Quote:
Originally Posted by Robin Craig
There were a number of the ALVIS SALAMANDER fire fighting vehicles brought to Canada. These were the 6 wheeled machines based on the Stalwart chassis platform.
Does anyone know if one has survived anywhere in Canada?
Robin
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There was an Alvis foam fire truck in North Bay when I was stationed there is '67..
My roommate was an ME tech that worked on it and it had a peculularity on it that was annoying and erratic...
When cold..they would jump in..start it up .hit the throttle and it would idle away at zero and a quarter miles an hour..not a good thing for a fire truck to be doing....
anyway in a matter of minutes with a brutal massaging of the foot feed away it would go and tear off to the fire..and be good the rest of the day..
This would not happen every time and he finally got a call that the Alvis Rep was coming in Saturday morning and they were going to find out the problem..
Anyway I went along as "Winger Al..to make sure there was no beer drinking involved that didn't include me...
To make a long story short ..they started it up.and Marv my buddy was goosing the foot feed and this Rep was in the engine bay..a d he jumped down..Marv was just backing off and he put it in gear and it caught and nearly ran over the tech rep..
Funny as hell to see him in his spotless white coveralls rolling in the mud and oil outside the shop where they had parked it over night to make sure of a cool start..
Anyway the fix was a loose set screw on the throttle linkage that when warm would expand enough to catch and operate until it could cool down and slipped back into its evil ways..
My Alvis story for today..No Idea where it is today but may still be on the base or in the area.
