New A-Team Van

I bought a far from new bucket truck.  I love my equipment, not only does it make me money, but it makes day to day life chores easier.  This van is dubbed the A-team van, because its 80's, and black.  It isn't a Chevy like the A-team van, and it won't ever get the same wing, but we will paint a red stripe like the A-team van.

I  have been looking at bucket trucks for a couple of years now.  Ever since I did a shop w 20' ceilings, and basically needed to rent a scissor lift.  I found the first one at a dealership, $12000, second one was a private sale for $7000.  The A-team van was the third bucket truck I looked at for half the price of the private sale.  The generator/hydraulic power pack wouldn't start when I went to look at the A-team van.  That saved me $1000.  It didn't really even matter, I have a dozen generators, and the bucket still lifts, extends, rotates and all with the "back up" electric hydraulic power pack.  I don't even really see a use for the gasser power pack.

I was going to park this van on the farm, until it warms up and I can fix the suspension.  The rear springs are shot, maybe broken.  But I got work for it the second day I owned it.  So if it continues to pay for its insurance, and make money every month I will keep it insured for the rest of its life.

I am almost sure I will need an employee to run my second van full time in the spring. actually that would be the third van and employee.  The Astro is still in service at whats currently my biggest job.

I expect in the spring the bucket truck will be my third van in full time service.  I run the 96 E350, I drop an employee off at the job site with the ATV/Astro van on site, and I will have another employee to run the bucket truck. Until then its the two E350's don't get used at the same time.

Before the comments start, I don't really like ford.  Ford is probably my least favorite car manufacturer, but there is a lot of them out there, and they are cheap.  That makes them good work trucks.

Prepping For Saskatchewan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQUQjK-R5us
Picked up lil over 100 basements to wire on a Saskatchewan, on a first nations reserve.  They maintain their own roads, so we had to take a few precautions.

There was the seasonal snow threat, and the all year threat of loose livestock, or "livestock at large" as the signs say.  Also excessive wild and loose dogs, moose, and more dear than I have seen in the last decade.

I actually purchased a real limited slip differential, after the final failure of the Astro van lincoln locker.  But we had to install it and go to Saskatchewan the next day, and it was in the form of a full axle off a dually cube van.  I need to deal with brake lines, change out the brake shoes, add leaf springs wile that is all getting installed.  Then there are the duallys, I need dually rims, tires, and fenders. Not happening in an afternoon.  So Lincoln Locker it is.  This proved to be a GREAT idea.

Our brand new tire chains broke almost every time we used them, 3 times a day,  so most of the time we only had one chain on one wheel, which worked surprisingly well, as seen in the video.

After rain, all the roads iced over, and we lost steerability in the van, so we put a chain on the front and one on the back.  That worked awesome that day, till the back one broke, we had to put the front one on the back.  Next trip, we pack more chains, small shackles to repair the chains, more bungie cords to keep broken chains away from the brake lines, and more beer.