Big Blaze Payoff

Today on trucks, we're gonna unleash project. Big plays for one heck of a test drive as Stacy lumbers around town and cuts through the trails.

Then we'll go back in the studio for a lesson on knocking out those ugly dents using a hammer and dolly

later, it's tool tech with a sneak peek at something that'll turn your ordinary grinder into a mini machine shop.

And finally, Stacy's in the tech corner answering your questions and showing you some tricks of the trade.

That's all today on trucks.

Welcome to trucks. Now, a while back, we did a build up on a project called Big Blades. Now, if you're looking at this uh mess and wondering if this is it. Well, it is after a thorough test drive,

but before we show you how it got in this condition,

I'm gonna give you an update on the build up just in case you might have missed it.

We started with a well worn 88 Blazer

added new axles,

a six inch lift

and 37 inch tall tires.

We followed that with a fuel injected crate motor,

a new transmission transfer case and drive shafts

and finished it off with heavy duty bumpers, a winch interior and a super slick paint job. Now, some of you might have been thinking, well, that's nice, but the truck's a trailer queen. It's too nice to go four wheeling with.

And that is where you'd be wrong.

The whole purpose here is to show you that you've got a nice looking truck you can run down the highway with and it will get the job done off road. So you better hold on because we're gonna take you on a test drive of big blaze.

All right. The first thing you wanna check your gauges and your controls, all our gauges are working. Gas looks good temperature. Oil pressure is rocking. It's about 50 pounds

battery charging

speedometer and it's working, but it looks like it's about 10 miles an hour too fast. So we'll need to adjust that when we get back. Other than that, everything looks really good.

All right, we're rolling along here at about 50 miles an hour and the steering is surprisingly light. It's gonna be interesting to see how this stock power steering holds up off road.

Now, the steering wheel on the other hand,

as you can see is just a hair off center.

So we'll need to adjust that through the tire rods because that'll drive me crazy. All right, let's speed this thing up.

All right. Now we're rolling along about 70 miles an hour and the first thing you notice is how quiet it is in here. We've got the sides rolled up 37 inch tall tires and check this out.

No vibration. When's the last time you saw that

we're impressed.

Make no mistake. Big Blaze is not a sports car, but it does handle well in turns and curves without a lot of excessive body roll.

Now, any time you've got a big vehicle like this, you've gotta have good brakes to get it to stop. Now, remember we put four wheel discs on this thing. So now to get the job done,

we are gonna test them. First of all, we'll start with a little light pedal pressure.

It feels good. Standard big tire pull kind of wants to wander a little bit,

give it some hard pressure

that'll do.

Now, one of the drawbacks of having a truck, this big is you've got some big blind spots, especially right in front and right in back

and that can make parking in a tight parking spot a

little bit of a challenge.

No, we're not gonna get that one.

I might as well just get used to this. This is part of the deal.

All right, here's what we got, got a truck that looks really good. Got a lot of thumbs up, got a truck that handles, ok. On the road doesn't handle too well in tight parking spots and gets bad gas mileage. That sounds like a serious off Roader to me.

So, after the break, you better hold on because we're gonna take this thing wheeling.

Stay tuned because you're not gonna believe what Stacy tries once he gets big blaze off road

and later it's a state of the art multi tool for the lowly bench grinder.

Welcome back to trucks. Now, before the break, we took big blaze out on a road test and it was pretty impressive, but now we're gonna take it off road and which is what everybody wanted to see anyway. So we're gonna let the air out of the tires. We're gonna turn the hubs in.

We're gonna put it in four wheel drive and we are ready to rock.

If you're gonna run a big vehicle like a blazer, you're gonna do any kind of rock crawling where you need actual articulation.

You're gonna need to cut the fenders. So they'll keep this big a tire

or

here's what you'll get,

ah, body damage.

Remember, this is a full size truck. So tight places can be kind of a challenge. But in the mud it really shines.

Oh, and by the way, no cameramen were harmed in the making of this film.

They just had to change their shorts a couple of times.

Now, on a steep hill, our injected motor and low gearing made quick work of anything we could throw at it. Heck, it made it look easy.

