Pumper Problems Solved

A couple of weeks ago we were training with the pumper and tanker, simultaneously drafting from the drop tank and pumping from the pumper. Everything was going well in the 90 deg heat and then the pump stopped. Andy and Josh located what seemed to be a problem with the tank to pump pull lever, crawled into the pump compartment and secured the lever-valve connection. That didn't solve the problem, and then a second serious problem became evident when we attempted a pumper refill at the hydrant. The tank immediately began overflowing as we attempted to fill it.

We spent a Sunday troubleshooting the problem, examining the undercarriage while putting water in from the tanker, and it was clear that there wasn't a tank leak but rather an immediate overflow from the overflow pipe. Of course that shouldn't happen until the tank is actually full, not empty. We hypothesized that the overflow pipe had become disconnected from the bottom of the tank, and that meant we had to have access to the inside of the tank.

The following Thursday we pulled all 1500 feet of hose off the top deck. Here's what it looks like - 1500 feet of hose piled in front of the pumper in its bay:



And here's what the top deck looks like without 1500 feet of hose neatly laid out:


To make a long story short, Glenn had recalled - too late to prevent us from having to deal with all that hose - that this problem had occurred a few months ago during a refill. The passenger side panel doesn't have much on it, but it does have a teensy little pull knob faintly labelled "tank drain." You probably know where I'm going with this. That knob had been pulled out just a teensy bit, but enough to drain the tank as we had been attempting to fill it. We pushed the knob in (apparently it can't be locked in position) and everything was perfect.

So now we need to put 1500 feet of hose back on the deck, and we started that last night by getting an attack line laid back on. The rest will have to wait - we've had only two or three folks show up for training in the last two weeks, and we need a few more to help us out.