Garbage truck or fire truck for expedition camper platform?

[juha_teuvonnen]

Tatras and MANs are all cool rigs, but not exactly cheap and spares are probably not easy to get. How about our very own fire trucks and garbage trucks? Just to name a few:

Volvo WXLL64
KME fire truck chassis
HME fire truck chassis
Pierce
Seagrave
Mack

I have seen some of the above sold on various surplus auctions for the price of a new family sedan. Throw a nice camper (for example a used 18-22ft 5th wheel) on top of one of these rigs, and you got yourself an expedition vehicle for way less than 100 grand.

[kerry]

Are you chassis you mention 4wd? For an expedition vehicle a major issue is parts availability. Are parts for those chassis available worldwide?

[juha_teuvonnen]

Most of the above vehicles are available in 6x6 or 4x4 form. As for parts - most of the above use the engines, axles, transmissions from the same bin (International, CAT, Detroit diesel, ZF, Allison, etc.). So long as parts for commercial trucks are available, you can repair the vehicle. Besides, my travel plans include North America, Europe and Russia for now. I am pretty sure that I can get commercial truck parts in any of these countries.

[Overland Hadley]

There was a fire truck for sale here in town, I took one look at it and thought it would make a good platform for an expedition vehicle. Not sure how old it was but it sold for about $2,500. Thats less than a lot of mountain bikes!

[kerry]

There was a pretty well known fire truck conversion (airport rescue vehicle?) that was sold at auction for a very good price in the recent past. I think I saw a thread here on it. It was set up for wheelchair use as I recall. Quite an impressive vehicle. I'm sure someone here will remember it's name so you can google it.

[Lynn]

Draco.

[haven]

The Oskkosh HEMTT 8x8 with two sets of steerable front wheels is used as a crash truck at some big airports. Production these days is mostly painted desert tan and sent to Iraq.

http://www.oshkoshdefense.com/defens...ts~a3~home.cfm

[Lynn]

Aren't the HEMTT and 8x8 fire trucks based on the 12'-wide MAN KAT, that requires special permits and escorts in a lot of places? Check this thread.

[juha_teuvonnen]

Aren't the HEMTT and 8x8 fire trucks based on the 12'-wide MAN KAT, that requires special permits and escorts in a lot of places? Check this thread.

May be airport fire trucks are, but regular fire trucks are under 109 inches wide, at least in the lovely state of California.

Per this http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/hmett.htm

HEMTT is 94" wide. I don't know how trustworthy is fas.org

If not for width, Russian Maz-543A would make for a really sweet expedition camper chassis (it is my personal favorite), but the sucker is 120" wide. I have seen it in action (9k58 300mm MRLS), and it was scary.

[charlieaarons]

Aren't the HEMTT and 8x8 fire trucks based on the 12'-wide MAN KAT, that requires special permits and escorts in a lot of places? Check this thread.

The wide KAT is 2.9m wide = 114" = 9'6". Not 12'.

Charlie