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The repairs have been completed, I was going to take the truck down
to Pa and have our ex chief follow so that we had wheels while there
and he wanted to go since he was on the original truck commitee, well
last thursday night he backed out.
The current chief and I took the truck, 4guys supplied us with a
truck while we were there, the truck was stripped of gear sunday
morning and we were on the road by 1pm. arrived there at 7:30 pm.
The repairs that were done was they rewelded (tig welding) the entire
tank, the tank is 304 stainless, they used 308 filler rods while
welding, after the welding (2 guys 6 hours) they used a pickling paste
on the welds, I questioned why the entire bottom wasnt being pickled as
I had the process explained to me, the workers said the only thing that
gets pickled is the welds.
We drafted out of the pond to fill the tank to leave it set over
night. They put us up at a local holiday inn for the night. what a
place that was, room reconstruction right in the next room till 1:30am.
I drag myself outa the sack at 6 am look outside and the parking lot
is a solid sheet of ice! great just what we need to travel in for 360
miles! quick showers and off to the plant by 6:30, we get there and one
of the guys is crawling out from under the truck with the undercoating
gun, I wasnt happy because I wanted to video tape the bottom of the
tank before it got coated. but it didnt leak during the night (not that
I would count that as the 100% cure all analasis)
We met with Mr. Albright and hed him draft a work order letter, and
when I got to the pickling process part of the letter I said well
everything looks fine except for this statement that the "entire bottom
of the tank was pickled" and I want it changed to read only the welded
areas were treated.
Once that was done we signed all the paperwork and we headed for
home by 8:30, by the time we left it was snowing and sleeting, the only
nice roads we had was the pennsy turnpike and I80 total distance of
those 2 roads that we travelled was about 50 miles, other than that it
was 30-40 mph the whole way home.
I will have to say that those bench seats are NOT made for an
extended trip, it took us almost 9 hours to get home. I do know one
thing we have bought our last stainless tank, from here on out its
poly or fiberglass! while talking to some of the workers there they
said that out of all the trucks they built last year only 3 were
spec'ed with stainless tanks.
One thing we noticed while there is the work ethics of those workers
NOBODY and I mean NOBODY stood around doing nothing for any period of
time! the break bell rang at 9am, the guys dropped what they were doing
imediately and everyone took a 15 minute break, when that bell rang
again it was back to work. when the lunch bell rang I jumped up on the
tailboard of our truck to avoid the stampede.
Those guys dont screw around there, monday morning they were using a
large metal break bending stainless, and by 3pm they (5 people) had a
complete back assembly for a HME truck done! all that needed to be done
was to back the truck in and put the back on it!
It was quite a trip, I just wish it was a prepaint inspection
instead of a warrenty repair trip. we did gain some good ideas for the
new rescue we are spec'ing out now.
if there are any more leaks I will let ya'all know what happens, at
this time I would suggest that anyone that has a stainless tank to
inquire with the manufacturer about any tech advisories that they have
on the stainless tanks.
Lee
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