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Jack
Flannagan’s pickup stopped being a joke when the tools and
equipment began to vanish regularly. Before that, Jack used to toss
everything into the back and, when we needed something, he would
say, with an avuncular laugh, that it was almost certainly in the
back of his pickup. He called it his treasure chest; it was chaotic,
rusting, and noisy. He lost a hammer here and there, couldn’t
find the level he could have sworn he put in the pickup, but Jack
started getting annoyed (not his actual word) when a small pump,
a masonry saw, and then a trenching attachment were missing. You
could see he thought it was one of his crew who had stolen the goods.
It wasn’t. Several insurance men told Jack that he was leaving
an open invitation to thieves on his cluttered pickup bed. And how
much did he wish to pay for that in insurance every month? “Begorra,”
declared our Jack, or words to that effect. “Perhaps we need
our own service truck, one that carries everything we need onsite.
… Something organized? … One that locks?”
The security of your
smaller equipment could be one good reason for investing in a service
truck, or a standard truck adapted to be a service truck. That portable
equipment is becoming very expensive, isn’t it? There are
several manufacturers who take the basic truck you like and turn
it into a practical, secure vehicle for use in the field. Not only
are your tools and products arranged tidily in the truck; they are
secure, too. Both productivity and pocketbook benefit.
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PHOTO: IMT |
| IMT's Dominator features a telescopic crane. |
One popular type of
service truck is the mobile lubrication vehicle, which saves your
having to go back and forth to town from a remote site for those
necessary, regular maintenance tasks. What happens too often, we
have been told, is that the service is neglected because it’s
too much trouble to take vehicles and machines away from the busy
site for lubrication and other essential maintenance. Neglecting
regular service has a consequence we all know and prefer not to
confess. Iowa Mold Tooling Co. Inc. (IMT) is one of the leaders
in design and production of mobile lubrication vehicles. Recently
it replaced its steel product tanks with polyethylene product tanks
and that gave an 80% reduction in weight; that’s more than
1,800 pounds on a 16.5-foot service body. The tanks hold a variety
of fluids, such as oil, oil salvage, antifreeze, antifreeze salvage,
and water for high-pressure washing. There are 350 different configurations
available for the tanks in this IMT service truck (called the SiteStar).
An extra recent improvement is making the vehicle’s pumping
system hydraulic with a new manifold valve pumping system to give
the user cleaner plumbing and better fluid delivery.
Another manufacturer
of several types and sizes of service trucks is Feterl. One of its
different but interesting products is the 465 K Lube Trailer, a
heavy-duty trailer with dual 3,500-pound axles and a urethane bed
liner. The trailer would be at your site as a kind of service station
to which your vehicles and machines could go with little time wasted
on travel. The towing vehicle—which could be your foreman’s
pickup—would be used for other everyday tasks, only hauling
the trailer to a new location as needed. The trailer offers three
65-gallon product tanks (with 5:1 air-powered pumps), and a 65-gallon
waste oil tank that has a 1:1 air-powered diaphragm pump. The air
compressor is gas powered and has electric start; it offers 23 cfm
at 175 psi. The reel compartment on the trailer is partially enclosed,
and there is a good array of optional equipment available, depending
on what your specific needs are for your equipment service. Note
that waste oil tank. That is something you cannot forget if you
are changing fluids at a remote site, because you must put the waste
somewhere sensible and legal.
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PHOTO: Feteri and Stellar |
| Several manufacturers have adapted the basic truck for use in the field. |
There are different
styles of lube truck available from Valew (in the business of building
truck bodies for more than 50 years now). The company’s Hydra-Lube
Transfer System is a comprehensive truck; judge for yourself what
it can accomplish for you onsite. It has a 1,500-gallon red diesel
tank and a 500-gallon clear diesel tank. There is a 125-gallon stainless
steel coolant tank, a water tank the same size and material, a 175-gallon
product oil tank, four 110-gallon oil product tanks, and a 175-gallon
reclaim tank. The hydraulic pressure washer is 3,000 psi and the
Blackmer diesel pump is high volume and hydraulically driven. Apart
from those capabilities, the Valew Hydra-Lube Transfer System has
three large storage compartments, six Tomar halogen work lights,
heavy-duty Samson hose reels, heavy-duty Samson pumps, and a Samson
50:1 grease pump. Add to that equipment a filter storage and recovery
system. It’s still a truck, but it has purposes to serve that
are specific to the owner.
