Bronco Stripping

Welcome to trucks.

Today, we're gonna deal with a subject that every enthusiast, professional, amateur,

it doesn't matter. You're eventually gonna have to deal with this and it's how to strip a body and get it ready for paint. Now, I'm talking about all over top bottom wheel wells. Everything you got a couple choices here, you can have it media blasted

or you can have it dipped, but either way you're gonna have to take it somewhere. This is not something that

you can do in your driveway. So today we're gonna deal with media blasting

what you should expect, what it costs. We're gonna answer all those questions. But before we do that,

we're gonna give you just a little recap of the build up of this old 66 Bronco project. Crazy Horse

and how it uh came to be in this condition.

It all started with an old beat up 66 Ford Bronco

that I literally had to push into the shop.

The first order of business was to cut out the old rusty floors

and rockers

and replace them with new metal.

Then it was time to do something about the suspension

axles

and the wheels and tires.

Of course, we've got to have a hot drive train.

So 400 horsepower and five forward gears was assembled

and laid to rest in the newly painted chassis.

Finally, we tore into the rest of the body and when the smoke cleared,

I had replaced everything but the rear fenders and a piece of the firewall.

Now that we're all up to date, here's what you need to do before you go see the stripper.

You need to completely disassemble the vehicle

and I'm talking everything, tail lights, weather, stripping,

all the little rubber grommets, everything's got to come off. Then

you need to rig up some sort of rotisserie like this so you can transport the vehicle down there.

Now, we got this from a place called Accessible Systems.

Believe me, this is a lifesaver on this kind of project.

Now, once all your prep work is done, well, it's time to hunt down a stripper and we've got the perfect place for you. It's in Lebanon, Tennessee.

It's called Blast from the past. And people literally come from all across the nation to see the stripper named, uh Heavy Duty.

Take it all off.

Yeah,

I

started collecting them and I said, you know, well, I would like to have some sleeves.

Now, normally you wouldn't think that a lot of people would go see a stripper named Heavy Duty,

but obviously you're thinking of the wrong kind of stripper. Heavy duty is the owner of blast from the past and has been stripping and blasting for 29 years. We're gonna get him to walk us through the process.

They all want to be stripped,

they all want to come back to life again.

Yeah.

Yeah. I'm gonna put some brakes on here before this thing runs you right to the wall.

The first question that pops into people's minds is,

isn't this just sand, blasting something that anybody can do with a cheap blaster and a plucking of sand

for me to achieve the kind of finish that I want that my customers want. This is what I use right here. Uh This is aluminum oxide. We use this media on bodies that have a lot of surface rust,

uh A lot of uh undercoating uh things in that nature. Uh that's, that's combined

and uh it puts a real slick satin finish on it. This is 100 and 20 grit aluminum oxide. This is a at five acrylic plastic

that we can strip uh fiberglass cars with, you know, any of the kind of Corvettes, whatever it feels like beat sand it is. It's, it's, it's just, you know, it's just real, it's just real ground up fine stuff.

Uh And I opted to use this over this product right here. This, this being so coarse of a plastic,

this believe it or not, cuts,

cuts more paint than this. Does we mainly stick with these two products, right? Here, this,

these, these two right here are the ones that we, that we use. The most of

with all the preliminary work done and Crazy Horse resting comfortably in the blasting bay.

It's time to start stripping.

And after the break, we're gonna show you what happens when heavy duty lays into this old Bronco body.

Stay with us. The strip show begins

and later a look at one man's version of a ram and it's no trailer queen.

Welcome back to trucks where we are showing you what's involved in the media blasting process.

As you can see, we are at blast from the past and they are getting ready to start blasting. So let's get to it

in mechanical stripping safety is a major concern because it could easily destroy your lungs without proper ventilation.

It could also do some serious physical damage if you accidentally get a finger or a leg in front of the nozzle.

The operator needs to be completely protected with a full helmet and fresh air supply

and very thick clothing and gloves to protect his body.

All right. Check out how easily the media peels off about six layers of paint

and leaves the metal with a nice rough surface.

That's perfect for fillers of primer.

Also notice how much dust this thing kicks up. Another good reason for not doing this in your driveway.

Stripping the advantages to it is is you're right there.

Um

You can, you can, you have control over what you're doing

uh uh

of the area. If, if you see that something's blowing apart, you can stop, you can work around it,

you know that that area is gonna be cut out and gonna be brand new metal in it. So you go out on the outskirts of that and blast it,

chemical dipping. You know, it's like you dip it in the tank and you pull it out. It's what it is.

One of the key techniques of a good operator is to strip the metal and not overheat the panels and warp them.

That is where knowing your meat is and how to handle the nozzle are extremely important.

Yet another reason for not trying this in your driveway with a bucket of sand

here is where rotisserie is worth its weight in gold.

It allows you to roll the rig up on its side to get to the fender wells in the bottom

without it,

the heavy would be rolling around on his back underneath this thing.

And that would definitely put him in a foul mood.

One of the major problem areas on any vehicle and especially the early Bronco,

the inner fenders and wheel tubs,

they hold mud and water and they rust the fender from the inside out. Believe me, there is no way you're gonna be able to get up there and get that out yourself. A media blaster like this is the only way and it makes it look easy.

I love doing this right here.

This, it's like every day to me is like a holiday when I get,

when I

get up and come out here,

it's like a Saturday.

Oh, man.

Look at that. Completely stripped. Completely clean, top, bottom wheel wells everywhere.

