Heck’s Trucking

The last place Lawrence Heck wanted to be was stuck in the mud with an opportunity just outside his grasp.

Nearly 20 years ago, Heck’s Blackfalds, Alta.-based company, Heck’s Trucking and Oilfield Hauling, was doing a good business supplying equipment to working oil rigs.

But Heck spotted a new market in dismantling and moving bigger oil rigs, and he wanted a rugged, powerful truck that would thrive in hard-to-reach, off-road locations. Heck was confident he could provide the specialized crane the trucks would need in order to do the job once they got there. That’s the rub: getting there-and back. The trucks have to negotiate the mud between the main road and the job site, all while carrying heavy loads.

“It all starts with getting through the mud,” says Garry Johnson, general manager of Heck’s. “Yes, we need the truck to do work when it gets there. But first, we need a truck that can get there.” Trouble was, a truck with the muscle and agility Heck needed didn’t exist in the mid-1970s. And it might not have existed at all without Heck’s persistence and ingenuity.

“We needed a high frame for ground clearance,” Johnson says. “We needed durable axles, we needed tandem steering. Frankly, our business required a very customized truck.”

A man who bleeds Kenworth red, Heck appealed to KW engineers to build him the truck he needed. The result is one of the workhorses of heavy-duty off-road market: the C550, later renamed the C500 Twin Steer.

Like the challenges Heck faced in the oilfields, getting there wasn’t easy. Kenworth put together a team to build and develop a truck for Heck. The first version had a single front-drive axle. Heck knew a single front-drive axle wasn’t enough. The truck needed to have two tandem steering axles to help it negotiate the mud-and to do so smoothly.

“On top of everything else, dismantling and moving oil rigs is precise work,” says Heck’s sales rep, Norm Gossett of GreatWest Kenworth Ltd. “The rig components have to be eased into place.” Weight restrictions were another hurdle. Eventually the evidence became conclusive: two front axles were required. The tandem axles allowed the truck to have eight-wheel drive.

“It became clear it was the only way to get that kind of truck in the field,” Johnson says.

Heck offered hands-on designing and engineering experience as Kenworth engineers started to shape the truck. He developed a rig break-down system, which includes a truck-mounted crane that can reach as high as 70 feet up a rig. The crane pulls down pieces of the rig and loads them, as well as piping, onto flatbeds. Winches are also used to pull larger rig components onto 16-wheel flatbed trailers.

“Lawrence became more of a consultant than a customer,” Gossett says. “He understands engineering and, of course, he knows the need and application better than anyone. Without his expertise, this truck couldn’t have been built.”

Kenworth’s engineers tested variations of the truck. In 1981, they had a final product, the C550. Heck’s Twin Steers have high frames and high drivelines; tandem front axles that feature eight-wheel drive; a Cummins N14 460E engine; an Allison 6063 automatic transmission (driving in such conditions can be hard on a clutch); and Michelin 43/66 tires, among other items.

“It does everything we ask of it,” Johnson says. “It gets through the mud and gives us the power we need off-road. It also can operate under varied conditions. When there isn’t mud, we switch to smaller tires and drive the trucks over snow.”

Gossett says the Twin-Steers can roll down the highway at 60 mph, quite an accomplishment considering the size. About 80% of the company’s business is within a hundred-mile radius of Blackfalds.

“We can’t tell our customers, ‘Sorry, you’re too far off the highway,’ or, ‘The ground’s a little too wet, we’ll accept your business some other time,’ ” says Johnson. “When a customer needs your service, you have to find a way to provide it.”