However, because of its height, a steep side hill can feel a little bit tippy

Now, for those of you that are gonna try any kind of a deep water crossing or a river, you need to get out here and see how deep it is or you're gonna end up down river. Now, it's not just the depth, it's how swift it is. So, check it out first, we get wet.

All right, this is it.

They say this is the dirtiest, nastiest, gnarliest mud hole out here. It's been known to stick trucks with 44 inch loggers.

Actually, legend has it. There's a few samurais buried down in there.

Well, of course, we're gonna try it.

Well, try it.

Wow.

We know you're gonna wanna see that again.

Of course, we made it once. So we just had to try it again.

Uh

You know, you might as well roll on this.

Now, you can see why you need a wine because you never know when you're gonna need one and

getting out of a hole like this without one could turn into an all day affair

all in a day's work.

That was the only time we got stuck all day as we continued to hammer big blaze and take it to the limit of what it could do.

Well, as you can see, big blaze is an awesome off road vehicle, especially when things get wet and muddy.

We didn't have any breakdowns either. Now, some of you might be thinking, oh man,

you thrashed the truck. How could you do that.

Well, what did we really do?

Got a little bit of damage down here.

That'll be easy to knock that out and fix that.

We'll wash it off. We've got a waterproof interior. So all we have to do is wash that out. We can go right down to the local showing shine where I'm sure somebody will come up and say, hey, man,

nice truck. But is it a trailer queen? Do you ever take it off road?

And that

will be our little secret.

Next, we'll show you the not so gentle art of using a hammer and dolly to pound out dance.

Just can't get enough of trucks. Check us out online at trucks, tv.com.

Welcome back to trucks.

Now, if you're into working on your own truck and we hope that you are one skill that you need to learn is how to knock dents out of metal using a hammer and dolly. Now, the reason is that no matter what you drive, eventually, you're gonna get some body damage.

Good body man is expensive and a bad body man is really expensive. So we're gonna show you how to do it.

Now, the first thing that you need to get is a good set of body tools and you're gonna need to spend a little bit of money here because

your dinging hammers and your spoons are balanced, that is crucial for proper technique. If you don't have good tools,

you might as well be swinging a brick. Now, let me show you these hammers.

First one we've got has got a serrated head. Now, this is for shrinking metal.

Now, this end is for getting in and knocking out ridges.

This hammer with the funky ends is for actually reaching inside fenders and knocking out dents and you don't even have to take the tire off.

This hammer's got a regular flat end, but this end has got the little pick on it

and that'll knock out little tiny dents.

Then of course, you've got your regular dinging hammer and don't ever try to drive nails with these.

Next,

you've got your dollies. Now, this is what you actually form the metal around.

And as you can see, you can do just about any kind of contour you can imagine with these. Finally,

you've got your spoons. Now, these can be used a couple of different ways you can slap with them or you can set them down on the metal and hit them with a hammer and this spreads a load out and that's great for flattening down a ridge. Now, let's put these things to use.

Now, the key to successful metal work is to not just grab a hammer and start pounding away.

All you'll do is create a bunch of ridges and you'll have to use a lot of body filler.

What you need to do first is a little bit of detective work. Find out what caused the damage and reverse that process.

Now, if you'll notice we got a little dent here, a

little dent here

which peaked the metal. So we've got a ridge running there,

so we'll take the proper dolly,

stick it under this dent

and we'll take the hammer and hammer along this ridge, alternating the dolly from here to here so we can sink that ridge back.

Do you wanna hold the hammer lightly?

Use your wrist and let the hammer do the work?

Now, obviously, there's some skill involved to bump in metal and since no two dents are alike, you've gotta be able to look at a dent and know what it's gonna take to bring that up out of there.

And that is a skill that only comes with practice, preferably on somebody else's truck. Now, you're wondering what if you can't get a dolly in here. How do you get those dents out?

Well, that's a whole another technique that will cover on another show. We'll be back after this

when we come back, Stacy's helping out viewers with performance upgrades and a four by four conversion

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

One thing that helps keep your truck comfortable no matter where you live is air conditioning. Unfortunately, when it comes time to replace your refrigerant,

they haven't had too many choices until now.

