My New/Old Toy a 1962 International 190 Series Fire Truck!

Great find!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why not restore it and sell it to some rich collector?

Looks like it wouldn't take too much work. And you are a man of leisure now, right?

Yeah, either a collector, or a Hollywood studio for use in movies.....................hell, they might pay $100,000 for it............as is.

I'd do some web searching and make a few calls before I started tearing it apart.

These guys might know.

Cool truck!!!

If you can find someone who will pay that much or even half way close to that I will happily pay you a 15 - 20% cash reward for your efforts!

Seriously an unmarked box with $100 bills inside would show up at your house sortly after I got paid. I actualy do that sort of stuff and have always done that for anyone who makes me easy money on a sale!

Way cool "toy".

A little bit of fettling and she'd make a handy truck.

May I suggest you do a LPG/dual fuel conversion. Most of the IH ACCO's here in Oz that had these motors, were so fitted it's not that difficult and if your going to keep it long term then it will save you in running costs.

Dont knock "commonality" of parts, beats the heck out of unobtanium...

I have thought about it and I do have LPG dual fuel units that can handle an engine that big but to be honest its not likely going to see that much road use.

Mainly at a dismal 7:1 compression ratio the 549 international would be horrible on propane and I am not sure if I could or if it would be worth having the heads and intake milled down far enough to get it up to a more practical 9:1 or better range for what little I will ever use it for.

Really being that it gets around 6 - 7 MPG now, its still about as fuel efficient as my 99 F 250 is when pulling a trailer anyway, the odds are its average fuel economy will probably be more like our old 1959 international dump truck which gets about the same fuel economy empty at 10,000 pounds as it does loaded to over 25,000 pounds. My old 1/2 ton 1952 International L110 pickup with the drive train out of a 3/4 ton R series truck is the same way too. Empty or loaded it never seemed to have much effect on its fuel use either.

Hey there tc,

Nice looking ride.

Would make for a neat flatbed but as kram inferred, there's gotta be a market for something like this.............no?

Very nice shape for a 49 year old vehicle.

Was the siren still attached/working?

Check with mechanics, but to my memory, that V8 just might time to cylinder #8.

I have been a international truck and farm machine fan most of my life so I am aware of some of their odd design peculiarity's.

That and the somewhat bazaar way they had of making so many their truck and pickup engine parts interchangeable with many of the IHC farm and industrial machine engines!

Wow, and it's a runner.
I'm jealous... mind I wouldn't have the room for it.
mmmm drifts off into fantasies of rescuing very grateful damsels from upstairs windows.
Did you get the firemans outfit too
Del

My opinion based on experience is the fire truck is more valuable as a fire truck and you should consider keeping it as is and puting it up for sale as they have many special interest customers. RE: the 1999 Ford Diesel I suggest you get an Edge Programmer and install. My 2003 7.3 went from 11 mpg imperial to 19.5 mpg and I even experienced a whopping power increase. What ever they do at the factory is not compatible with fuel economy.

My 99 is a V10 gas engine and I already have a programmer on it. Normally I run it on propane but the trip from where I got the truck did not have a fuel station that was open that day that could fill my propane tank so we gassed it home that time.

As far as propane goes it would have made that trip and still got around 9 - 10 MPG but at least around here propane cost about half what gasoline does!

Well for you guys who think this may be worth something I did some quick online searching and found that trucks of my vintage and design are typically going for around $2000 - $6000 at best so unless this is some highly unique truck its not worth me selling it as it sits.

Sorry but at that price plus what little I did to get it its worth more to me to convert it to a flatbed truck to use around the farm.

OK.

Please post pictures as you go along.

Yeah, I did some looking around too.

So much for my package of 100 dollar bills.

Still it would make a stylish flatbed

Whats odd is I have never liked the cab over design of trucks but for some weird reason when I saw this one it just seemed right to me. Maybe its because the driver sits lower on this or because of the unusually large interior of the cab. I could easily fit a nice full length single bed behind the seats in this thing!

If you are retired it would be cool if you were to fit seat belts on the back and take it to schools and hospitals and give some kids a ride round the block.

Unfortunatly I am only 37.

Still got me my own fire truck though!

