Lisa Mino
Smaller truck (left) serves as a lube truck while the Mack focuses on the bigger jobs
Jim Dovicsak of Trafford, Pa., is 70 years old and admits he’s “slowing down.” He doesn’t work on Sundays anymore.
“I worked at a Cat dealership till I was 57, then retired and went full-time with the moonlighting I’d always done while I worked at the dealership,” he says. “I was born to work. I don’t have any hobbies, never got into hunting or fishing. I tried golf, but couldn’t make money at it so I just went back to working. I had a pacemaker installed when I was 68. The doc had to slow down my pacemaker because every time I see a service truck my heart speeds up.”
Lisa Mino
Jim Dovicsak Sr.’s heart speeds up at the sight of a service truck
The two polished black service trucks Dovicsak and his son, Jim Jr. (a.k.a. “Jimmy”), run would increase the heart rate of any field mechanic. Their “big truck” is a 2015 Mack medium-duty chassis with a Cummins 9.0 liter diesel engine, carrying a 14-foot-long Maintainer
DuaLock drawers are “fantastic,” says the senior Dovicsak
service body equipped with DuaLock drawers. (“They’re fantastic,” says Dovicsak.) A 10,000-pound-capacity Maintainer crane with 25-foot reach sits atop the right side of the body.
“We really like the remote control for the crane,” says the elder Dovicsak. “Jimmy is really good with it. If we have to use the crane inside a building where there’s not room to swing it, he’ll get the crane off its cradle outside the building and point it behind the truck, then sit in the cab of the truck and back it in while he uses the remote control to move the crane around to squeeze it where we need it.”
A Miller Trailblazer Air Pak engine-driven welder/air compressor/generator sits atop the left side of the service body, along with a Vanair Tiger hydraulic-drive air compressor. Dovicsak and his
Lisa Mino
Vanair Tiger hydraulic-drive compressor provides extra power for extreme work
son generally use the Miller’s engine-driven compressor for normal use to avoid running the Tier 4 Cummins at idle for extended periods of time, although they fire up both compressors for extreme work.
“We’ve got sockets up to six inches, and one-and-a-half-inch impact wrenches to run them,” he says. “If we’re both using the big air guns it takes a lot of air. Running both compressors gives us up to 60 cfm when we need it.”
A second service truck is outfitted as a lube truck, but also handles their “light” repair and diagnostic work.
“It’s a 2017 Dodge Ram 5500 with a 11-foot-long Maintainer service body and their low-mount crane,” says Dovicsak. “I didn’t want a full-size lube truck, so we worked with Maintainer to custom-build the service body with a steel frame and aluminum doors to be both a smaller lube
Hose reels are stored in a compact space on the smaller truck
truck and service truck. We bought the new cab and chassis here at home, then drove it out to Maintainer’s factory in Iowa. We spent a lot of time there, working with them, getting the body design exactly like we wanted it. They were fabulous. They figured out how to give us 40-gallon tanks, a pump system with hoses on reels, along with a sucker system with hoses on reels for waste oil. We’re done lugging buckets of oil around. It works fantastic.”
Once the Dovicsaks and Maintainer settled on the custom design of their new service body, they returned to Pennsylvania while the body was built and installed. When it was finished, Maintainer drove the gleaming black truck to the annual Work Truck Show in Indianapolis where it was displayed at the Maintainer booth.
“It drew a lot of attention,” says Dovicsak. “People were really interested in a lightweight lube truck, plus, it’s pretty eye-catching. We went to the show, and after it was over we drove our new truck home and put it to work.”
The new truck allows the Dovicsaks to dispatch the right truck to each job. Big jobs like pulling the engine from a D8H Caterpillar bulldozer so it can be rebuilt in their shop earn the larger Mack service truck. Lube work and smaller jobs, especially jobs focused on reading codes and diagnosing computer-related issues, get the smaller Dodge.
“We can team up on big jobs, or split up for smaller jobs,” says Dovicsak. “Having two trucks with different capabilities has really increased our efficiency, helps us get more work done. I like working. I have no-o-o plans to retire. What could I do that would be more satisfying than working on equipment?”
— 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.