6x6 Brush Rigs....

[BC79er_OLDDELETE]

I stumbled across a Federal Surplus Property site and they've got tons of vehicles available, including many military 6x6 rigs. Most of them are only a few thousand bucks. We're in need of a real off-road type rig. We don't flood too much on the west side of Houston, but the ground does get soaked and most of the soil is clay based, making it tough to get around offroad sometimes. I was wondering if anyone had any feedback on how these trucks ran in swampy conditions. I've emailed killerb privately about Silver City's units because they're about what I pictured us building anyway.

By the way, find out how to get at this surplus property. 30kW Backup generators for $2000 bucks are among the things I've found. The application process to be able to buy from the feds is very simple. I think it can even be done over the phone, at least in Texas anyway.

Thanks for the info.

Brian

[Bones42]

We got one a few years ago from surplus. Goes through some pretty deep water. Does not go through some pretty deep snow. Had to be pulled out by a front end loader.

[BC79er_OLDDELETE]

I don't think we have to worry about snow down here.

Like Bill Engvall says in his stand up routine: when it snows in Texas, they shut the whole state down. Which is nice because then us damn yankees get out and show them southerners how to drive in snow.

[helicopter722]

BC79er: What web site has surplus federal vehicles?

Later.

[BC79er_OLDDELETE]

Texas' page is http://www.tbpc.state.tx.us/surplus/...l/fspinfo.html

All the links are on the left for some of the stuff that's on with photos as well as the full text list.

It's run by the state in conjunction with their own surplus property. I think I remember seeing something about Fed property going through the state agencies, but I don't know if you had to be within that state or not to buy from them. I'd doubt it, but you never know when it involves the government. There should be a web site for every state. Should, being the key word.

According to the info that killerb sent me offline, depending on how much work is done in house, a surplus 6x6 can be converted into a brush unit for around $8-10K, plus the cost of the truck. Silver City gets their thru the Forestry Service for free, so I'll be following up with them next week. I'm on my way to the frozen tundra of Wisconson to do a drawing approval on two new pieces, so I won't be able to hit TX Forestry up for some info myself until then. US Forestry would be another possible outlet. Plus some stand alone military surplus outlets.

Brian

[cap611]

bc79er the dept.i am in does not have one but try websterfd they are just to north of us and i know they have they purchased at an auction i think the website is www.websterfd.com maybe they can give you some advice.

[neiowa]

Contact your State Forester FEDDS manager. They can get you one on free permenant loan from DOD for no cost to you other than transportation.

In Texas there are MANY vehicles at Ft Hood and San Antonio available.

See http://www.roscommonequipmentcenter.com for conversion help.

Feel free to email if you need assistance. I have picked up over $1,000,000 of new or near new equipment from DOD surplus in that last 6 months.

[Sleuth]

Government agencies can "screen" surplus Gov. equipment, and have it transfered directly to them for $0.00! I used to screen for my agency, they had all kinds of stuff: Light bars, crash axes, sirens, cars, trucks, refigerators, big screen TV's. Under the old program, it was a metter of being certified by your agency to screen, and then going in and picking what you wanted. Each item was marked as to if it worked or not. Go for it!

[neiowa]

DOD agencies (and cops) can screen in DOD cycle (first 2-3 weeks of listing)

GSA agencies, including the US Forester and thru whom your state forester can screen/request during the GSA cycle (14 days).

Then rolls into donation cycle where state surplus property can obtain (for free) and then resell.

Fire Depts can obtain, on loan, in GSA cycle thru the state forester. You can't screen/request in FEDDS. If you can talk your way into a DOD surplus point you can inspect items of interest before requesting. The actually "screening" is done on line thru the FEDD system.

Condition codes are totally unreliable. You need to know how each surplus point codes, if item is obsolete, usage, etc. An inspection prior to request is good.

[Adze39]

We just got a 6x6 towards the end of last year via our State's DEP Forestry Division for free. Can't remember exactly where it came from, but it was a federal agency. They also gave us (seperately) a 600 gallon tank for free. We are in the process of "building" it now. Hopefully will be ready in May sometime, with it possibly being in service by the end of April.

