There’s more to Seth Vanpelt and his service truck than first meets the eye. The 26-year-old owner of Vanpelt Diesel Service in Grants Pass, Ore., was mentored from an early age by his father, Jeff, a successful businessman and auto shop/metal working teacher at Delnorte High School in Crescent City, Calif.
“I knew by the time I was a senior that I wanted to be a diesel mechanic,” says the younger Vanpelt. “Beyond working in my dad’s personal machine shop doing everything from machining flywheels to body work, I was taking two or three auto and metal working classes every day at school. Dad’s emphasis on the value of the skilled trades in today’s society was a huge influence.”
After high school Vanpelt attended Universal Technical Institute (UTI) to earn a degree in diesel and industrial technology. He got good grades but didn’t win a lot of awards.
“That bit me in the butt after graduation, because I didn’t get recruited by the big-name shops,” he says. “The problem was that instead of doing the stuff to win classroom awards, I was sleeping on a futon in a buddy’s shop after working till midnight on machinery. I was already working almost full-time before I graduated.”
His work ethic and background led to even more experience in several truck and equipment shops, and introduced him to life as a field tech. When his daughter Ella was born, he decided to quit “…getting up at 4 a.m. and working for someone else.” So he bought a used service truck, and started his own business.
Just as there’s an unseen story behind Vanpelt, there’s more to his service truck than meets the eye. He found a ’95 GMC TopKick with a 3116 Cat engine and a well-used IMT Dominator II service body.
“My wife, Katie, stepped up and said we should sell our Weekend Warrior Toy Hauler so I could get the truck,” he says. “She’s been a huge part of getting my business going.”
Vanpelt put the truck to work immediately and noted the truck’s strengths and weaknesses as he researched the next step of his plan.
“I had it loaded to a gross weight of 28,000 pounds,” he said. “I got tired of topping hills at 35 miles an hour. I liked the service body, but I needed a different chassis.”
He eventually found a 2000 Peterbilt 379 single-axle truck with a 430-horsepower C12 Caterpillar engine and 13-speed Eaton trans- mission that powers a 3:90 rear end. A friend’s shop stretched the frame and transferred the service body to the new chassis.
“Now I’ve got a truck loaded to 28,000 pounds that tops hills at 65 miles an hour,” he says.
Vanpelt spent more than 100 hours rehabilitating the battered service body. Its paint was “chalking,” and had a lot of surface rust. He sanded rusty areas then color-matched and repainted to produce what he calls a “50-50” paint job.
“It looks good from 50 feet or at 50 miles an hour,” he laughs.
All the latches on the compartment doors were non-functional; so Vanpelt replaced them with IMT spring-handle latches. He eventually installed American Eagle tool drawers, and added a telescoping pole equipped with two 3,100-lumen LED light bars.
“It’s a Harbor Freight telescoping flag pole,” he says. “It raises to 20 feet. Between it and all the other LED lights I’ve got on the body, I can light things up pretty good.”
The original IMT body was custom-built, 14-feet long on the passenger side, 11 feet long on the driver’s side. An oxy/acetylene compart- ment was grafted to the right front corner of an 11-foot service body, creating a three-foot by five-foot bay between the back of the truck’s cab and the left front corner of the service body.
“They mounted a Miller Air Pak on a metal skid and bolted it into that bay,” says Vanpelt. “It’s nice to reach everything from ground level.”
The Air Pak is unique in that it not only is a welder/generator/air compressor, but also runs a hydraulic pump. Vanpelt can turn off the truck, flip disconnects for the electrical system, and power his crane and other power needs with the Air Pak rather than run the truck’s engine.
Vanpelt says it took careful shopping, lots of elbow grease and a total of $47,000 to buy, trade and rehabilitate his way to a truck that looks and performs like newer, more expensive rigs.
“It will never be totally finished,” he admits. “There are always ways to make good, better.”