Durao

is a direct replacement for R 12 and R 134 A systems and this stuff is non corrosive. So it's not gonna eat up your system. It's safe for the ozone

and it stays cooler than the other stuff. The big question is, can you buy it?

Answer is yes. And the place is Fox Tool and supply.

Now, in case you didn't know 90% of all automatic transmission failures are due to excessive heat. So how do you keep things cool with the B and M super cooler? Now, the kit comes with the cooler poses, brackets and all the fittings, you'll need to hook this thing to your truck. And if you do any kind of towing or four wheeling, you have got to have one of these B and M makes applications for everything from a Jeep to a motor home.

Another area that's very susceptible to temperature are your shocks

if they get too hot? Well, they just pretty much quit working on you.

Gabriel's got the answer to that with what they call the max control shock. Now, the mono tube design keeps things a lot cooler than the standard twin tube design

and the high pressure gas helps control sway when you're on the road. Now, these are available for most trucks or suvs

and you can get these at your local parts store.

One of the things that I like to do on trucks is to keep you guys informed what's going on in the world of tools because having the right tool makes it possible to do these kind of projects by yourself. Now, I've got a really cool one for you today. Something that'll definitely make life easier. Of course, that's what a tool is supposed to do.

We got it from a place called Goods and Tools and it's called the Multi Tool. And it basically turns your bench grinder into a little machine shop. Let me show you how it works. The kit replaces one side of your bench grinder

and allows you to grind or polish in four different positions

up here on the front wheel. For great accessibility.

You've got a plate here for support. When you're doing edges,

you've got a free strapping area for contours. Then of course, you have the flat disk.

Now, you can also lock this thing into any position including straight vertical.

The kit also comes with an adjustable table and an adjustable T square

that slides right in this groove

and this allows you

to true up ends or

adjust lengths or angles. Heck, there's 1000 different uses for something like this.

Now, if you're doing heavy grinding or just some light sanding and polishing, that's ok

because you can get different belts and disks for your application. Now, the best part is you can still use the other side of your grinder for other jobs. Now, the price,

the tool is just under 200 bucks that doesn't include the grinder. You're on your own for that.

But if you think you need one of these goods and tools is where you gotta call.

Now. It's time for your questions.

The first one comes from a guy named Richmond.

He says trucks.

I have a 1999 4 by four Sierra with a 5.3 L V8.

Wanna replace my stock air filter and exhaust system with a free flowing system.

Do I have to upgrade the computer?

Well, Richmond, that's a really good question because most people think you gotta spend all this money on all these parts to get any performance out of your truck.

And the truth is you don't have to upgrade your computer computer. However,

if you're gonna get the most out of those parts you're putting on there, you probably wanna upgrade the computer. Now, we put hypertext power programmer on almost that same truck picked up about 14 horsepower,

400 bucks, 14 horsepower. Pretty good deal. I hope that helps you.

The second one we've got is from Richard.

He says Stacy,

I have an 82 Chevy pickup that I wanna make into a four by four because it's two wheel drive.

Can you tell me how hard and how long it would take?

Now, don't laugh. I get this question a lot out here,

Richard, you need to sell the truck and buy a four by four unless you just love this truck and you've got to have it. This is the one for you.

You're gonna be into so much money. You're not even gonna want to think about this truck. Now, if you wanna do it, here's what it would take,

need to get a transmission and a transfer case to go.

You need to get a front drive shaft. You need to get a front axle to match the rear axle. You need to rig up a suspension to hold that front axle

and then you need to have the know how to make it all work together. Now, if you don't have that, know how, guess what? You get to spend a lot of money to pay somebody to do it.

So sell the truck and get yourself a four by four.

Now, if you've got a technical question, send it in to trucks. Tv.com, we'll do our best to get it on the air.

That's gonna do it for today's show. Here's what we got for you next week,

we'll dump the carburetor and install a throttle body injection on an 81 Jeep Scrambler and bring that old straight six to life.

Then we'll stand on the gas with a rare 1948 Stew. The Baker Show truck

that's been chopped, sliced, diced, scattered, smothered and covered

and last but not least, Stacey's showing you what to look for when you pick out your next project. That's all next week on trucks

for a VHS copy of today's show call Toll Free 1877853 7260. Show videos are just 1295 plus shipping and handling

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