Bryan Besler
Chad Spangler has plenty of capacity on his new truck
Chad Spangler’s latest service truck has reduced the time and miles it takes for him to get to work sites.
“My old truck was a single-axle with a shorter service body, and I couldn’t get enough of my tools’ weight on the front axle to keep it legal,” says the 50-year-old service manager for Central Service and Supply, of Des Moines, Iowa. “Sometimes I had to take the long way to get to a job site because I had so much weight on the rear axle. The GVW on my new truck is 53,000 pounds, and it’s got enough axles and is long enough so I can distribute all my tools and equipment and keep the truck’s axle-weight legal.”
Central Service and Supply sells and services mine and quarry equipment, from massive pumps to rock crushers. Spangler’s bosses allowed him to spec his new truck to meet the demands of that rugged work.
He chose a 2018 Kenworth powered by a 9.0-liter PX9 Paccar engine ahead of an Allison six-speed automatic transmission. An 18-foot-long service body from Summit Truck Bodies, with an extended 32-inch by eight-foot work deck on the back end, houses his tools.
Bryan Besler
Truck features an 18-foot Summit body
“The top (of the work deck) is 3/8-inch steel plate with a two-inch lip across the back,” says Spangler. “The lip lets me C-clamp or Vise-Grip stuff to that edge. My last truck had the work deck coated with spray-on bed liner, but this one is painted. I was always worried about cutting or welding around the spray-on bed liner, so this time I went with paint.”
A 14,000-pound-capacity Summit hydraulic crane that stretches to 29 feet gives Spangler both capacity and freedom of movement.
“With the four hydraulic outriggers extended and the crane at its base length, I can pick up
Bryan Besler
14,000-pound capacity crane can boom out 29 feet. Four hydraulic outriggers ensure crane stability.
14,000 pounds beside the passenger door and swing it all the way around to the driver’s door,” he says. “I work on a lot of Metso (rock) crushing equipment, big stuff, so I can still max-out the crane, but it’s way stronger and more useful than any other truck-mounted crane I’ve used.”
A VMAC PredatAir 60 rotary-screw air compressor, hydraulically driven by the truck’s power takeoff, provides enough compressed air so Spangler can run his one-inch-drive pneumatic impact wrench nonstop. A Miller 302 welder/generator powered by a diesel Kubota engine nestles on a slide-out table in a special compartment behind the cab on the passenger side.
Almost every compartment in the service body is outfitted with Summit drawer packs, though slide-out bolt bins, a 6,000-watt inverter, and battery chargers for an arsenal of battery-powered tools occupy portions of compartments on the passenger side.
“I haven’t had to change or add much because Justin Sonderegger, (Summit Truck Bodies
Bryan Besler
Summit drawer packs occupy almost every compartment
salesman) and I spent a lot of time getting it like I wanted it,” says Spangler. “I went down there to get the basic design going, and then we sent drawings back and forth to fine-tune things. I wanted specific things in specific places, like the lights.”
Working in underground mines or on emergency repairs at night requires lots of artificial illumination. LED light bars top of the service body provide so much out-facing light that, “…when you’re walking toward the truck, you have to look down at the ground,” says Spangler.
With illumination so well taken care of, Spangler enjoys working in underground mines, especially in mid-winter and mid-summer.
“If it’s -23 in the winter and they call with a job down in a mine, I’m like, ‘How soon do you want me there?’” he says. “It’s always around 60 degrees in a mine. You just have to follow all the rules. MSHA (Mine Safety Health Administration) is five times as strict as OSHA. They can inspect any piece of equipment on the mine’s property, whether the mine owns it or not. If they find violation in my truck, even something as simple as a mushroomed head on a cold chisel, the citation goes against me and my company, not the mine. They can even cite you for having your lunch box loose on the floor of the cab — it has to be strapped down.”
Fortunately, with so much well-organized storage on his truck, inspections are no longer a concern. And thanks to the longer wheelbase and extra axle, he no longer has to take “the long way” to get to job sites.
— Dan Anderson
Dan Anderson is a part-time freelance writer and full-time heavy equipment mechanic with more than 20 years of experience working out of service trucks. He is based in Bouton, Iowa.