Flip up turret cover

[TimboSlice64]

Hey everyone,
New to the platform and out in western Nebraska.
Im on the local rural fire department and we have a M1083A2 with 1250 gallon water tank, front monitor cannon, spray bars and a rear hose real. I would like to run the hose up to the cab so a guy inside could stand up in the turret and spot spray while being able to observe and communicate with the driver.
it doesn’t seem like it would be to terrible to fab a plate mounted in between the turret and the roof with gas struts on it and a latch, allowing the cover to be raised and closed as needed, but didn’t know if someone out there had already addressed this and there was a good solution available.
Thanks for any insight or help!

 

[AKPacker]

A few of us have installed commander's roof hatches from the first gen HIMARS trucks, they are a very nice direct-fit solution if you can manage to track one down. They are few and far between, so fabbing something up might be the easier route if you have the ability.

 

[TimboSlice64]

Thanks AKPacker, if you happen to come across one, or even would have an idea of where to look, I would appreciate it if you would let me know. I think a direct fit that wasn’t custom made would make the bureaucrats happy, but a more functional rig would be great. We are hoping to build out another 4x4 next year too so a replicable solution would be nice. Thanks again!

 

[Ronmar]

Well if you want multiples you might be better off fabbing. Since you are hopefully not dodging bullets, you could fab it out of far lighter/less expensive steel especially once you consider shipping these heavy items IF you can find more than one…

 

[FarmingSmallKubota]

It would appear that the truck never had a turret in it so do you have the platform and the window roof brace to go in the front window?

 

[TimboSlice64]

It would appear that the truck never had a turret in it so do you have the platform and the window roof brace to go in the front window?

I guess I'm not sure. I'll attach a picture of the inside, looks to me like it is braced but I don't know.
Calling around I did find some solutions that Midwest Military Equipment makes and Military Systems Group makes several options and they were going to call back on a price and if they have a lighter version that isn't armored. ball parks seem to be in the 4-6k range and consensus seems to be that no matter what you do, they will leak water (at least from talking to MME). I will update when I hear more from MSG

 

[Ronmar]

the support bracket you cannot miss... It is a 1X2 piece of box tube running up the middle of the windshield(just off the left side of your picture). if you look close at the top of windshield and the bottom all the way forward on the dash right in the middle of the cab, you will see the 2 nutserts in dash and roof frame where the mount screws for the support brace are located. I am going to fab one just for a little more cab rigidity as I will be adding a steel fairing and some storage to the top of my cab

 

[GeneralDisorder]

You don't need the support for a hatch - just a weapons system because a tall weapons system will hang off the cab when you tilt it and pop the windshield out on the ground in front of the truck due to the torsion of the tall mounted turret assembly. A hatch will be low profile and will not have that push/pull on the cab roof that damages the windshield cut out. I have the HIMARS hatch and other than the up-armor lift cylinder upgrade to support the weight of full interior and AC and the hatch itself (probably ~150 lbs of ballistic aluminum) - it stops the pulses from the lift pump buckling the floor of the cab where the cylinder pin is located.

The HIMARS hatch is insanely rare - I would estimate that less than 200 were ever made - most of which were scrapped when the Crew Protection Cab's were pulled to be replaced by LSAC cabs years before there was a significant FMTV civilian presence so it was not realized how valuable the hatches were till many were bought and scrapped by the surplus community. Some were saved but it was usually because they hadn't got around to scrapping before someone realized they were useful on the non-HIMARS trucks coming out via surplus..... But there are other standard size turret hatch panels out there. Start contacting the usual Surplus guys and asking for pics and dimensions, etc. Sit down before you hear the price though - I paid $3500 for the whole damn HIMARS cab because there's basically nothing else on them that's worth much. The hatch is CRAZY well made though - they had to be to hold the HIMARS cab overpressure system that keeps rocket exhaust and back blast dust out of the cabin. They simply DO NOT leak. Which is great. Might be more expensive than you can justify for a Fire Truck though - the overland community is likely willing to outbid you at every turn for rare parts like that. It was another $1350 to have it shipped and then I spent 10 HOURS removing the hatch from it. It has quadruple redundant seals around the perimeter to ensure it can't possibly leak on a pressurized cab. It is very choice but very rare and very laborius. And all that pricing is from 4 years ago and in that time the surplus prices of A1R trucks has basically doubled. So the truck I paid $43k for in 2021 would fetch about $90k today had I not touched a thing on it. Same goes for ultra rare parts like those exclusively used on early HIMARS applications - which are $2.8M missile systems and only about 150 of those even existed during the time this cab was being used.

Oh - and the manufacturer of the hatch - O'Gara - Hess & Eisenhardt Armoring Company - went bankrupt in 2022.