Transporting an old fire truck

Well, against my better judgement I went ahead and drove the #### thing. 205 miles to be exact.
For those curious, it was a 1987 Spartan. 6v92 Detroit with an Allison automatic transmission. Top speed of about 62 mph.
The first 75 or so miles went great. No issues whatsoever. Then once I got on 86 and really got rolling, it overheated. Pulled over to discover a nest of some kind in front of the radiator, which is in the middle of the truck, under a big engine cover. We cleaned it out the best we could, added some coolant and pressed on. How that was missed when it was supposedly serviced is beyond me. But I digress.

Get another 40 miles and the real fun began.

Climbing a hill, I noticed it seemed to be missing a bit, and smoking more than it had been. Naturally I figured fuel filters. So we found a parts store and changed them. Ran great until about 10 miles before our exit. Then it got really sluggish. So we pulled into a truck stop, unscrewed the fuel filters and they were half empty, so I get to looking and found a water separator, which I assumed was also blocked up. Wanted to bypass it, but it was already 3 pm in Nowhere, PA. Figured finding the fittings would be a challenge. So, we pressed on. Every five miles or so we'd pull over, shut the truck off, wait a few minutes and restart and go again.

Finally we make it to the last 2 miles to his house, which is on top of a mountain. We figured the last hill would be the nail in the coffin for this thing. So we hooked his pickup to it and tested out his shiny new transmission. I was surprised at how well it pulled. But we made it.
12 hours to go 205 miles, two gallons of antifreeze, fuel filters and a lot of choice words but we made it.

Oh and I almost forgot, the driver's side spot mirror was shattered, with pieces of very pointy glass sticking out. I managed to run my finger into said glass and slice it down to the bone. I did that at 65 mph while the engine was trying to die. Lucky I had a somewhat clean grease rag beside me. Still, it looked like a crime scene. Got that cleaned and patched up later at his house.

All in all, it was a fun adventure that I hope to never do again.

 

Lights were disconnected. Siren had been removed

 

I wish I would've thought of that. Might've added some more fun to the adventure