One For BrooklynBravest

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Was assisting Judy this morning with one of her projects and ran across these (along with a couple dozen others) in one of my old briefcases that I thought BrooklynBravest would appreciate.These were some of the FDNY rescues lost on 9-11 that I had the pleasure of being one that helped build them.  These were the largest rescue units ever built at the time for FDNY and they wanted to see their towability demonstrated so I brought over one of the two heavy towing recovery units that I used to run and had installed Zach-Lift under-reaches on to show them a couple different hook-up configurations.  I also built the hydraulic downriggers and other mods to the tailboard and tow bar of the Holmes 750 workhorse mounted on the single axle KW.  I also built/installed the dual chrome stack exhaust and yes tbone, all the clamps were facing the same way! The single axle KW is actually a little light in the RA rating category due to the heavy front axle weight (~20k#) of the 66k+# rigs for any long distance hauls and FDNY runs at least one tandem towing/recovery unit IIRC.  The second shot shows the gladhands (yellow circle) that every FDNY and NYPD unit with air brakes gets to make the vehicles' brakes operational while being towed.Rescue 4 was selected for the demo and I have no idea where Rescue 3 was that day as it obviously wasn't available for a shot of its insignia.Sorry for the poor quality of the pics of pics. Enjoy and thanks for looking.MM200 w/Spoolmatic 1Syncrowave 180SDBobcat 225G Plus - LP/NGMUTT Suitcase WirefeederWC-1S/Spoolmatic 1HF-251D-1PakMaster 100XL '68 Red Face Code #6633 projectStar Jet 21-110Save Second Base!
Reply:A guy that I used to be partnered with back in my old EMS days went on to FDNY and was on Rescue 3 for a long time. Tim Brown. He is retired now.Miller Multimatic 255
Reply:Awesome. Getting to one of those companies is basically a pipe dream.www.FirehouseFabricators.comZachLincoln 210mpLincoln SW200Hypertherm Powermax 45xp2x4 CNC Plasma Table.
Reply:Very nice wrecker Duane. Did you dump the muffler when you did the pipes and let it talk? I had a 74 Pete single axle with a Cummins FFC 335 that got converted to run as a 444 minus the mechanical variable timing, running thru a set of dual 5" inch pipes. That girl could really talk under a load. As a side note regarding the glad hands on the Rescue units, I used to do maintenance on a bunch of ex-NYC... Ahem, garbage trucks that made their way out here to Wa state to be used as heavy duty farm trucks. They were equipped with big tow loops and air connections for towing also. Took about 5 minutes to hook one with a truck bar wrecker. The trucks were early 80s American LaFrance low cab-forwards with 6-71 Detroits and Allison 654cr transmissions. Bulletproof farm trucks, but ugly as a mud fence.
Reply:Thanks.  It was a really nice truck to operate and drive.In addition to the twin chromes, the single muffler stack was replaced with a small resonator located under the cab above the 13 speed RR that replaced the original 9 speed behind the 350hp 855.  The resonator was just enough to keep it sounding good going down the road without vibrating your teeth but still let the Jake bark reeeeal nice.  Took it to the Towing & Recovery show in Lake George one year and a local resident was looking the truck over and mentioned how I rattled the windows in his house descending the hill coming into town that morning.  I apologized and he said not to worry as he enjoyed every second of it. We were told later it would have taken first place if we had entered a different category.  We had two choices and picked "Working Truck" and didn't place due to all the BIIIIG units there.Back to FDNY, the older rescue units used to be built on those same ALF garbage packer chassis.  The company I worked for that built the trucks in the photos also built the ALF versions before my time with them as they were an ALF dealer at the time.  The ALFs were replaced by Mack MRs (Fire/Rescue version of the MC) and then by the Duplex custom chassis in the photos.MM200 w/Spoolmatic 1Syncrowave 180SDBobcat 225G Plus - LP/NGMUTT Suitcase WirefeederWC-1S/Spoolmatic 1HF-251D-1PakMaster 100XL '68 Red Face Code #6633 projectStar Jet 21-110Save Second Base!