Lifting Onsite
If there is one task that tends to frustrate the lone
worker at a job site, it is having to lift heavy products or equipment.
With the hundreds of attachments available today and the versatility
of multiple-use machines, one employee can handle many tasks at
one site, but it can be the lifting that becomes a problem. How
often has a lone employee wished somebody else was around to give
a hand? That is a good reason for the popularity of service trucks
with small (but surprisingly strong) cranes on them. My neighbor
Guy, who is an electrician for commercial and residential projects,
has a crane on his service truck. He doesn’t use it every
day, but he says he is so glad he has it. There have been many times
when he could not have proceeded with the work if he had not had
the crane’s strength available. It’s not always the
weight of the equipment, he tells us, but sometimes its sheer awkwardness
for one person to manage. The cranes you can acquire tend to be
electric or hydraulic. Several manufacturers point out that electric
models are less expensive but do need a powerful alternator and,
possibly, a dual-battery arrangement. Electrically powered cranes
are intended for lighter duties than hydraulic models, so your decision
may depend on how much you wish to lift and how often you need to
do it.
On the crane bodies
delivered by Knapheide, you’ll notice that there is a unique
crane support system (named the Torq-Isolator). A reinforced crane
box transfers the lift forces into the full-length torsion-box subframe
and outriggers, and not into the side compartments of the vehicle.
This is one of those areas of manufacture where the contractor himself
will probably not design and make a service truck as efficient as
those available from companies who have specialized in truck bodies
for years. It is clear from specifications of several manufacturers
that designing and mounting a crane on a truck is not something
for which we all have the right expertise. Stellar Industries also
has a torque-isolator support design for its cranes, one that isolates
the crane compartment from the rest of the side pack.
You should be wary of
using a vehicle where the body has been adjusted to accept a crane
without any consideration for the integrity of the body. The strongest
installations use a sub-frame or a configuration where the forces
of the crane are directed to outriggers and away from the main vehicle
body. Cranes are available, however, as individual items for you,
so you can add one to an existing vehicle if you get the right people
to do the installation. When you select a chassis or vehicle, you
should know beforehand what is required. Many contractors like to
purchase the chassis locally and there is absolutely nothing wrong
with that, but you should make sure that the chassis is big enough
and strong enough for what you want. Check, too, to ascertain if
features like a PTO are necessary. Will you be adding other equipment
(apart from the crane), such as air compressors or welding machines?
Anything extra adds weight and more challenges for the frame and
engine. Getting accurate information is free, so it’s not
worth ruining a good service truck for lack of a little homework.
Some contractors prefer to have the chassis and all components determined
by the manufacturer; one can see advantages to that.
Stellar has a broad
range of products including hooklift loaders, mechanic and tire
service trucks, and cranes and other truck-mounted accessories.
Stellar’s Mechanic Cranes have lifting capacities from 6,500
to 70,000 foot-pounds, with hydraulic extensions going from 15 to
28 feet. Stellar uses a hexagonal tube design for the booms, a composition
that, says this manufacturer, provides a stronger cross section
than square tubing and eliminates boom flex and side-to-side movement.
Durable proportional radio remote controls are a standard feature
with just about every Stellar model. These cranes are available
for individual ship-out or in a complete turnkey package that includes
your choice of chassis, a service crane body, and a variety of air
compressor systems and drawer configurations.
The Dominator from IMT
is described as a field service vehicle, with a telescopic crane.
