Veteran field service technicians who notice Sukhvir Sanghera’s service truck at truck stops always take a second glance for the reason that they’ve never seen a truck exactly like it. That’s because Sanghera’s truck was custom-built, from its rear bumper to the sun-bright floodlamp on the tip of its crane.
“I shopped locally, but nobody wanted to build me a truck exactly like I wanted,” says Sanghera, an independent heavy equipment mechanic based in Surrey, British Columbia. “They all wanted to give me a cookie-cutter service body on a standard off-the-lot truck chassis. I decided if I was going to spend that much money, I was going to get a truck that was adapted to the way I work, not a truck that made me adapt to the way it was built.”
Sanghera wanted a lube skid, but didn’t want the skid taking up room in the bed of the service
Self-contained lube skid has a 500-litre waste oil tank and two 200-litre fresh oil tanks
Sanghera’s design nestled a Miller Big Blue Air Pack in a recessed area on the right side of the service body atop a compartment with a sturdy pull-out shelf containing welding accessories, including two retractable cable reels built by Magnum Reels in White Rock, B.C., outfitted with 100 feet of 2/0 welding cable.
A torch compartment behind the welding area houses acetylene and oxygen bottles as well as Reelcraft reels for his torch hoses. The compartment over the right rear wheel houses a Miller 12VS suitcase wire welder, a Hypertherm 65 plasma cutter and a NOCO-brand 12/24 volt portable jump pack.
Stellar 12360 crane is Sanghera's hired help
A Stellar 12,000-pound-capacity crane was the biggest crane Sanghera could spec for that service body. The crane is his “hired help.”
“I work alone,” he says. “The crane is my helper.”
The crane also provides illumination for night-work. A JW Spieker Model 623 work light mounted
JW Spieker Model 623 work light on the crane puts out 40,000 lumens
to the tip of the crane puts out 40,000 lumens of light to nearly duplicate sunlight over an engine compartment or work area.
“It pulls so many amps that I have to run my generator to power it,” he says. “I can swing the crane around and position that light exactly where I need it so I don’t have to rely on little portable lights.”
The left side of the truck is the “working side,” with the compartment behind the lube skid dedicated to frequently used hand tools organized in drawers designed by Sanghera and Oro Manufacturing. Dividers and trays keep the tools neatly organized to decrease losses and increase efficiency.
“When tools are all organized it’s easier to tell at a glance if something is missing when I’m ready to leave a job,” he says. “Plus, if I need to have somebody grab a tool for me, it’s easy to tell them the wrench I need is in a specific drawer in a specific compartment.”
Pull-out shelf serves as a workbench/desk and is sheltered from the elements by a unique pop up awning.
The compartment over the left rear wheel features a unique flip-up compartment door that serves as a rain shelter/sunshade. The compartment itself is filled with carefully organized storage bins. Beneath the bins, a pull-out shelf serves as a workbench for repairing small components or as a field desk when he needs to look up parts or schematics on his laptop computer. The rear compartment on the right side of the truck has Reelcraft one-inch and 3/8-inch hose reels as well as a clean water tank for clean up at the end of a long day.
Sanghera admits that even though he custom-designed the truck to his exact specifications, he still occasionally adds shelves, brackets and accessories to fit his evolving needs.
“There’s always room to improve,” he says, “even to the truck of your dreams.”
— Dan Anderson
Dan Anderson is a part-time freelance writer and full-time heavy equipment mechanic with more than 20 years of experience working out of service trucks. He is based in Bouton, Iowa.