PERRY TOWNSHIP – Trustees discussed plans Monday to address ongoing issues with one of the township’s fire trucks.

As issues persist in the wake of several recent repairs to Engine 72 Fire Chief Brandon Smith, and Assistant Chief Tony Constantino updated trustees on the status of the engine’s repairs. Constantino said the engine was initially experiencing issues with the check engine light switching on and off as it came to operating temperature and has had issues with the turbocharger not functioning properly since the truck arrived. He said that O.S. Hill had installed a high-pressure oil system sensor and valve, but the issue had persisted, with further work finding that the waste gate had not been plumbed in correctly from the factory which was causing 120 pounds of pressure to the gate, preventing the truck’s turbo charger from functioning. However, even after the turbocharger was repaired the issue with the check engine light persisted.

“Last Monday we went down to O.S Hill and met with their service manager and said ‘it’s been a month, you haven’t fixed our truck and I don’t think you can, you’re going to have to hash it out with the trustees because you haven’t fixed anything at this time.’ He asked for two days of grace and said that there wouldn’t be any bill from this point forward for whatever labor they get into,” said Constantino.

“The issue he found is that it has a 504 max horse [power] engine, they only put them in fire trucks, so there’s only a handful of these engines out there. Boston had a few but they’ve been changing over to Cummins. The programming must come from [Hill] International [Trucks]. They don’t allow the dealers to do that because they don’t want people souping up their dump trucks from 265 horse to 400 so they keep a rein on that programming. Both those pieces the sensor and valve needed to be programmed.”

Constantino said that the technician had incorrectly thought the parts had been programmed, and that the service manager contacted International to send their programmer, but the issues still persisted. After reviewing the data sent from O.S. Hill to International it was determined that there was an oil leak under the valve cover from one of the six “pucks” which cover the trucks over fuel injectors.

“There’s six of them, one for every injector, and that’s what’s leaking, and the number two injector has failed,” said Constantino.

Constantino said that he contacted Alliance Motors, which previously replaced fuel injectors in the truck, and was told that issues with these “pucks” are very common, and that O.S.Hill gave a quote for the repairs of $3,318.70.

Board Chair Steve Bailey said he felt that the township should move forward with the repairs to get the truck back in service for the time being. He asked if there was a price estimate to replace the problematic motor since the rest of the truck was still in good condition. Constantino said they would need to research a price. He also said that it would likely have to be sent back to the manufacturer to do so as it was a custom-built truck and cab rather than a production model so almost all the interconnected systems would need to be replaced or reworked, save the gas tank.

Trustees ultimately voted to approve the immediate repairs by Hill International for $3,318.70, and place further discussions of a larger, long-term response on the agenda for their next meeting.

The board’s next regular meeting, which would have fallen on Memorial Day, is canceled and the board of trustees will meet next at 4 p.m. June 9.