Joe Powers uses his new service truck for boat-launch maintenance in Maine
Here’s the job description: travel all over Maine — for that state’s Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry’s Bureau of Parks and Lands — to install, repair, and maintain boat-launch facilities. Some of the facilities are along the coast, some are on freshwater lakes buried deep in the woods. You’ll be on your own, often miles from civilization, sometimes traveling private logging roads bulldozed out of the wilderness. What sort of truck would you spec for that job?
Joe Powers, maintenance coordinator for Maine’s BPL, chose a four-wheel-drive 2017 Ford F450 with 6.0-liter PowerStroke diesel engine spinning a Ford six-speed automatic transmission.
“This is my third Ford F450,” Powers says. “We went with a diesel instead of gas engine for
Joe chose a four-wheel-drive 2017 Ford F450 with 6.0 litre PowerStroke diesel engine for his new truck
mileage and durability. My old truck had a diesel and averaged 11 to 11.5 miles per gallon, and this new truck got 12 miles per gallon on the trip home from the dealership. My old PowerStroke had 85,000 miles on it and never had a wrench on it for anything more than oil changes.”
While he was pleased with the engine and transmission in his previous truck, Powers decided he needed four-wheel-drive to deal with some of the rugged roads he travels. With that in mind, he invited his supervisor to ride along on a trip in his old, two-wheel-drive truck for a job deep in the backwoods. They got stuck in the muck, and … Powers’s new truck came with four-wheel-drive.
“Sometimes you just have to show them why you need what you need,” he says.
From Messer Truck Equipment in Westbrook, Maine, Powers specced an 11-foot Knapheide mechanic’s service body outfitted with a 5,000-pound Venturo ET18KX electric crane. Powers specified that the crane be mounted on the driver’s side of the service body.
“At boat launches, most of the floating docks and stuff are on the driver’s side as you back toward the water,” he says. “Putting the crane on the driver’s side keeps me from having to swing the boom over the body.”
A Miller 275 Trailblazer welder/generator is mounted to the top of the rear, passenger-side compartment. Powers also has a Miller Model 30 spool gun that allows him the option of wire welding with either shielding gas or flux-core wire.
“Welding dock frames out of doors like I do a lot of the time, welding with (shielding) gas doesn’t work,” he says. “So I switch out the solid wire spool with gas, and use flux-core wire, if I don’t decide to simply arc weld it with the big welder. My old truck had the welder mounted in the bed, but I had them put it up on the top for this one. That gives me a lot more room in the bed to carry shovels, big pry bars, chain saw, extra diesel fuel, extra gasoline, blocking, and all the stuff I might need when I’m miles from civilization.”
Most of Powers’ hand tools are Craftsman because, he says, “It’s easier to find a Sears store to warranty a tool when you’re on the road than it is to chase down a Snap-on or Mac guy.” Hand tools and accessories are stored in the front, driver’s side compartment of the service body in a CTech Manufacturing drawer unit. A Fastenal four-drawer storage cabinet rides on the adjustable shelves of the passenger-side front compartment, but may soon be shifted to another compartment.
“Those CTech drawers are so good, I really want to put another set on the passenger side,” he says.
Powers carries a full complement of Milwaukee’s trademarked M18 Fuel cordless tools. He says those tools “… give me three times the run-time on their batteries of any other cordless tool I’ve had.”
A Fisher quick-mount snowplow push plate is mounted to the truck’s frame, but has never had a snowplow attached to it. Powers fabricated a removable, metal-framed, wood-faced “push bumper” that slides and pins into the push plate’s snowplow brackets for his unique needs.
“I use it to push floating docks into the water,” he says. “It works slick.”
A “headache rack” mounted behind the cab is on Powers’ list of future truck accessories.
“It would be nice to have some white LED floodlights lights up there, maybe some emergency strobes,” he says. “A lot of the marine jobs work best if I do them at high tide. That means sometimes I have to work after dark, and some LED floodlights on the rear of the box, and behind the cab, would really be nice.”
— 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.
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