Peter Cooper’s business in Cumming, Iowa is named “Absolute Repair.” He and his staff offer both in-shop and roadside repairs, but his service trucks proclaim a major focus of the business. “Road Rescue” is emblazoned on three sides of their service bodies to emphasize the vehicles’ purpose.
His flagship service truck is a 2018 F-550 Ford four-wheel-drive crew cab chassis powered by a 6.7-liter diesel engine ahead of a six-speed automatic transmission.
“I got a diesel engine because I had trouble with gas engines giving out at 120,000 miles,” Cooper says. “I ordered the crew cab because I sometimes have to haul my kids, and the other techs who drive it like the extra space for clothes and gear. It has all the options in the cab, but I specced vinyl seats. For as dirty as we get, vinyl seats are the easiest to keep clean. I got four- wheel-drive, and it’s OK in snow, but in mud it’s not much help because the truck is so heavy it just drops out of sight. Fully loaded it weighs 17,900 pounds, on a chassis rated at 19,500. I wanted to avoid going overweight when I have to load a bunch of batteries or heavy parts.”
Cooper chose an 11-foot long Knapheide KUV enclosed service body because of Knapheide’s long experience building enclosed bodies, and the company’s willingness to customize their basic design to fit his needs.
“We’ve had open-bed service bodies in the past,” Cooper says. “I’ve gone on a call at 2 a.m. in an ice storm and everything in the bed of the truck was frozen in ice. With the enclosed body, everything stays dry. That area isn’t heated; it’s not a work space. It just keeps things out of the elements.”
Custom-built bulk coolant and fuel tanks dispense fluids through Reelcraft hose reels.
“They looked at me a little funny when I said I wanted 50-foot (long) hoses on the fuel reels,” Cooper says. “It takes a long hose to reach the tanks when you have to park nose-to-tail on the side of a highway.”
Cooper pumps coolant from its custom-built tank using low-pressure compressed air plumbed into the top of the tank. He’d had problems with 12-volt-powered coolant pumps. Using a regulator to slightly pressurize the coolant tank and transfer coolant proved to be a trouble-free alternative.
While the service body was delivered with a gas engine in the bed to power auxiliary systems, Cooper eventually converted to a Vanair Air N Arc 300 system (air compressor/generator/ welder/battery booster) driven hydraulically by a power takeoff. The original air-cooled gas engine had problems overheating in the enclosed body. The Air N Arc system solved the problem and offered additional advantages.
“I originally went with gas engine to reduce the time the truck’s engine had to sit and idle,” Cooper says. “But I noticed that even with the (auxiliary) engine, the techs were leaving the truck idling to keep the cab warm or to power the lighting system. In the end, getting rid of the separate engine and welder/generator and using the Air N Arc system reduced the truck’s gross weight by 1,000 pounds.”
Cooper likes lots of lighting on his trucks.
Along with a light bar equipped with specially permitted red and blue beacons, as well as “amber lights all over the place,” Cooper instructed Knapheide to double the number of LED floodlamps normally installed on the ser- vice body.
“Adding lights makes it more like ambient light, like sunlight,” he says. “When you’re working under a truck at night, more lights help create more glow that indirectly lights places that would normally be dark.”
Extra lights are part of Cooper’s goal of providing a “comfortable, efficient service truck.” He explains that increasing “comfort” reduces fatigue and increases efficiency.
“Giving a tech the right tools, plenty of light, room to warm up if he’s cold — that’s all part of comfort,” he says. “Working with poor lighting, without the right tools, without the right diagnostic software loaded into a laptop — all those things make a tech either physically or mentally uncomfortable. If you increase comfort, you decrease mistakes and increase efficiency.”
Extra lights, extra-length hoses, and a full array of truck repair tools allow Absolute Repair’s service trucks to live up to their “Road Rescue” labeling.
“When we show up,” Cooper says, “I want it to be obvious that we mean business and can get the job done.”