Nice looking truck. When Ford introduced the C series cab over design, the IH became less popular. If I remember correctly the engine series that was timed on #8 was the 304,345,392 series. The harmonic balencer on them was cut away where the TDC mark would be visable. In my experience with these older big dogs, Spark and fuel metering could stand improvement. Petrobnisc and a few others make easy to install electronics conversions that would help marginal fuel mixtures. Make sure the vac advance still works. It helps drivability a lot. If heavy loading and steep hill climbing are not in its future, take a few more degrees of advance. I remember that engine using a Holly carberator that had half of it hung above the air inlet. The carb was used on some 1975 busses we had for the library division. They still sucked then. Watch for accelerator pump travel and leakage. The top of the carb used to come loose for some reason. If you are going to be the only driver of it, It may be practical to fabricate an adaptor to use a late model Holley, and give up the govenor system on it, or use an aftermarket govenor as part of the ignition upgrade.

Air cleaner appears to be a large paper design. The oil bath designs we had on the older trucks leaked all over everything.

That alternator appears to be a 100 amp Motorola design with remote diodes. There are cheaper and better designs that should bolt up to your mounts if that fails. But, they are reliable if all the connections remain tight.

Does the pump still work? spaamfaa Is a great orginazation. If there are any members near you, try to get one of their members to look at your truck. In the normal design of these trucks, the power to the rear end is interupted by a water pump transmission, and sends power either to the rear differential, or the water pump. In doing this, they almost always eliminate one hanger bearing. Removing the water pump requires reinstalling this hangfer bearing, and making up a new set of driveshafte. One other thing, the parking-emergancy brake would have been moved from the back of the transmission, to the back of the water pump transmission. Unless the truck was air brake equipped, which would have been rare on this early a truck.

Speaking of brakes. If this is hydraulic braking with vacuum booster, the booster and wheel cylinders are a high maintenance. Drain and flush the fluid yearly with low moisture absorbing brake fluid.

The water tanks on these trucks were made out of steel . And they never lasted long. You might be able to remove the tank and bodywork behind the pump panel quite easily, and build your flat bed a little shorter, while allowing the pump system to remain functional. All you would need to do is to cap off the large pipe coming out of the bottom of the tank somewhere neer the tank valve. There is also a smaller pipe that is used to fill the tank. This would be smaller, about one to one and a half inches in size, and closer to the top of the tank. This also can be capped off with a pipe cap. Might be handy to have a mobil water pump of that size.

Would those storage compartments add to the usefullness of the truck you want or detract from it.

If you pull the serial number of the truck off of it and contact spaamfaa. they may be able to shed some mor light on the history of your find. Other sorces of information about it is the truck manufacturer, and the water pump manufacturer. Both of these should have history information about who did what to your truck, and when.

Most of all enjoy your new toy. But don't throw anything away. These are hard to find, and every old fireman wants to have a nice old truck just like you do. Things that are just in your way become hard to fine when they are out of production.

Thanks Bob!

I am quite familiar with retrofitting more modern and more easily worked on carbs, Eidelbrocks are my preference, onto odd engines along with updating ignition systems to electronic ones. Same with retrofitting newer higher output alternators onto old equipment as well.

I had not thought about keeping the pump in the flatbed conversion but if I can make it fit I might just do that being it would save me the time and effort of making a new driveshaft and hanger assy! As far as the storage compartments go I did plan on cutting them out in ways that would make it possible to refit some of them under the flatbed it self so in a way they will get recycled into the newer design where I can make them work.

Not all of it will go to scrap and I am more than open to other possible ideas of course being this wont likely get done until next spring now.

Once your weather is shirt sleeve appropriate, I will become available for private consultations. (The area in your pictures looks great)

I think you should consider keeping it as a fire engine. I dislike making flatbed conversions since a lot of fire apparatus are lost that way. Check out SPAAMFAA (Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of Antique Motor Fire Apparatus in America). They have a website at www.spaamfaa.org. There is a for sale section on the website that you might want to use. There is also a list of Chapters on the website so you can see if there is one near you. But there may be members anywhere, not necessarily near the chapters. There are also several Yahoo Groups that are for some facet of the fire apparatus hobby. I can provide more information if you want it.

If you insist on making it a flatbed, check out ATHS (American Truck Historical Society.)