Fire truck pumps water – I win all of the water gun fights!

Fire truck pumps water – I win all of the water gun fights!

A few things have been learned since buying the fire truck:

It is as cool as I had imagined.

Parts that are specifically for fire trucks can be ridiculously expensive. (Siren brake $179.00)

It gets pretty bad gas mileage.

My neighbors are very patient. (It is parked at my work most of the time.)

It confuses people at the school when I drop the kids off.

You fear driving past any burning shit.  (Sorry bro, I don’t know how to put out fires, call 911!)

I bought all of the caps that I needed for the various inlets on eBay, so we were able to fill the tank, and it held water.  Next I fired the engine, then Alli showed me how to put it into to pump mode and open the valves.  We hooked up some hoses and a couple of nozzles and let water fly.

Hey Alli, what did they say all these levers do?

As I was taking these pictures, Alli started spraying into the neighbor’s yard and towards the house.  “Alli, what are you doing? Shoot it down the road!” I told her.  “I can’t hold it daddy, Help! She hollered over all of the noise of the truck.  I went and grabbed it and had her shut the valve.  All was well, but we need to dial down the pressure a bit in the future.  Jake had the small line, so he was unaffected by the pressure.  We threw the garden hose from the house back in the tank to top it off and see what the gun on top could do.  Over all, we must have OK city water pressure at the house because we could fill up the 500 gallon tank in less than an hour.  On the other hand, we were about to find out that we could drain it in under a minute.  Tank full, engine on, pump on.  Alli manned the pump panel to control the throttle.  Because the truck is old, the thing that automatically controls the throttle to maintain a given pressure doesn’t work any more.  To adjust pressure you have to use the throttle on the pump panel, like a knob instead of a gas pedal.

 

I climbed on top of the bed and opened the deck gun valve, and Alli throttled her up as high as we felt comfortable. Standing on top of a fire truck that is revved way up is not inherently comforting.  Especially after the throttle operator ran off to play in the water.

Haha, we can water the whole street.  It was fun, for about 30 seconds, then we were out of water.  Get the hose kids, let’s do it again!