Freddy Dodge and his partner, Juan Ibarra, may co-star on Discovery Channel’s Gold Mine: Freddy Dodge’s Mine Rescue, but “Big Mack,” Iberra’s eye-catching service truck, steals every scene in which it appears.
“Big Mack” is based on a 2023 Mack Granite chassis equipped with a 505-horsepower MP8 Mack engine ahead of a Mack mDrive 14-speed automated manual transmission. Specced with an 18,000-pound front axle, the big truck is loaded with factory options.
“Mack has always been the brand known for industrial and off-road trucks,” says Ibarra. “I’ve had and still own Peterbilts, but now that I’ve run this Mack, it’s going to be hard for me to move away from it. I was able to spec it for the rough conditions I get into. The 18,000-pound axle came with a heavier spring pack, which adds clearance.
When I park the Mack beside one of my Peterbilt service trucks, the Mack sits almost a foot higher.” Ibarra loaded the big truck with factory options, including its “Omaha orange” paint job and lots of chrome.
“Most service trucks are cookie-cutter trucks, white trucks with white bodies,” he says. “I like my trucks to stand out. Chrome-wise, if there was a place we could hang chrome, we did. I was surprised at how many factory options Mack offers. We got a 13-inch chrome drop visor, dual ‘live’ chrome exhausts, fuel tank covers, and quad chrome horns, all from the factory. They knocked it out of the park with the options on this truck.”
Ibarra puts between 25,000 and 30,000 miles per year on his truck in his travels for TV, and made sure creature comforts were part of his truck’s design. Mack’s premium cab interior provides heated, air-ride leather seats and deluxe gauge package.
Big Mack’s service body is a Palfinger Pal Pro 72 specced with a Palfinger PSC 12526 crane and a 36-inch welding deck between the truck’s cab and the service body. The 12,500-pound-capacity crane has a reach of 29 feet. A Lincoln Air Vantage 566X combines hydraulic power for the crane, air compressor, welder and generator all-in-one unit that sits on the welding deck with its controls on the right side of the truck.
“Turning the Lincoln to face the right makes its engine access panel easier to get to,” says Ibarra. “Makes it easier to check its oil and do maintenance on the unit.”
While the truck is set up to easily add a power take-off, it currently doesn’t use one.
“I decided to use the hydraulic pack on the Lincoln to power the crane,” he says. “I don’t like idling a 500-horsepower engine just to run the crane’s hydraulics. I’m using a 66-horsepower engine to run the four-in-one unit. That saves fuel and eliminates problems with sooting up the truck’s emissions system.”
Two custom-built Badass Welding Products cable reels spooled with 120 feet of welding cable nest on the right side of the welding deck in front of the Lincoln’s control panel. Built-in compartments under the welding deck provide storage for welding accessories.
A Taylor Pump & Lift lube skid, equipped with Alemite pump and hose reels, rides in the bed of the service body. In accompanying photos, the skid is flush with the rear of the truck, but in the field it sits at the front of the bed.
“The skid has a four-foot by four-foot foot- print,” says Ibarra, “which leaves five to six feet of storage at the rear of the bed for cribbing and big parts.”
CTech aluminum MotionLatch drawer sets were his hands-down choice for storage in the ser- vice body.
“With other drawers, you have to grab and turn a T-handle to unlatch the drawers. With the MotionLatches, I can have a handful of wrenches and just use my pinkie finger to open them. I like those CTech drawers so much that I’ve some of them in my shop, under granite countertops.”
Ibarra’s skill, enthusiasm and creativity for fixing broken machinery in remote locations is obvious in each episode of Gold Rush: Freddy Dodge’s Mine Rescue. He says the show is realistic, though sometimes shortcuts the time and effort required for repairs.
“They sometimes cut to commercial and skip over the 20 hours of cutting and welding it took to finish a job,” he chuckles. “And sometimes I ask them to not film a particular part of a job, because not every weld turns out as pretty as I’d like. But for the most part, they pretty much show what we do every day.”