For generations, the folks who kept agricultural machinery running relied on knowledge, their own abilities to fabricate solutions, or local welders and machine shops to keep their equipment earning money. The solutions they came up with might have been crude – booger welded tie rods, angle iron supports, and strange engine swaps to keep old equipment useful – but they usually worked.
Today, those local machine shops are slowly going out of business, “modular” engines and powerplants, and computer-driven systems in even modest-sized farm equipment have changed the way a lot of things on the farm can be “fixed.”
Farms today are far more business-minded than they were even a generation ago, and now, instead of bringing the equipment to the shop, it’s far more common to bring the shop to the equipment.
But what should you bring?
Well, the sky is really the limit!
In the last few months, we’ve seen some very smart upfits for support trucks built to ensure farm fleets keep running. These usually start with our Aluminum Slip In Service Bodies, and from there? They can go anywhere!
Here’s just a few things our teams have engineered to support customers’ needs AND installed in a service body…
- Onboard air compressors that are run from the truck’s fuel source – no more jerry cans and vapors to contend with…
- Power Inverters and generators to ensure the ability to run and charge battery-powered equipment
- Enough additional LED lighting to ensure your teams on the ground can see their work and get the job done anytime and anywhere.
- Shelving and tool storage options so you can literally take a well equipped shop to wherever a piece of equipment is – beside the barn, in the field, or even on the side of the road.
The overall benefit of setting up even a half-ton truck as a mobile repair and support vehicle in an agricultural operation is just common sense: stuff rarely breaks at the shop, and the things most of our clients are calling on their upfitted trucks to do are maintenance and field-level repairs.
The challenge, of course, is that, unlike Grandpa’s Ford 8N, today’s equipment is far more complicated – and often computerized. We see more “farmers” with laptops than ever, and more agricultural operations ARE managing and monitoring equipment in real time with software, GPS, and satellite imagery.
The trucks that support that kind of operation needs more than baling twine, tarp straps, and a few SAE wrenches to handle repairs – and at Expertec, we know that. That’s really at the core of our focus on customer support; our teams have learned how today’s farmer is actually using the land and the assets they’ve bought. Those tractors, harvesters, combines, and grain trucks all need maintenance, and that’s gotten more challenging, with computer controls, integrated software and touchscreens that would make a high-end luxury car proud.
If you’ve found there’s a real need to upgrade how you support your agricultural fleet, and you’re studying what the best options are for an upfitted truck – even a lightweight half ton – then reach out to our team right here or give us a call at 1-888-435-6466. What you’ll find, when you do, is a way to have all the right tools right where you need them so you and your team never waste time and always have the proper equipment at hand to get the job done.
