Floor Pans/Sam Tompkins

The day on trucks, we'll dive into the cab of the Hairy Hauler and show you how to lay down some brand new custom floor pans. We'll also steer you in the right direction on a couple other goodies for our 34 international.

After that, we'll introduce you to a pro stock truck pilot who's making a difference in the lives of kids from the inner city of Atlanta.

That's all today on trucks.

Welcome to this week's show everybody. We're glad you're with us. You know, one of the biggest problems you run into when working on early model trucks is rust. Of course, we've already shown you how to fix rusty quarter panels and fenders in the past. But today we're gonna show you how to deal with a rusty floorboard. Now, on the Hairy Hauler, you may remember that the entire floor was made out of wood, which means we not only have to make floor pans, we also need to make the complete support structure.

And as you probably guess this is a pretty involved project. Definitely not for the faint of heart, but you can do it. Even if you're a beginner, we're gonna show you how.

But before we get too deep into this project, let us show you some of the tools you're gonna need to complete it. Here you go. Thanks, man.

Now you're gonna have to have a way to cut through everything from sheet metal to square tubing. So it's always a good idea to have a jigsaw and saw saw as well as a good assortment of cut off wheels and clamps. Also keep in mind

a good set of hole saws won't hurt your cause either.

All right, let me bring you up to date on what we've done so far. Now, the first thing that you need to do

is spend some time mapping out your new floor. This is without a doubt the most important part of this project

because it's gonna determine how everything lays out. For example, you need to know how and where your seats are gonna mount.

You also need to know the location of your shifter,

your transmission. Do you need a transmission hump or not?

The steering column, the pedals and the master cylinder. All this needs to be planned out before you do anything. Now, once that's taken care of, you can start building your framework. Now, for that, I started here in the back and welded in these cross members at a square tubing. Now on these is where our seat mounts will go. Also,

we wanted this whole center section to be removable, so we'd have easy access to the transmission or the shifter. So to do that,

welded in these little supports out of eight inch C channel and that'll give us plenty of strength.

Also, give us a good foundation

to weld in our new floor panels.

When it comes to seating, it's always best to pick the seats you're gonna use for your project before you get started. That way. There's no guess work as to the mounting locations. Now, for our seats, we went to custom fit and grabbed a set from their Street Pro truck series. Now, these things are a fully adjustable top of the line leather bucket that have this really cool checkerboard design

that look good on any truck. They also come with an adjustable headrest, but we're gonna lose those so we can see out the rear window.

Now it's time to put these seats into place.

Now you want to spend some time lining these up, making sure that they're even and that you don't have any kind of clearance problems.

As you can see, our shifter is coming up right underneath the seat. Now, obviously, we can't use it that way,

but there is a way to fix that problem.

So we made these pedestals out of C channel and square tubing

and what they'll do is raise the seat up above the shifter

and that way we won't have that problem. Now, these will weld right down on top of this cross member, but we're not gonna do that yet

because it's a lot easier to put the floor pans in. First,

speaking of those floor pans, you're obviously not gonna find anything out there that's gonna slide right into place. So the best way to do this is to make a template out of cardboard, then use it as a pattern to cut your metal with. Now, the reason cardboard is the best way to go is because you can make as many adjustments as you need to

until everything fits just right

now for sheet metal, we went to bitch and products and got one of their universal floor pan kits. Now, it consists of heavy gauge steel panels, a preform transmission hump as well as all kinds of bracing and hardware to put this thing together.

Now, all you have to do is take your template, lay it down on one of the pieces of steel

and then cut it out with either a jigsaw or a plasma cutter.

Now, we've got a little bit more trimming to do on this piece, then we'll test fit it in place.

Now, we've got a good starting point

with the rear panel in place. We can go ahead and start working on the other floorboard pieces and we're gonna use the same cardboard template process we did before.

Now, like we already told you, we're gonna make our center section removable. So we have to take that into account when we do our patterns, we also have to have access to the master cylinder here. But bitch and products provides a template for that. So there'll be no guess work. We will however have to take some measurements for our shift or opening.