[chiefmikec]

Our THREE CAFS brush tankers are a bit diffent. The goal was to produce a vehicle that could go almost anywhere. It would offer what today’s brush trucks do not offer; the ability to ford deep water; supply pumpers at structure fires; shuttle water; make initial fire attack on homes; draft water at high flows to fill other tankers or support fire attack; businesses and highway accidents; offer access to the rear of all properties; act as a relay pumper; provide enhanced off road abilities in any weather; lay large diameter supply lines for itself or other apparatus; provide an all weather all wheel drive master streams and provide compressed air foam streams.

Stewart & Stevenson Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FTMV) was selected by Annaville Fire Rescue to produce the fire truck chassis for a new generation of do anything brush tankers.

The FMTV chassis was chosen for its first ever non-military role because it has the requisite payload capacity for the planned fire-fighting apparatus and has a proven track record of superior off-road mobility and reliability with the military in the over 18,000 trucks already produced by Stewart & Stevenson. FMTV's unparalleled 98 percent U.S. Army operational readiness rate and 13,333 Mean Miles Between Hardware Mission Failure are testimony of the truck's quality and reliability.

Stewart & Stevenson designed, manufactures and has supported the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles for the U.S. Army since 1991. The FMTV, which includes 2.5-ton, 5-ton and 10-ton trucks in more than 14 variants, is produced in Stewart & Stevenson’s state-of-the-art facilities located 50 miles west of Houston in Sealy, Texas.

“We’re delighted to apply our engineering expertise to this important application that helps save lives and property,” said Michael L. Grimes, President and Chief Executive Officer of Stewart & Stevenson Services, Inc. “This program is another step forward as we broaden the capabilities of our versatile FMTV platform to non-military applications.”

More information More information

A 10 ton Stewart Stevenson chassis was selected for the first time for fire service application. The stainless steel body is built by Saulsbury with a Darley/Odin CAFS pump module. The poly tank holds 1500 gallons of water and 40 gallons of Class B 1% AFFF foam. A separate diesel engine 500 gpm pump for was selected for pump and roll operations. The pump can be and all valves are controlled from inside the cab. A 220 cu ft compressor for CAFS is also run off the pump engine. A 10 KW PTO generator is used to supply four fixed mount 2000 watt floodlights and seven 110/120 volt outlets. Four attack lines totaling 500 feet of 1 3/4 inch or 750 feet of 1” hose are mounted at the rear of the apparatus and a 50 foot 1 3/4" and a 150 foot 1 icnh preconnect on the front bumper. Supply is provided by a 1200 feet of 5 inch supply hose bed and 400 foot 2 1/2" bed or through 40 feet of hard suction hose. Of which 30 feet is preconnected in a cross lay bed to a 3 inch chicksan swivel with a low level foot valve strainer attached for quick one person deployment. Also carried are 24, 14 and 10 foot ladders. It has two compressed air in cab breathing systems from a large cascade bottle to allow use in heavy smoke operations. One remote control self oscillating bumper gun plumbed with two nozzles on the end, one smoothbore stack (1", 1 1/8" and 1 1/4") for CAFS and one electric remote fully adjustable fog nozzle (60, 95, 120 and 240 gpm) with fog and straight stream patterns for use with water and foam streams as well as a second fixed midship deck gun on top of the rig rated at 500 gpm with a combination self educting automatic foam nozzle attached.

A four wheel, 10 ton, off road trailer also with central tire inflation system and flood lights was designed for each to carry 2000 gallons of water with automatic side facing dump chutes and a direct connect to the brush trucks water tank offering 3500 gallons for tanker shuttle use or for pumping out of the brush trucks pump.

The side dumps on the trailer and the brush truck could be controlled in the cab and the trailer released without leaving the cab.

2000 feet of 7 1/4 inch supply hose is carried in the bed above the water tank and a rigid bottom zodiac boat is carried above in a FDNY style overhead rack. The trailer is designed to go 98% of the places the brush chassis will go.

