For those of you wondering why we didn't have a story for the Tower last week is due to the repainting process I mentioned before. This week we have the Chassis repainted back to the right color of; not black or not even red but yellow. The components like the engine, transmission and driveline have all been placed back on the chassis. The wiring for the cab has been all but completed, the emergency lights have been installed and should be mounted on the chassis this week. Construction for the Stainless Steel body has begun and the two "halves" of each side are about complete or are completed. Next is paint for the body.

Now generally speaking there are two different types of materials that usually go into the makeup of the cab and body; Aluminum or Stainless Steel. Aluminum while light weight and just as strong as your everyday vehicle, has to go through some of the same crash and rollover testing you would see on your personal car, is sometimes prone to corrosion and flexing but for the most part is pretty reliable today. Today you can even get a special ECOating that will help stave off most corrosion issues but is fairly recent to the fire service. Most cabs on fire department apparatus these days are constructed with Aluminum but there are still a few that you can buy as Stainless Steel cab like Truck-3 which is a Seagrave. The Body's or compartment sections of the trucks can be produced with Aluminum or Stainless however, it is common place that most 8-15 year service life vehicles have aluminum bodies and units over 15 years of service life have stainless Now Stainless Steel is extremely durable and not nearly as prone to corrosion, is heavy and painting on Stainless Steel is somewhat tricky as it doesn't "take to paint" like aluminum or steel. Advancements in Stainless Steel have made it what was generally know as significantly heavier to not be as known for its weight. The Tower-9 Committee has chosen a stainless steel body as service life is expected for at least 20 years and what was once significantly heavier is now only 800lbs more than the aluminum body.

Please stay tuned...