Efficiency-Driven Service Truck for Aggregate Machinery Repairs

lonetrack

Lonetrack Equipment specializes in main- taining and repairing large-scale aggregate handling machinery from their base in Aldergrove, British Columbia (BC), Cana- da. The company’s strategy for outfitting its service trucks is simple enough: consistency.

“All our trucks are set up pretty much the same,” explained Marcel Chapman, the Service Foreman for Lonetrack. “We’ve figured out what helps our techs do their jobs efficiently, and just keep adding trucks that fit that mold.

”Lonetrack’s newest service truck is a good example. Chapman and company owner Hugh Porter started with a 2022 Ford cab-and-a-half F750 equipped with a 6.7L PowerStroke diesel driving a Torq- Shift 10-speed automatic transmission.An oversized step-style fuel tank under the driver’s door provides an extended operating range.

Work Trucks West (WTW) in Langley, BC, installed a 14-foot-long WTW service body onto that chassis, with a left-side mounted 11,000-pound-capacity Cobra hydraulic crane.

“We’ve had really good luck with Work Trucks West service bodies,” Chapman noted, “so we keep going back to them.

“They mount their cranes on the left rear corner—our guys are used to it, so we have never even considered a crane mount- ed on the right side.

”A H60 hydraulically-powered rotary screw air compressor from VMAC sits atop the right rear cabinet and feeds a 30-gallon air supply tank mounted ahead of it. The cabinet-mounted compressor was cho-sen for ease of maintenance instead of an engine-mounted or under-body unit.

“There’s not a lot of maintenance or repairs to the VMAC air compressors,” extolled Chapman, “but when you need to do something, it’s nice to have it right out in the open.”The Work Truck West body is equipped with eight-drawer sets of American Eagle drawers in the two front compartments behind the cab on the driver’s side andtwo-drawer American Eagle units in the cabinets over the rear wheels. The doors on the compartments over the rear wheels are hinged at the top, providing a weather shade when opened.A heavy-duty bumper has a full-width storage compartment beneath a reinforced, extra-width work surface.

Work Truck West mounted a six-inch vise horizontally off the right rear corner of the work deck to keep it at a comfortable working height compared to vises mounted vertically out of the work deck.

The vise travels with a WTW-provided cloth cover that, explained Chapman, is used “to reduce the time we have to spend taking the vise apart every month to clean out the dust, so it works right.

Special slide-out racks in two right-side compartments provide access to a Lincoln Ranger MPX engine-powered welder/ generator as well as oxygen/acetylene torch bottles.

“We don’t like having the welder mount- ed on top of the cabinets, exposed to the weather,” he said. “But we didn’t want the welder running inside an enclosed cabinet.“Work Trucks West built a special frame that slides out when you need to run the welder’s engine. It’s got cable reels mounted on that frame, so everything slides out at once. That sliding frame also makes it eas- ier to do oil changes and maintenance on the welder.

”A similar slide-out frame in the “gas” compartment makes oxygen and acetylene bottles, along with their regulators and sup- plies, easy to access.

“It’s definitely easier to load and unload gas bottles with that frame slide-out com- pared to wrestling them up inside a com- partment,” commented Chapman. “And it’s easier to use and adjust the torch when you can slide it out.

”The center bay of the service body has vertically hinged doors at the rear and a front-sliding metal top cover to keep snow, rain, and dust off of tools and equipment parts stored there.

An E-track system on the inner sides of the cabinets helps tie down large objects, and WTW provided a tidy chain rack on the left rear inside wall of the center bay to store chains, chain binders, and tackle.Work Trucks West also installed a full complement of LED floodlights to provide nighttime illumination.

A chromed exhaust stack behind the right rear corner of the cab keeps annoying exhaust fumes away from workers when the truck sits with the engine idling to power hydraulic functions.

“We also like the way the exhaust stack looks,” admitted Chapman with a smile. “We like having good-looking service trucks. The techs take pride in them, and it reflects well on our business.

”Lonetrack’s attention to detail in the way they order their service trucks has roots in the company’s 30 years they’ve been servicing their British Columbia market.

“Field repairs can be a challenge,” said Hugh Porter, the owner of Lonetrack, “but we’ve proven that the right service truck makes them easier.”