On an E-ONE production line in early September, someone in the cab of a fire truck smelled burning plastic. The cause was a power busbar that was loose or disconnected because it had not been riveted correctly, and it has now led to NHTSA campaign 26V652000, covering 301 new E-ONE fire apparatus. The affected trucks are 2024 to 2026 Typhoon N, 2025 to 2026 Cyclone N and 2026 Cyclone II models.
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Fire apparatus is built to arrive at emergencies, which makes an electrical heat source in the cab a pointed defect. E-ONE, part of REV Fire Group, told NHTSA that the busbar attached to the wire harness may overheat, creating thermal burn and fire hazards with potential for property damage and personal injury. The company’s filing says the only warning an occupant would have is the smell of burning plastic in the cab.
A busbar that was not riveted correctly
The part at the center of E-ONE’s Part 573 report is a busbar in the truck’s RTMR module, part numbers 577-7974 and 15305-5-0-6C, made by Bussmann S. de R.L. de C.V., an Eaton company in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and supplied as a tier-one component. The filing says the positive power supply busbar is “loose or disconnected because it was not riveted correctly.” NHTSA’s summary of the defect, in the campaign record, is that the positive power supply may be loose, causing the wiring harness and busbar to overheat.
The filing counts every one of the 301 trucks as affected, and it breaks them down by model and year. There are 170 model-year 2026 Typhoon N units, 67 Cyclone N and 4 Cyclone II from the same year, 40 Typhoon N and 19 Cyclone N from 2025, and a single 2024 Typhoon N. Build dates for the 2025 and 2026 trucks run from October 31, 2025 to September 29, 2026, so the affected population includes trucks that were still being built when the problem was found. The single 2024 Typhoon N has a longer window in the same report, beginning October 31, 2024. The filing describes an in-plant discovery rather than a customer report, and it says that the harnesses already in the plant’s inventory were pulled from use under red tags on September 24 while trucks were being completed.
The physics of the failure are ordinary. A busbar is a solid metal strip that carries heavy current to several circuits, and when the connection that feeds it is not seated, electrical resistance at the joint rises, which turns current into heat at exactly the point where the wiring harness is attached. E-ONE’s report ties the loose connection to the riveting step, not to a design flaw, and about 80 percent of the trucks, 241 of the 301, are from the 2026 model year, so the problem was concentrated in recent production.
From a smell in the cab to a recall in 28 days
Nothing in the report points to a field failure. The defect surfaced inside the plant, and E-ONE says in its chronology that on September 8, 2026 it found the burning-plastic smell in the cab of a truck still in production and traced it to the busbar. The next day it contacted the busbar manufacturer, which opened its own investigation. The supplier came back to E-ONE with a cause for the overheating on September 23, and on September 24 E-ONE listed the affected harnesses and trucks and red-tagged harnesses in inventory and in production.
The Product Performance Team reviewed the findings on October 5 and recommended a recall, and E-ONE submitted the filing on October 6. That puts the interval from the first smell to the filing at 28 days. The report does not mention warranty claims, and it describes no fires, injuries or crashes; the campaign was opened on the strength of an in-plant discovery. NHTSA’s recall dataset for reports received September 29 through October 7 carries the entry, and the agency’s acknowledgment letter, which can be read as the filed notice to E-ONE, repeats the defect and risk wording.
A replacement harness and a different manufacturer’s busbar
The fix is not a re-torque. E-ONE will provide a replacement wiring harness with busbar at no charge, and the replacement part carries a different E-ONE part number and uses a busbar from a different manufacturer than the one at fault. The estimated repair time is two hours per truck. The filing says replacement harnesses will be installed once they are received, and it lists a general reimbursement plan on file for owners who paid for related work.
The schedule differs between documents. NHTSA’s record and the acknowledgment letter say owner notification letters are expected to be mailed October 20, 2026. The Part 573 report puts dealer notification at October 20 to 30 and owner notification at October 30 to November 10, with the recall phased. The report leaves the VIN lookup date unspecified, though the NHTSA recall page for 26V652 is where the campaign is listed by number.
For a department, the practical contact is E-ONE customer service at 1-352-237-1122, the number given in both the campaign record and the acknowledgment letter. The letter itself tells owners only that they may contact E-ONE or the NHTSA Vehicle Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236; it gives no instruction to remove a truck from service or to visit a dealer first.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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