Service Truck Magazine “Spec My Truck” December 2024 / January 2025
Service Truck Magazine “Spec My Truck” December 2024 / January 2025
Service Truck Magazine “Spec My Truck” December 2024 / January 2025
Service Truck Magazine “Spec My Truck” December 2024 / January 2025
The name for Black Sheep Heavy Duty, a heavy-equipment repair business located 47 kilometers (29.2 miles) east of Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, it was suggested by Brian Roberts’ wife and business partner, Stacey.
“She wanted a name that was a little different,” said the 47-year-old, “something that would stick in people’s minds. Plus, she said we are black sheep, so that’s what we named the company.”
One of Roberts’ earliest memories is of getting showered with a welder or grinder sparks when he was around five years old, helping his dad in the farm’s shop.
“I lived in that shop,” he recalled to Service Truck Magazine. “If Dad was in the shop, I was right beside him.”
The wide range of hands-on experience learned on the family farm was supplemented with an eventual Red Seal Journeyman endorsement in addition to his trade school certificate. Roberts then slowly progressed through a series of jobs as a technician, salesman, and manager for Deere, Volvo, and Cat dealerships.
“They were all good training for when we started Black Sheep in 2020,” Roberts noted. “It was just me, Stacey, and one old, worn-out service truck. [The business has grown] until we now have a parts guy, a yard guy, a salesman, and techs working out of six trucks.
“Most of us are escapees from John Deere dealerships,” he laughed, “so we work on a lot of ag equipment, but we do a lot of Cat and Komatsu as well. If it’s broke, we can fix it.
”The growth of Black Sheep Heavy Duty led, in 2022, to Roberts ordering their first custom-built service truck and a second custom truck in late-2024.
Both trucks are comfortable situated upon a Western Star chassis and sport custom aluminium service bodies from Brutus Truck Bodies of Penticton, British Columbia, Canada.
“The new one is a 2024 Model 47X Western Star with an X12 Cummins and a 6-speed Allison transmission,” he explained with a smile.
“I like Brutus’ aluminium bodies because they’re light but durable, and they don’t rot out around the wheel wells and bottoms of the compartments due to all the road salt they use up here.
”Roberts pointed out that the Western Star cab sports a sleeper and comes with a custom access door situated over on the passenger side.
“The sleeper isn’t for overnight sleeping as much as it is for the storage of winter clothes and all the stuff you don’t want to clutter up the service body compartments,” he acknowledged.
“We double-seat the trucks because we use apprentices, and we added the extra door on the passenger side so they can access their clothes and stuff from the ground,” he said.
Roberts said they experimented with seven-foot-high compartments on both sides of his 2022 service truck but opted for a different design on the 2024 truck. It has seven-foot-high front compartments but shorter compartments on the rear.
“When you put a 12,000-pound-capac- ity Cobra crane on top of the seven-foot- high compartments and then fill those compartments with tools,” he said, “it feels top-heavy going down the road. Mounting the crane on the shorter cabinets makes the truck more stable.
”Another custom feature on the new truck is a Miller EnPak mounted in the front passenger-side compartment.
The EnPak is an all-in-one unit that provides a welder/generator, air compressor, and hydraulic pump to power the crane and hydraulic accessories. And, noted Roberts, when the compartment’s double doors are opened, the EnPak can easily slides out on rails to keep its engine cool and disperse exhaust fumes.
“The EnPak is great because it reduces problems from idling the engine for long periods to run a PTO drive,” Roberts stat- ed. “I’m trying to get more life out of the EnPak by keeping it out of the weather and away from road salt.”
The two front left compartments hold Brutus Signature Series drawer sets. To complement the metallic black paint of the truck and service body, Roberts had Brutus paint the drawer sets John Deere green.
“It was sort of cheeky,” he admitted to the magazine, “but the bright green really offsets the black truck.”
Twin-lens LED lights are another unique feature of the new truck. The lens of each LED light pod has two facets, each angled away from the center.
“That spreads the light out a lot more than a lens that just points straight ahead,” explained Roberts. “I also had them install a full set of LED lights on the bottom of the service body. With lights mounted on the bottom, you can see where you’re walk- ing and find sockets you dropped.”
Roberts’ attention to detail includes Heatso-brand Espar heaters in the cab and front left compartments.
“The engine heater keeps the engine warm when you’re someplace you can’t plug it in overnight,” he said.
“The compartment heaters keep the tools from being so frigid to handle and keep the WD-40, Loctite, and other liquids flowable when it’s -20°C (-4°F).”