The crane is better today than yesterday, with the former worm gear
rotation system replaced by a planetary rotation system. “You
have much smoother operation with a planetary rotation system,”
comments Tim Worman, IMT product specialist. “It’s just
more efficient.” The IMT telescopic cranes also have a new
radio remote control system, with digital technology that eliminates
the risk of “dropped” signals. That improvement came
from customer observations. “We recognize that our customers
can help us design and build the hardest-working equipment available,”
observes Worman. Another significant improvement has been the increase
in the amount of workspace. There is a workbench area at the rear
of the vehicle; it now offers more space, more genuine working area.
A different IMT crane body is the DSC20, rated for up to 20,000-foot-pound
cranes; it complements the Dominator models, offering a lighter,
midsize body for lighter lifting capacities than the Dominator.
With crane service bodies the goal seems to be to achieve the best
balance between lifting capacity and payload availability. Lighter
designs for cranes can reduce repair and operating costs significantly,
and it is not surprising that many contractors are asking about
cranes with less weight, no loss of lifting power, and faster line
speeds. Minutes—even seconds—count when you’re
trying to save time in the field.
The closest we came
to finding a do-it-yourself crane for your service truck was the
Spitzlift from Pickup Specialties. It weighs only 30 pounds and
offers a lifting capacity of 700 pounds. The maker says you can
install it on your pickup in less than a minute. It is built of
high-strength aluminum, rotates 360 degrees, and “does the
work of three men.” The winch has a load control disk brake
that locks and unlocks automatically for safe lifting and loading.
The Spitzlift has a folding design and will fit behind your seat
in the pickup when you don’t need it; some owners say they
use it where they used to use a wooden ramp before, to unload equipment
in the few-hundred-pounds range. In your personal use it could unload
mowers, aerators, dirt bikes, and similar awkward-to-handle travelers.
Specialist Manufacturers
You can install some modifications to a basic truck yourself,
but do you really want to? Will your finished product be as carefully
designed and safe as one bought and installed outside your yard?
We’ve mentioned some manufacturers. We’ve noticed that
manufacturers of service trucks tend to be dedicated to that sector
alone and their expertise is there, too. Names that come to mind
are Auto Crane, Reading, Feterl, IMT, Knapheide, Service Trucks
International, Adrian Steel, Stellar, Maintainer, Omaha Standard,
Sterling Trucks (L-Line), Stahl, Fibrocap, Dakota Bodies, and BrandFX.
That’s not an exhaustive list, just some of those who have
spent years perfecting their service trucks. Within the range of
“service,” they will provide lubrication and crane capabilities,
but many of them complement that with a full line of support equipment.
What do these pieces of equipment cost? A service crane on its own
ranges from $2,000 to $15,000, while a service body with a crane
will be somewhere between $20,000 and $70,000. That does not include
the chassis of your choice, nor the installation.
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PHOTO: STERLING |
| L-Line the utility service truck from Sterling. |
Service Trucks International
(STI) manufactures and markets two well-known brands: Eagle Pro
service, utility, and lube bodies and Tiger cranes and outriggers.
STI’s equipment, like most service trucks, could be called
custom built, because the company gives to a customer’s service
truck exactly the equipment and capabilities that customer defines.
Recent offerings are the Eagle Pro II model 2460 service body and
the new model 1061 Tiger crane. The 2460 body features cabinets
that are 24 inches deep and 60 inches tall, mounted low to give
the user easy access. There’s a 22-inch workbench with a 3-inch
clamping lip, vise mount, and full through-storage. The hydraulic
Tiger 1601 crane has a 62,000-foot-pound rating, 21 feet of hydraulic
reach, a line speed of 60 fpm, proportional wireless control, integrated
absolute filtration, and Auto II Speed load sensing on all functions.
From such specifications you can see that this combination of truck
and crane is the result of considerable design and engineering research
(more than you or I can do). STI and other service truck manufacturers
come as close to “thinking of everything the customer might
need” as any manufacturers in the construction equipment industry.
