Service Truck Magazine Spec My Truck October November 2024
Service Truck Magazine Spec My Truck October November 2024
Service Truck Magazine Spec My Truck October November 2024
Service Truck Magazine Spec My Truck October November 2024
Sixty-five-year-old self-employed heavy equipment mechanic Jim Burgess has repaired machinery in the oil fields of Michigan for nearly 40 years using second-hand service trucks.
Hey! Waitasecond!—the oil fields of Michigan? Yup. Michigan has a significant oil patch smack in the middle of its lower peninsula, and Burgess has made a comfortable living repairing oil drill rigs and related equipment.
His latest service truck is a good example of his business philosophy of “good-looking but functional.
”He found the used 1997 Freightliner in the back row at a large equipment dealer.
The vehicle came equipped with an Auto Crane service body and an 800H crane from Auto Crane.
Nonplussed, Burgess brought it home and rebuilt it to his standards.
“The bottoms of the compartments were rough,” he explained to Service Truck Magazine, “which was why I re-fabricated them. The crane needed work. I reconditioned it. I replaced the original six-speed transmission with a nine-speed Eaton RTO 9509 with overdrive.
“The engine is a Cummins 8.3-liter C-series with just under 400,000 miles on it, but it’s still doing the job. I fixed all the road-salt damage to the body and the bottoms of the service body’s compartments and had it painted with white epoxy paint. I wanted it clean-looking but functional,” continued Burgess.
That means the truck has a burly moose bar front bumper and no vise mounted on the rear bumper.
“I had to make the truck D-6-proof, front and rear,” he laughed.
“The guys on D-6s like to use vises mounted on the rear bumper as targets when they push me out of mudholes,” Burgess pointed out. “So I put stake holes in each corner of my rear bumper and have my vises and a bench grinder mounted on stakes so I can lift them out and store them in one of the compartments.”
Burgess also explained to us that he went against service truck traditions with a custom cabinet when he decided to build atop the service body, where he keeps the self-retracting reels he had fabricated for his welding cables, torch hoses, and retract- able extension cords.
“Hose reels take up a lot of space when you put them inside the service body,” he explained, “and if you just mount them on top, the hoses and cables freeze up in the winter, and the rubber gets sun-cracked in the summer.”
The exception to his goal of optimizing tool storage inside the service body is a slide-out tray that carries his diesel-fueled Miller Trailblazer 325 welder/generator
“I don’t like having my welder sitting on top of the service body,” Burgess explained to the magazine. “The windings and circuitry of welder/generators don’t like road salt. Having it on the sliding tray makes it easy to slide it out for maintenance.”
Tool storage drawers in the service body are the original Auto Crane units. Bolt bins and parts storage boxes were fabricated by Burgess because “I couldn’t find anything as sturdy as I wanted.”
He admitted that he’s old-school, but that there are few battery-powered tools in his tool inventory.
“I’ve tried them (battery-powered tools) and admit they’re super handy,” he said, “but they’re expensive to buy. And, keeping the chargers and batteries maintained is a hassle, especially in the winter.
For the cost of a single ¾”-drive battery-powered impact wrench, I can buy two or three really good air-powered tools that will last and last.”
Just in case a D-6 isn’t available, a 20,000-pound-capacity hydraulic winch is mounted between the frame rails at the rear of the truck. Its cable feeds from just above the rear bumper.
“It’s pulled me out of a few spots,” he recalled, “and it’s pulled other trucks out. I’d hate to go off-road without it.”
Other special tools that Burgess has in his truck, include a plasma cutter, a 12-inch Miller wire-feed welder, a mag drill, an air- arc unit, a Broco Rankin exothermic torch, and a tractor umbrella that fits in stake holes either in the rear bumper or on the end of the crane to provide shade on hot summer days.
A custom, air-operated locking system enables him to lock or unlock all the doors on the service body with the flip of a switch inside the truck’s cab.
Burgess has accessorized the exterior of the truck with hand-lettered slogans.
“My favorite is on both sides of the truck,” he smiled. “It shows three little cartoon characters laughing and rolling on the ground and says, ‘You want it when?’
There’s been more than one occasion when somebody tried to rush me on a job, and I just smiled and pointed at the cartoon.”