Now for these side rocker panels that fit underneath the doors, things are a little bit different. As you can see. These original pieces are absolutely shot, but we can still use them as a pattern

to once again make some cardboard templates.

Then we'll just take the cardboard transfer the shape to some 20 gauge sheet metal and cut it out.

Then we'll dress the edges with a grinder

and now we're ready to make some bends.

Now to make those bands, you're gonna need a sheet metal break like the one that's made by brute manufacturing that we got from the Eastwood company.

Now, I've already got a piece clamped down in here. So I'm gonna go ahead and make this first band

and using one of these tools is very simple. All you do is line up your marks,

clamp it down

and then make your band.

Now,

you can see how precise these bends are. If you're gonna make these kind of panels, you need one of these tools

now that we have all the panels made, we can go ahead and test fit everything together.

Keep in mind you really need to take the time to make sure you ground down all the wells as well as any other obstructions

that might keep the panels from laying down flat. Now, up here on the front where the panels connect, we use this special flang

tool from the East Wood company,

so everything will lay down really smooth.

Now, once you're happy with the fit, it's time to weld everything in. Now, the first thing you need to do

is drill some holes down in the sheet metal through the cross members about 2 to 3 inches apart.

Then take the screws that are provided with the kit

and screw everything down to where it's nice and tight. Then make one final check, make sure you like the fit

and then one by one, replace each screw with a rosette or a plug weld. This is also a good time

to weld in your seat. Pedestals.

Of course, once all the spot welds are finished, we'll need to take a grinder and knock off the top of those welds to clean everything up and help the carpet lay down better. But we're going to take care of all that during the break. Stay with us. We got more trucks for you right after this.

Later in the show, we'll go for a run with a guy who's trying to keep kids from running with the wrong crowd. But up first, we got to finish up with the floor pans on the Hairy Hauler.

Welcome back to the truck shop now with our floor pans welded in and everything cleaned up. Well, you can see how these floors are supposed to look. Now, like we said before bitching products supplies this little door

to give us easy access to our brake master cylinder. Now for the clutch master cylinder, we're gonna mount the reservoir up on the firewall in the engine compartment. That way, we don't have to have a little door for that.

Now, you also may be wondering

why we're not gonna use these preform transmission hubs. Well, the simple fact is we don't need them. We got plenty of clearance down here for the transmission

and it's a lot easier to carpet over a flat floor than to have to try to carpet over these. So if you don't need them, don't use them

with all that said, it's time to mount our center panels. Now we need a way to hold them solidly in place, but we also want to be able to easily remove them. So what we had to do was drill down into the cross member for the self tapping screws. Now, these marks that states already made, show us exactly where the spot welds are. And that's important because you don't want to drill through those. Of course, the front piece is going to be mounted using the same process we're using on our center panel

with the floor and the seats in place. It's time to locate the steering column. Now, you may have noticed that we haven't cut any of the holes for the pedals yet. That's because

I like to locate the hole for the steering column first.

That's because it's really easy to cut away too much to get access to your pedals and then you don't leave enough to support the base of the column. Now, these two lines tell us exactly where the top and the bottom

of the pedal arms are gonna come through the floor. That way, we won't set the column too low

for the steering column. We had to have something special. So we gave, I did a call and got one of their 35 inch long chrome tilted columns that's already prewired and comes with all the billet dress up items you'll need. Of course, we couldn't just stop there. So we also went to Hallow Brand and got one of their three spoke hot rod steering wheels to tie everything together.

Here's that column man

right

now to place the column,

center it

right in front of you

and then take a pen

and make a mark

on the dash right over the center of the column.

Now, as you can see, we're moving it a little bit to one side of the factory piece. Now place your column

and measure to see just how much drop you're gonna need.

Looks like about six inches for us. Now, make sure that you don't drop it too low because you'll never be able to get in and out of the thing. Also, make sure you check at the base of the column. So you're not getting into your pedals.

