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Have you fit the ladder in there? I would bet they didn't worry too much about it banging side to side. The locking rod looks to be spring loaded on the bottom. I was thinking that maybe there was a hole at the top and bottom and the spring kept it in place. But I would bet it attached at the top. It would be too easy to lose the piece at a fire if it wasn't attached.
How long have you had that top picture? Seeing the rails reminded me of the discussions we had on yours being bent. I know at one time you pondered whether you should leave them bent or straighten them.
Joe, I stuck the ladder in there once a few years ago and I don't remember how it fit. I see what you are saying about the locking rod. I have had that picture for years. Its not my truck as I don't have any original pictures of the back. I did get them straightened as you can see and I'm glad I decided to do it.
Hey Keith, that ladder is about 2.5-3 hours from me. I could get it for you if the guy still has it and store it until you find a shipper.
Thanks for the offer Ilya but I wouldn't want to have you drive that far plus I think its a bit pricy. I'm going to keep looking. If you ever run across a set please let me know!
Keith, I know your truck is a historical representation, but for what it's worth, let me share the following info with you. My father was a commercial roofer (worked primarily on commercial bldgs) in Buffalo NY for 40 years. In NYS at least it was illegal to paint or varnish a wood ladder in commercial use. This law my father told me was because any finish could easily hide a hairline crack, and the finish would "burn" (blister) their hands from friction in use. He was quite adept at doing the "fireman's slide" as he called it where he would slide down the ladder by holding the outside of the side rails and pressing his feet against them to control his speed. This would have been impossible to do if the ladder had any type of finish applied. The blistering issue was also the reason no finish was applied to wood tool handles. I remember a couple times when he bought a new hammer or hatchet and scraped all the finish off the handle with a piece of broken glass.
I would think the same rule would apply (?) to wood fire ladders, pike and axe handles etc., especially since the varnish of the day would soften and get sticky/melt at fairly low temperatures, and is flammable. If this was the case with fire ladders, and you left yours unfinished I might be an interesting talking point when showing the engine off?
Good point Chuck. I never thought of that and it makes a lot of sense. I am going to check with some friends that have restored ladders on their rigs and see what they did. Maybe they were just oiled them with linseed oil. Some departments like San Fransisco still use wood ladders. I saw a TV show where they were making them in their shop. The Patrol ladders were not used for firefighting but rather after the fire was out and they were repairing the roofs. I mainly used urethane to dress up a pretty beat up ladder. Any thoughts on how to secure them??
I found the video on the SFFD ladder shop. I was surprised to learn that they spray varnish on the rebuilt or new ladders to make it less flammable.
"Each ladder gets two coats of linseed oil, then two or three coats of marine spar varnish."
I agree with the assessment of the ladder lock rod. It looks like it has a spring loaded pin that fits into a hole in the bottom of the ladder storage area.
There's probably lots of quick and easy ways to secure the ladders in place but it would sure be neat to have the original mechanisms
Thanks Bobby ... sorry for the delay in responding to your comments. Its been hectic since the kids went back to school. Nothing new with the truck but today is Buick day! I am having the car towed to a friends shop this morning and we will be pulling the motor. Keeping my fingers crossed that it is only a ring problem in #6 cylinder. I take some pics today and post what happens later.
We didn't have to pull the motor which obviously is a good thing !
Let me try and explain what we found. My friend bumped the motor a few times and noticed the push rod in the effected cylinder head was real tight so he removed the rocker arm assembly and did a compression check which showed good compression (Rings good) Valve was being held open because of possible bad lifter . He then filled up the cylinder with air and it held pressure good. He got an adjustable push rod for #6 cylinder and then we still had good compression. We were going to leave it with the adjustable push rod but then another friend suggested swapping the lifter from another cylinder to see if the compression would change. Using all the original push rods we did that and there was a slight decrease in compression so he is thinking a bad lifter in the #6 cylinder. The thing is we had low compression in 6 then had a valve job done and still compression so what is the cause then? It looks like all the valve were ground but were they measured to all be the same height? Another cause my be a collapsed valve seat????? I have a set of lifters coming in the mail so we may swap out the bad one or maybe just the replace the one's in the effected head. I realized they will have to be broken in to the cam. Does this explanation make sense? Are we missing something? We hooked up the exhaust system, power steering and alternator and what else we could put back together.