Among the advantages
that you might put on the perfectly designed service truck are compartments
and doors that are galvanealed for long life. On Knapheide trucks
those doors are double panel with 14-gauge outside panels and hat-section
reinforcements. The same manufacturer explains that the crane bodies
go through a 12-stage process to produce the final paint appearance,
including cleaning of the surfaces, pre-treating, electrodeposition
prime coat, rinse, and curing. Knapheide calls it the K-coat. It
assures the customer that there is a uniform and total coverage
of epoxy primer to give maximum protection against any service truck’s
daily enemy: corrosion. (The corrosion in Jack Flannagan’s
pickup was obvious enough to make us wonder why all the tools and
junk didn’t fall through the bed of the vehicle. Maybe that’s
where some of his lost equipment went?) Other manufacturers can
offer similar protection. Reading Truck Body describes a similar
system; the company calls it the Acrylic E-Coat and follows the
immersion priming process for the understructures with 10 mils of
based undercoating for additional protection. The priming and painting
are features worth asking about from your selected manufacturer.
The materials of construction
are important, too. Durability is a valuable asset for a service
truck. Tumlin & Sons in Harrison, OH, is a commercial construction
and concrete contractor who serves seven counties in Ohio, Indiana,
and Kentucky. They bought a Reading Classic Series service body
in 1983. “All we’ve had to do is replace a couple of
door handles,” says Superintendent Doug Tumlin. The durability
of the trucks is a big reason why the company has stuck with that
manufacturer. Your service truck is often a custom-built vehicle,
just for you. When P.T. Nilsen & Sons Construction Corp. purchased
an additional service body from Reading, it had the height of the
standard body increased by 5 feet for more storage capacity, and
the edge of he tailgate was wrapped in polished aluminum for protection
against scratches when loading and unloading materials. This contractor
works in a 360-square-mile area between Westchester, Putnam, and
Dutchess counties in New York. Contractors with big service areas
seem to be the most enthusiastic about owning their own service
trucks, and they gave the principal reason as the time they saved
when they had all the equipment and tools they needed at the job
site, instead of some of them being left back in the yard.
The Small Things
That Matter
I was astounded at the number of options available for
service trucks and at the details or small things that, when you
consider them from the aspect of an employee out in the field, can
be so important to a successful day at work. Manufacturers publish
details of their trucks, and searching their Web sites would be
a good start for any prospective buyer. My own first reaction was,
“I would never have thought of all those items!” You
can tell that many or most of the features have been developed as
the results of user comments. Most equipment manufacturers claim
they listen to their customers and the voices from the field. These
service body manufacturers obviously do just that. Here are some
of the features you can find on service trucks because somebody
realized how important and practical they would be:
- The interiors of
compartments may be painted white so that you can see better what
is inside.
- Door hinges can be
the bolt-on rod and bearing style: better security and easier
to replace.
- To give complete
weatherproofing, door seals can be full-perimeter, flange-mounted,
neoprene—like those on cars.
- The striker posts
on doors, the hinge pins, and bearing blocks can be stainless
steel.
- You can have what
are called “thru compartments” for the storage of
equipment like small welders and generators.
- There are many configurations
for the tailgate, depending on how you want to use it. Do you
want to be able to set your laptop somewhere flat and solid?
- You can get a locking
system that will lock all compartments on one side of the truck.
You can get a locking system that will do just about anything
you want!
- Pay attention to
the door locks and latches. They can be just as you want them.
Ask about “T-handle” locks.
- Do you want a ladder
on the truck? Choose the method of mounting that fits your business
best. Adjustable overhead? Side mounted?
- You can determine
before purchase which equipment will match the vehicle you want.
Or, start the other way ’round. Choose the equipment you
want and then decide on the best vehicle to be its chassis.
- See if you can obtain
a worksheet from a manufacturer that lets you note the options
and systems you want.
The list could be much
longer, but you understand the principles involved. First, decide
what you want your service truck to do. Then research what is available
to provide exactly what you want. There are many, many different
configurations working successfully every day.
Paul Hull writes
on construction and environmental topics for several international
magazines.
GEC
- March/April 2006 |
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