Next. Take the proper idea to draw bracket,

center it over your mark and then drill holes and mount it to your dash and

make sure you have the proper bracing behind the dash.

We've come a long way from those old wooden floorboards, haven't we cut down on the fire hazard too?

Listen, we need to take a break right now, but stay with us. We got more project Harry Hall to roll at you right after this. This thing is really coming together, man. No, it's like a brand new truck

drag racer. Sam Tomkins found his way out. Now, he's helping kids from the inner city find their way out.

Welcome back to the interior rebuild of the Hairy Hauler. Now with the top of the steering column in place where it needs to be

and the hole cut in the floor according to our measurements, it's time to mount the base of the column. Now for that, we went to Giuliano's and got this really trick pivoting floor mounting plate.

Now, it'll not only hold the base of the column but also keep any kinds of heat or fumes from coming into the cab. Now,

you also notice that we cut the hole for our petals already.

Now to keep any kind of fumes from coming through those, we built this plate

that'll be held in place with screws

at this point. You're probably wondering how we're gonna prevent rust. Well, once we're completely finished with our floor pans, we are gonna paint the entire floor, top bottom and especially the seams with this stuff called miracle paint we got from Hersh Automotive. Now, the beauty behind this product is you can paint it right over existing rust and stop it dead in its tracks or you can lay it down over the bare metal and stop rust from ever starting. Also,

as one final precaution, we're gonna take some seam sealer and run a bead around all these seams.

Now to hook up the steering shaft, we went to Borgeson got their poly stainless steel shaft, U joints and the support bearing and we'll use this stuff to make the connection

between the steering column and the rack and pinion.

We'll come in here, make another cut,

use a third U joint there. Now, a couple of really important points here,

any time that you use more than two U joints,

you've got to use the support bearing slides on the shaft mounts to the frame and keeps the shaft from flopping around on you point number two

before you do any cutting or mounting,

wanna make sure you're gonna have adequate clearance around your headers

and your motor mounts.

Now, we come to the most important piece and that's the gas pedal Mr gasket. It gives you a couple options here in a floor mount style or a spoon style that mounts to the firewall. Now, since space is limited inside the cab of the hauler, we're gonna go with the spoon style.

There's one last thing that you can count on when doing a project like this. And that's having to do some custom work. For example, remember we showed you that our shifter is coming up under the driver's seat a little bit.

That means we'll have to make a special bracket to bring it out

as well as a new shifter handle to bring things up to where we can get a grip on it.

A lot of you guys have been asking us when the Hairy Hauler is gonna be finished and we still have a long way to go. But today's project gets us a big step closer to completion.

Now, today's tip has to do with something that we all need to be reminded of from time to time and that is shop safety.

Now, that's because we're usually get into a hurry, wanna use the tool, can't find our safety glasses. So we go ahead and use it without it

and that is not the thing to do so to take care of this problem, all you need to do is go down to the hardware store, buy yourself a bunch of safety glasses and some ear plugs

and then set them on every tool in the shop. Now, you literally have to move the parts so you can use the tool and then when you're done, just set them back in place. Now you'll know exactly where they are and you have no reason not to use them. And that

is cheap. Insurance,

overcoming hurdles in life is something Sam Tompkins knows all about. After all, he came from a small rural town in Virginia. Co-founded the largest minority owned core supplier in the automotive industry with just 40 bucks in his pocket. And then there's this little weekend habit that makes him the only African American owner and driver in the most competitive class of the N hr A,

a

lot of times, you know, people said, Sam, are you sure you wanna do this? Are you sure you can do this? And I always feel I said, yeah,

I really believe I can do it. I know,

I know it's gonna be hard.

I know it's gonna be difficult. I know it's gonna be some ups and downs. But I know that if you keep

doing positive things, if you keep trying,

you, you'll get the way you wanna go.

Don't get the wrong idea here. This isn't a story about a drag racing champion just yet.

