee.

Drop me a PM, and I'll share a few details about that trip- - - - - -and the patch-up job that made it possible! You'll need to make about 3 more posts to get off "moderated" status before you get access to the private message system.
Jerry

Welcome to our forum, Tom! I can't tell you much about the truck, although I remember Jerry showing up in Kansas City with it. I think we have that writeup around here somewhere -- its quite a cool story. Thanks for saving a cool truck. Its had quite a journey to end up in ... Maine ... of all places (see my comments at the end). My guess is Ed put that crane on the back -- seems like something he'd do.

And yes, Ed was quite a resource on this site -- always had useful input on a variety of subjects. As an older version of Grigg (another great resource) when the two of them chimed in on the same subject ... wow. If you check out our "Passing Lane" forum, you'll find a link to Ed's obituary. He was an impressive man.

I well remember the ATHS National Show in South Bend ... the rain ... a small river flowing through Ed's tent... I was already comfy in Billy Marlow's Class A RV ... Grigg came in out of the storm, and then we took in Ed. Like soaked possums clinging to a log, we snatched them in. Well .... it was a long night... If you remove the muffler from that truck and run it wide open (along with half a dozen badly tuned chainsaws) then you'll begin to get an idea of what Ed's snoring was like. Still, Ed was a valued friend and a great technical resource. We all miss him and we're glad you have his truck and have found your way here.

BY The Way ... It's always fun to see someone from Kennebec County check in.

John

Like many of us I never had the opportunity to actually meet Ed, I talked with him at length several times though. He was a very knowledgeable and a genuine person.

Ed helped me come up with the process to adapt an NV4500 transmission to the original bell housing in my '58 Chevy 4400 ( Thor). He was instrumental in me getting this done, and true to his word it works flawlessly. He is missed regularly by those that knew him.

Welcome to Stovebolt Tom and a BIG THANK YOU for sharing your finding of one of Ed's trucks. He had several and we always wonder where they go. It's great to have you here and love to hear that Ed's truck has a new "Stovebolt" lease on life!

I'm another 'Bolter that never actually got to meet Ed in person, but we did converse on various topics on occasion and his knowledge and friendship are deeply missed.

Please do come back and chat with us more, because once your past the moderation step (you need a few more approved posts), you can spend a great deal of time wandering through Ed's posts/threads. You'll find more details about some of his projects and ideas as well as maybe get to know what he was like in his sharing of knowledge and advice to the community.

Thank you all for the replies, I will definitely post updates as I make progress on the rig.

That sounds like an incredible trip Jerry, I’ll be sure to PM you soon as I’d like to hear more about it!

And John - are you familiar with Kennebec county?

Tom ... Sorry for the delay... Well, I *was* familiar with Kennebec County. We lived on Arnold Road right off of Rt 27 in Pittston. I left in 1983 for 4 years in the Navy and then the rest of my adult working career in the Marine Corps. My parents both retired from Bath Iron Works. Most of my immediate family is still there (Gardiner, Nobleboro, Wells, etc). The last time I was "home" was 2014. Gardiner hasn't changed much in 40 years ... My first job was as a summer hire at Pine State Beverage in Augusta.

I married an Alabama girl and after 36 years of dragging her literally around the world, she got to pick the last move and here we are. The folks here in NE Alabama say I talk "funny." At Church, the pastor made me sing "When the roll is called up Yonder" twice 'cause they were all in fits hearing how I pronounced "yonder" like it was a word I'd never heard before. So I sang it like a Mainer -- "When the roll is called ... up they ah, I'll be They ah"

In Maine, my family says I'm from away now. So I can't win.

I don't think I talk funny. I think I talk normal. Most everyone else talks ... funny.

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to reply, what a small world! My father-in-law worked at BIW for almost 40 years, he started in the pipe shop in the 70s and worked his way to Union President for the BMDA. I worked in the yard as well for four years in the maintenance department in the electrical apprenticeship program.

I’m in Gardiner a few times a week for work, it certainly hasn’t changed much at all. The old diner on the bridge and Harvey’s Hardware are still there! Many of the surrounding towns have had a substantial amount of houses built in the last few years (along with storage units, solar farms, and an influx of SUVs with New York plates) but the riverside brick building downtowns have been resistant to most change.

I was in Detroit with a friend a few years ago for a shipyard related class, the taxi driver we were chatting with on the ride back to the airport had to ask where we were from, said we sounded “like the Kennedy’s”. I’d never even considered that I had an accent before that moment. I like to think you’re right, it’s the rest of them that talk funny.

My apologies for not posting any updates on the truck in a while, had a bit of a family emergency that required me to go out of state a few weekends in row to work on a house and have been playing catch-up ever since. I did just begin some body work on the truck just over a week ago, I removed the side panels that had originally molded the cab into the body and patched over the hole where the fire inlet house had been through the front fender. There were about a dozen and a half holes in the cab that also needed welding along with some significant cracks from where the side panels joined at the roof. The body is in phenomenal shape, no significant rust anywhere to be found. Never worked on an old truck before that wasn’t rusted up with every nut and bolt seized, this truck has been nothing but fun to fix up! I’ve got a couple coats of primer and paint over the cab and have the doors apart in the garage waiting on some new rubber. I took stencils of all the old lettering and patterns before sanding it down, my hope is to recreate it later.

Looking great, keep up the good work!