There are service trucks dedicated to agricultural machinery, there are service trucks dedicated to earthmoving and construction equipment, and then there is Chris Leker’s service truck. It’s dedicated to repairing agricultural machinery, earthmoving and construction equipment — and just about anything that breaks and needs fixing.
“I try to be self-sufficient, to have the tools and parts to fix anything I run into,” says the owner of Chris Leker Enterprises, a construction and excavating company based in Bristol, Wisc.
He is also co-owner of Valleycroft Farms, a 2,300-acre family-owned concern with row crops, hay, and livestock ventures that include cattle, swine, turkey, and chicken operations. “I move the farming tools and parts on and off the truck according to whether we’re planting or haying or harvesting. But the construction stuff stays on year-round.”
Leker’s do-it-all service truck is based on a 2001 four-wheel-drive Ford F750 powered by a Caterpillar 3126 engine. The truck came with a 16-foot-long Carco Industries high-side service body outfitted with an 8,000-pound Auto Crane crane. A 30,000-pound Braden cable winch is mounted on an extended front bumper. On the opposite end, the rear bumper boasts a vise and a hefty bench grinder. A fuel-injected Miller Trailblazer generator/welder nestles in a cut-out on the right side of the service body to provide easy, from-the-ground access to its controls. A twin-cylinder, hydraulically driven air compressor nestles at the front of the service body’s bed.
Compartments on both sides of the truck feature AG Body Inc. ball-bearing drawers brimming with Snap-on tools. Various compartments store an amazing variety of metal working tools, including a Miller 22A wire welder, a Millermatic portable suitcase wire welder, an oxyacetylene torch, and a portable metal-cutting bandsaw as well as a Thermodynamics plasma cutter configured to plug into the 230-volt side of the Miller Trailblazer.
“I can’t imagine not having a plasma cutter on the truck,” Lesker says. “It cuts so much cleaner and faster than a torch. Plus we do a fair amount of stainless steel and aluminum cutting, which the torch can’t do. I can clean-cut 3/4-inch steel and sever steel up to 7/8-inch with the plasma cutter.”
The truck has hydraulics plumbed to quick-couplers out the rear of the service body as well as to the left side.
“The hydraulics are nice when we’re moving agricultural equipment. Plus we use them to power a machine that pushes water service under roads, and for running a (hydraulically powered) concrete cutting saw,” he says. “I’ve also got half-inch air lines plumbed to the rear and side of the truck for maximum air power on my one-inch air tools.”
Four-inch floodlights mount on all corners of the service body, but are his second choice for work after sunset.
“We’ve got trailer-mounted Wacker (Neuson) light towers (with motor-driven generators) that we tow where we need them,” Leker says. “They light things up better than truck-mounted lights.”
Other tools stored in the truck’s compartments include multiple PortaPowers, their pumps and their accessories, as well as a Milwaukee Sawzall reciprocating saw, a hammer drill, boxes of bulk agricultural roller chain, multiple angle-head grinders, die grinders, spare spools of steel and aluminum welding wire, and large-scale torque multipliers, torque wrenches and breaker bars. Total weight of the truck, tools and parts inventory is … unknown.
“I’ve never weighed it, and really don’t want to know,” Leker says. “I sort of cringe every time I meet a DOT enforcement vehicle.”
Is a bigger truck an option?
Leker says no.
“If I do anything, I’d add another truck, rather than get a bigger one,” he says. “That way I could have a truck in more than one place at the same time. As it is, I have a lot of help from friends and employees to keep everything running during the busy times.”
Home base for Leker’s service truck is a 60- by 135-foot shop large enough to accommodate the biggest farm equipment or one of several Cat 322 excavators he owns. The shop is equipped with a metal lathe, ironworker machine, sheet metal brakes, a stationary band saw and, “… enough stuff so we can fix about anything we need to.”
Keeping so much diverse equipment running would seem to be a major strain on Leker’s time and mental well-being, but that diversity is actually what fuels him.
“What I like best about all of this is the variety,” he says. “I don’t like to do the same thing all the time. About the time I get tired of farming, there’s something to do with the excavating, or the livestock, or combinations of all of them. I just like to be challenged by something new or different all the time.”
— 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.