Aircraft Fueler

Our fire department recently acquired this tanker truck. It is made by Dodge, has 1200x20 tires and a 5000 gallon tank. Is anybody familiar with these or had the priviledge of driving them in the service?

I'm somewhat familiar with the D600, but not the tanker part. The Dodge dealership I worked for had a dual line wrecker from the '50's that was a D600. I always liked the way the hood flops up, and the fenders fold together in front of the grille. Makes it decent to work on. Ours was a big block 361 industrial gas engine, what you have is probably a diesel of some sort, probably a Cat. I think Idaho Motor Pool has two of those style trucks with some sort of extended cab/sleeper on the back.

These trucks are very common in Colombia. I got to drive on in Cali. It had a 3208 Cat in her. Screamer engine with plenty of torque in the upper end. These trucks are just as rugged as the Deuces but can go faster depending upon how it's geared.

Tanker is a A/S 32R-9, build date in mid 70s by Consolidated Diesel Electric Company. Unit is based on the Dodge 800 Chasiss with Cummins Diesel and Allison automatic transmission. Hale midship pump which can do a decent job moving water.

Geared low (quite slow). Actually quite underpowered. Very slow on hills. Filling with H20 rather than JP5 results in over GVW by about 3 tons. Be very careful. Lots of them in use with FD (and now the newer 80s vintage Mack R-9). A good idea to reduce the weight where possible (as you truck has had had the pump/water seperator house removed from behind the cab. Some FD reduce/shorted the tank and frame to reduce weight and turning radius.

R-9 tanks are baffled Aluminum and can really shine up nice (as a milk tanker truck). LOT of elbow grease req.