Burning the Midnight Oil

Just like the famed Energizer battery bunny, Carl Paul’s Brutus-manufactured service truck body keeps “going, and going, and going.

”He bought the used (built in 2005) 11-foot, 6-inch service body when he started Midnight Oil Mechanical Services five years ago and transferred it when he upgraded to his current 2022 Ford F550 Lariat.

“That’s the thing about Brutus’ aluminum bodies,” said the 37-year-old self-em- ployed mechanic from Sexsmith, Alberta. “They never rust out.“I refurbished this body before I put it on my new chassis, and it looks like new.

”Paul spec’ed the F550’s chassis with a crew cab and upgraded the suspension.“I kept the rear seat, but it’s always folded up,” he noted. “I’ve got Milwaukee (Tool) PackOut storage on the passenger side of the rear seat, and on the driver’s side, I keep oil jugs and buckets and other stuff I want to keep warm in the win-ter. Before the service body went on, we installed one extra rear leaf spring on the left side, and two on the right side, to help with the crane’s weight on that side.

”Paul set up the used service body for his work on forestry, construction, mining, oil patch, and farm equipment.

An aluminum, huckbolted Brutus drawer pack with seven roller-bearing drawers sits in the first compartment on the driver’s side.Shelves and smaller drawer packs fill the rest of the driver’s-side compartments.On the passenger side, Paul told Service Truck Magazine that he added an extension over the gas compartment so he could carry full-size gas bottles.

“It’s a 48-inch (high) service body, and when you’re out in the bush, the short gas bottles don’t last long enough,” he said. “Adding height to the gas compartment lets me carry big bottles and have plenty of oxygen and acetylene on hand.

”A hose reel in the compartment under- neath the 5,000-lb. capacity Cobra 5105 hydraulic crane is loaded with 50 feet of ½-inch i.d. air hose. Carl connects a¾-inch i.d. hose directly to an air storage tank atop the left cabinet to power his ¾- and 1-inch air guns. He uses battery-powered Milwaukee-brand cordless tools for warm-weather work but relies heavily on air tools during Alberta’s frigid winters.

runtime,” he explained to the magazine. “You end up constantly changing batteries. With air tools, you’re surrounded by air,so once you turn on the compressor, your power supply is unlimited.

”Paul accessorized his new chassis with a VMAC transmission-mounted, pto-driven DTM70-H power system that, he related, provides both an air compressor and hydraulic pump.

“The compressor puts out 65 cfm of air and eight gpm of hydraulic flow at 100 percent duty cycle,” he said. “It’s great when you’re using the crane to have both air and hydraulics without having to get off the machine you’re working on to switch back and forth.

”He also has a Miller Bobcat 260 EFI welder/generator mounted atop the left rear compartment.“I really like the fuel-injected Miller,” he mentioned. “It gets down -30°C or-40°C (approximately -22°F or -40°F) around here. It’s really nice not to have to mess with choking and babying the Miller. Just turn the key, and it’s running.

”The used Brutus service body came with one option that Paul would have ordered for himself.“It has a heavy-duty fold-down tail- gate to use as a workbench instead of an extended step bumper,” he related. “I don’t like the work deck-style bumpers because up here, after you drive down a snowy logging road, you end up with that work deck covered with a drift of snow and ice that you have to dig off before you can work. I just fold down the tailgate, and I’m ready to go. The steel plate on that tailgate is the only steel on the body. I’ve scratched it, but so far, I haven’t been able to dent it.

”Paul said that he enjoys the range of maintenance and repairs he does, even though the hours are long.

“It’s been pretty much nonstop since I went off on my own,” he summed up. “I enjoy it, especially diagnosing and figuring out problems other mechanics couldn’t fix. There are a lot of 12- to 14-hour days.

That’s where my company got its name. I spend so much time burning the midnight oil to get customers’ machinery fixed, I decided I might as well name my company, Midnight Oil Mechanical Services.”