This story is more about a racer who's trying to help kids from single parent homes become champions of the human race. Sam started the Atlanta based inner city mentoring

called Another way out more than 10 years ago when he took a trip to the ghetto and got involved instead of merely shouting some good ideas from the mountain top of success.

The reason why we brought you here is not to try to make drag races out of

here.

All we're trying to do is expose you to some of the things that you may not have ever seen.

Whenever you try to do something

that's a little different from what anybody else has ever done.

You're gonna get a lot of people telling you it can't be done.

My recommendation to you is you don't ever allow anybody

to, to tear you from trying to pursue your dreams.

Not only does Tompkins Core recycling company, conserve energy and reduce waste in our landfills, but the efforts of he and his mentors are also reducing some of the tragic waste that happens daily in the inner city of Atlanta.

Does it work? You ask? Well, there's at least one shining example who just happens to be a shop foreman at Tompkins Business as well as a member of his pit crew.

I'm 25 years old

and uh I start working for Sam Thompson when I was about 19 straight out of high school.

And um

the thing was I was getting in a lot of trouble and the Sam seen that I was getting in trouble or whatever and uh

actually took me off the streets.

I actually like being here and being with Sam and being, being able to run with the big guy something you always dreamed of who, who would think he would be here with John Boy and,

uh, Tony, she

mocker

them.

Who, who, who, who, who, who would think that.

Well, Carlos, we know at least one guy who really did one of the things that I do have

is the ability to focus and I don't care how hard

it is to do what I wanna do, how,

how long it takes. That doesn't bother me.

I know that if I want it bad enough and if I work hard enough, I'm gonna get it

now. By his own admission, Sam Tompkins has a long way to go before he can wear the crown of an N hr A champion.

But if you really want to help him get there, just tell him he'll never be able to do it.

And he along with a whole bunch of kids from the inner city of Atlanta will have a much different perspective on that.

But whatever happens at the end of the day, it's not n hr a titles that shape our future, it's our kids and at least one man's doing something that really makes a difference for all of us. You're not gonna save the world overnight. And our goal is really not trying to save the world. If we only save one or two

kids throughout the life of the program, I would say that that would certainly be a success, but I believe we're gonna do better than that.

And now, truck gear, parts, tools and equipment for pickups and sport utilities.

Now, most shop tools are pretty ugly. That's why it's common to see people do some customizing to them like we did our old floor jack here.

Well, zipper motors has taken that to a whole another level with their zip jack. Now, not only is this thing, literally a rolling work of art, but it is a state of the art tool too.

Now, it's made out of billet. Aluminum only weighs 35 pounds

has a lifting capacity of 2500 pounds and a lifting range of up to 18 inches and only nine pumps. Now, the zip jack rolls in at about 800 bucks. Zipper motors is the only place you can get it.

You know, there's a whole bunch of cleaners out there and that's actually part of the problem because most times it takes at least three or four different types to clean your truck up. Wouldn't it be great if everything you needed came in one bottle?

Well, mcguire's claims they have just the ticket with their brand new all purpose cleaner called extra. Now, this stuff will do everything from degreasing engines and cleaning up brake dust to cleaning carpets and even upholstery. But the best part is it

doesn't take a whole lot of extra cash at about five bucks a bottle

that's gonna do it for truck gear. Here's a preview of next week's show

the Hairy Hauler is back next week. The guys show you how the detail work can be the difference between a hack job and a real Showstopper.

Then we've got a 56 F 100. That's not like any blue oval we've ever seen.

Finally, we'll take our cameras down south to Moroso Motorsports Park for the Jet and Truck Nationals. That's all next week on trucks.

Well, that's gonna do it for this week's show. We appreciate you hanging out with. Yeah, we got all kinds of cool stuff to roll at you next week. What is this?

This is the real thing from Sanderson.

Real thing,

man. No baffles. Nothing flames kicking outside.

Mhm.

Trucks is an RTM production.