I found a towing company that charged a flat $50 fee anywhere in the county. Cheap but I had to wait a few hours for the pickup when the car was at my buddies shop. Here are a couple of pics. You can see by my tags she has been off the road for 3 years!!
Keith,
That is a gorgeous Buick!! It very well deserves to be put back on the road.
So, what you're saying is that something is causing one of the valves in #6 cyl to stay open slightly causing the loss of compression. Did you determine if it was the intake or exhaust? you mentioned installing an adjustable pushrod, did you do that for both the valves or just one of them?
I guess what I'm asking is do you know exactly which valve is causing the problem?
Did you by chance measure the pushrod from the bad valve to a known good one? Maybe a different pushrod got mixed in during the rebuild somehow.
Did you pull the lifters? I take it they are hydraulic, can you tell if one is stuck? different, etc?
My guess would be an incorrect pushrod
I still have my fingers crossed
Wow Keith ya need to be driving that Buick. Even green it is a beautiful
car my friend. I am so glad it's nothing to serious. I just got a little
Honda hatch back thing. It's a carbed "86. So not to complicated for
(wait for It)
$200.00. Smokes worse than I do but I think it is
just valve guide seals. Runs and drives super and
everything works. And I am told like 35 or 40 MPG.
It may well be cuz it's burning as much oil as gas.
Still a bucket of bulk oil will be cheaper than the 9
MPH I get with the Bronco.
Get this. I am going to paint it up like the General Lee
off Dukes Of Hazard and call it General Wee. What ya think?
Keith,
That is a gorgeous Buick!! It very well deserves to be put back on the road.
So, what you're saying is that something is causing one of the valves in #6 cyl to stay open slightly causing the loss of compression. Did you determine if it was the intake or exhaust? you mentioned installing an adjustable pushrod, did you do that for both the valves or just one of them?
I guess what I'm asking is do you know exactly which valve is causing the problem?
Did you by chance measure the pushrod from the bad valve to a known good one? Maybe a different pushrod got mixed in during the rebuild somehow.
Did you pull the lifters? I take it they are hydraulic, can you tell if one is stuck? different, etc?
My guess would be an incorrect pushrod
I still have my fingers crossed
Bobby
Bobby, its the intake valve and I marked all of the pushrods when they were removed so they went back to their corresponding valve. We used the adjustable rod in just #6 cylinder. The lifters are hydraulic and we did remove and examine the #6 valve. Friend thought it might not be collapsing correctly(my term) or be overloaded or extended too much ... I forgot how he explained it to me. When we moved the #6 lifter to another cylinder and then tested that one with its pushrod, the compression did decrease some. Maybe there was some debris in the lifter?? Confusing part is ... was running the engine hard and lost compression in that cylinder (was hoping to find a bad valve spring) then had the valve job and with the heads reinstalled still low compression. So I dont think its a valve problem at all. What else can it be except the lifter or somehow the distance of the pushrod changed causing the valve to remain open. Could the valve seat clearance have changed (sunk) I do know now I have 130 psi in the cylinder and before we pulled the heads off it was 30 or so. I will try new lifters and give it a shot. I only have 3k on the motor so this is confusing to me. Have you heard of lifters going bad on a motor with such low mileage?
Wow Keith ya need to be driving that Buick. Even green it is a beautiful
car my friend. I am so glad it's nothing to serious. I just got a little
Honda hatch back thing. It's a carbed "86. So not to complicated for
(wait for It)
$200.00. Smokes worse than I do but I think it is
just valve guide seals. Runs and drives super and
everything works. And I am told like 35 or 40 MPG.
It may well be cuz it's burning as much oil as gas.
Still a bucket of bulk oil will be cheaper than the 9
MPH I get with the Bronco.
Get this. I am going to paint it up like the General Lee
off Dukes Of Hazard and call it General Wee. What ya think?
Thanks Rich .... green is my favorite color thats one of the reasons I bought it in 1997!! Paint the Honda like General Lee. Are you going to be doing jumps too!!
Doing Jumps? Ya should see the roads here.
Hazard County has nothing on us. Think of
about The worst washed out road ya ever saw.
And that would be half my drive to town. 37
miles takes just under 1.5 hours one way in
The summer.