Stewart Stevenson yesterday got an order for 11,000 more of our brush truck chassis for the military. They had to give 8 to Oshkosh so Oshkosh could modifiy them and bid against them with their own chassis.

http://www.geocities.com/annavillefd/page2.html

Each station in conjunction with the 3500 gallons on the brush trucks and the two pumper tanker CAFS rigs offer 8500 gallons of water 7500 gpm of pump capacity and 11,200 feet of LDH per station. Seems to handle most small grass fires and wind driven cotton field fires.

[neiowa]

chiefmikec

Great minds must think alike. Except you evidently have $. And different roles. I'm the mayor working to help chief with capability improvement, and we have very small budget.

I'm using FEPP to aquire vehicles with similar capability. My got "no $ solution but 19years as an Army officer" solution is Oshkosh M911 8x6s. Low miles, retired ahead of schedule as "undersized" for the upgraded M1 tanks. Picked up thru FEPP 3x M911 tractors and 2x M747 trailers (60ton) for converstion. Tractors are 3200mi, 34000mi with fresh rebuild, & 98000mi. Not even broken in. Priority #1 is bulk tanker conversions of the trailers (see Jumbo tanker thread to which you responded). Plan for 3rd is offroad brush truck (similar concept to your trucks). Wanna see a "REAL" truck google on M911. I'm not even gonna touch the planned water capacity yet. Still looking for "how jumbos worked feedback" (but not getting much).

S&S is a great company. As a matter of fact one of our M911 truck/trailers is @ S&S yard in Colorado at present for maintenance inspection prior to driving it to Iowa.

I would like to see photos of your trucks (web site apparently is overloaded).

[Dalmatian90]

For those of you having problems getting to the Geocities site, I've temporarily mirrored Annaville's brush trucks on one of my sites:

http://pages.cthome.net/mortlake/page2.htm

[Fire304]

BC, re your orriginal question of 6X6's in mud, we had a decent little brush fire up here in Maine last weekend, and the ground is nice and wet right now (it pulled my leather bunker boot off on a lawn yesterday).

We had 2 mil-surplus 5-ton trucks working this fire as tankers, and the ground was pretty soft. The pickups made it throught the swapy spot alright, but the 2nd 5-ton went right down to its axles with 750ish gallons of water aboard. But that's was not the bad part, with the pickups we were able to winch them out when stuck, this 5 ton was so heavy nothing could pull it out, even after the water was pumped off (and while it was stuck no other tankers could get throught the little road it was on).

We had to dig it out with a backhoe and pull it out a foot at a time. I've also had experiance with these trucks while I was in the Marines. They are great vehicles, some will run on gas or diesel (dual fuel), and will go virtually anywhere, but when they get stuck, they are really stuck.

If you get one, loose the orriginal mil-spec tires and get a set of wide, high floatation mudders, it'll cost you a bit, but think of all the money you saved with the truck itself. You may want to get one with a winch too, but you'll need an operator trained on winching, this is too much weight for screw around with, an improperly set of winch will damage the truck or hurt someone.

[BC79er_OLDDELETE]

Thanks for the input. For now the idea has dropped in priority.

My buddy in Martin County FL with Jensen Beach VFD said the same thing with the turf tires. They have a 5-ton with 1200 gallons, turf tires on the front axle, and they run it around 90% of the time with only the rear axles engaged. When they've gotten stuck they've engaged the fronts and it pulled itself right out. They do have front and rear winches on the thing just in case. He said sometimes it depends on drivers. One guy has gotten it stuck, and another will go out and get it out, but I don't think they've ever had it buried to the axles. The turf tires should prevent most of that.

And all I gotta say about those Annaville trucks: DAMN! Awful nice, just would hate to see the price tag.

[Fire304]

The most recent versions of the 5 tons have only single tires on the rears, I guess you'd call then "super singles" they are very wide and dig less than the old tractor tires that they used to install.
http://www.olive-drab.com/images/m923_onramp.jpg

I like the idea of running in rear wheels only, I used to do that with my jeep when I was into off roading. A winch on the back would probably be more usefull that one on the front, to have both would be a dream.

Good luck!