Anyone who works with tools knows the majority of the job comes down to having the right tools. More importantly, it comes down to knowing what tools to have. Case in point: a seasoned plumber can nearly plumb a house with just the tools he’s likely got in his pocket.
A good mechanic can do an awful lot with a couple of the most common wrenches, a screwdriver or two, and a test light, while a seasoned electrician can nearly rewire a house with the stuff in their toolbelt and a few rolls of wire.
Sure, a well-equipped shop is awfully nice, but the value of that shop is in the flexibility professionals need when they’ve got to do some really heavy lifting.
If you think about it, though, even the most seasoned expert starts every job with the same 3-4 tools in their hands or their pockets.
In the world of upfitting, it’s much the same – when our team begins to work with a customer, we spend a lot of time focusing on the core job being done. That might be in the trades, it might be in a service based company, or in a large fleet, but those initial conversations all center on one baseline: What are the core aspects of the job?
Case in point: Recently, a customer asked us to sort out and upfit a new truck for a mobile mechanic platform in the agricultural industry. This truck would be called on to handle all manner of maintenance in the field (literally!) and could be reasonably expected to work on a variety of medium and heavy-duty equipment.
Could be gas, could be diesel, could be metric or standard. The critical thing was this: our customer needed to be able to handle a LOT of jobs arising from keeping everything from trucks to tractors running smoothly with the absolute minimum of downtime.
Now, the obvious first choice was ensuring our customer a place to keep everything. In this case, four wheel drive was a no-brainer, so a Slip-in Service Body was used as the basis for the build.
Knowing that time is always an issue with farm equipment, an onboard air compressor was another wise decision.
Let’s face it: nobody wants to work on heavy equipment with a 3/8 inch ratchet! An onboard air system makes short work of breaking the big stuff loose as well as helping to get dirt and debris out of the way. It’s actually one of the smartest tools any mobile mechanic can have at their disposal, and in terms of the amount of space needed? It’s actually a very small footprint overall.
Perhaps most important in a build like this is storage. It’s nice to think how our grandfather and his friends could fix that old Ford 8N with a half inch wrench, a Phillip’s head screwdriver, and a matchbook to clean and set the points, but today’s mobile mechanics working in the ag field know that computers, electronics, and testing also have a place. To that end, we built in a TON of drawers to keep everything in place, plus a truck bed slide that can allow easy loading and unloading of bigger pieces that might need to be serviced off site – or simply to give our mobile mechanic a solid workbench in the field
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Cargo Bed Truck Bed Slide – Contractor Series
From $1,550.00 CAD – $2,519.00 CAD Select optionsQuick View -
Cargo Bed Truck Bed Slide – XD Contractor Extended Series
From $2,719.00 CAD – $3,250.00 CAD Select optionsQuick View -
Cargo Bed Truck Bed Slide – Tradesman / Welder Series
From $1,465.00 CAD – $2,434.00 CAD Select optionsQuick View -
Cargo Bed Truck Bed Slide – Tradesman / Welder Extended Series
From $2,630.00 CAD – $3,160.00 CAD Select optionsQuick View
In the end, the real mark of a professional is not only knowing what tools they’ll need, but also, being smart enough to know how to get them to the job. To find out how working remotely doesn’t have to mean working without the right tools, reach out to us right here or simply give us a call at 1-888-435-6466. You’ll find that our upfitting resources and catalog of solutions is among the most robust in Canada.