Look at that pure virgin metal. Now, anytime you have something stripped though, do not be surprised to find all kinds of little nasty things

that have been hidden over the years like

this creative body work here. Now, that's easy to fix though. It won't take very long. Matter of fact, this whole body is in excellent shape. Now, this is ready to go. Now, a lot of you are probably thinking, well, shoot, you know, Stacy, that's great. But

I just want to strip my truck so I can paint it. Do I have to do all of this?

Well, the answer is no, uh, if you're just gonna have it done like that, you can roll it right into the shop, they'll tape it off and they can strip it like that.

If you're gonna go to a dipper, well,

you're gonna have to do this. Hopefully, that gives you an idea,

kind of what's involved in the media blasting process.

We'll be back after this

when trucks returns a daring dodge with looks style power and Stacy behind the wheel.

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

Welcome back to trucks. You know, there's a couple of really good reasons why a person would spend all kinds of time late at night out in the garage

eating cold pizza, tweaking on his project to get it just right.

The first is the sense of accomplishment that you get when you build something yourself. The second

it allows you to flex your creativity, to build the truck that you like something totally different, totally unique that nobody else has. That's the key. Well, different is what Mark mcwane had in mind when he went down to the local Dodge dealership, bought a 99 Dodge Ram, took it down to the guys at attitude performance and said, let's build this sucker big and bad.

First thing they did was dig into that suspension

up front. You can see the whole steering set up shock mounts. Everything's been re-engineered,

but that's not all you see that big fat airbag sitting right there.

That's right. You can adjust the suspension height with the airbags

depending on how much attitude you want the truck to have.

The front axle is a Dana 44

and it's held in place with a handmade polished stainless steel four L

set up.

The rear suspension is just a special with a custom four link system just like the front

and it holds a Chrysler nine and a quarter rear axle in place.

Of course, you also have airbags back here too

under the bed. You've got four air compressors that fill four air tanks inside the bed. This allows you to pump up those big Firestone airbags in a hurry. Now, this suspension setup allows you to change the height of the truck up to seven inches

with just a flick of a switch.

Of course, Martin knew that he wanted the truck to look as good as it ran. So, a killer paint job was a must. A

custom paint on this truck starts clear at the front with the bumpers and lights

and from there it flows back covering both sides of the hood,

then it splashes down the sides of the body all the way back to the tailgate using 16 different colors to get the desired effect.

Now, you can't have this kind of truck and not have some power under the hood. This big dodge is no exception

starting with a 5.9 magna V8. It was detailed to the max

and then a Kenny Bell super Charger was added as well as high performance computer air intake and headers.

Now, all this is very important because you never know you're gonna need to spend those big 39

half inch

Boers.

If you think getting into this thing is a problem. Think again,

you got automatic steps that drop down to help you out

inside the interior is just as clean as the rest of the rig with custom leather seats and console

and of course a kicking stereo and DVD player was added for those long trips when Martin gets tired of listening to those big old Boers.

Oh, yeah. He drives it

a lot now. Maybe

not quite as hard as we drove it here, but he does still drive it

and he's also taken home a pile of first place trophies with this thing.

And the best part is he did it different. He did it with a dodge. And that is cool

When we return, it's back to school with Wyotech. Can you say hydraulics

and Stacy has a better way to build a short block? That's next.

All right, admitted who out there hasn't wanted to play with something like this. But the question is, how is it so strong? How can it dig earth and move rocks and things like that? Well, the answer is hydraulics now, that's a little bit confusing to you. Well, it won't be after we show you how it works.

Oh, it works.

Brought to you by Wyotech.

All right, Chad, everybody's heard of hydraulic systems, but very few people know how they're laid out. Now. You got a really cool display here. Why don't you walk us through the system?

Ok. Well, all hydraulic systems start out here with a hydraulic pump. This pump is driven by an electric motor.

Your pump is gonna be pulling your fluid directly from the reservoir,

gonna be passing through this pump, creating flow and that flow is gonna come up to our pressure manifold

and that's where you hook the hoses to correct this pressure manifold gives us a, a quick accessible place to

tap into pressure via quick couplers. Now, what kind of pressure is running through these hoses?

Um You can have up to 500 P SI. Uh There's a lot of variables there. Um, such as relief valves. This one here said about 500 P SI. Ok. Then where do we go? Well, I have two scenarios built for you. One is built off of a manual valve.

Any other one is built off uh an electric solenoid valve. Ok. Let me show you how this works.

Your control valve is gonna control your fluid both to and from the components that you're driving in this situation. It's gonna be a hydraulic cylinder.

Now that looks like something that would be on like a back or a bulldozer or something like that.

Correct. Correct. Uh

Your manual valve like this is, is gonna be your traditional valves off like uh agriculture equipment, uh

loaders, bulldozers, et cetera excavators.

How about the electric switch? Your electric switch is in turn basically gonna do the same thing.

It's just a lot cleaner. You uh have an electric switch that will do the same function. Now,

this is what you see on a lot of street trucks and lowered vehicles and things like that that are run a hydraulic.

Correct. It's, it's a lot more uh a cleaner look

that is what it gives you.

Now, I noticed different sizes of cylinders. Now, what's the significance of that? What does that do? Well, your cylinders is gonna determine how much work can be performed. A

smaller cylinder can do less work, but it'll do it faster. Ok. The larger the cylinder will do more work, but obviously at a slower speed. Ok.

Now, I also noticed you have a motor hooked up here so

you can run motors off of hydraulics. What else

you can run motors? Uh, you can run cylinders.

Um, you can run pressure gauges, so on and so forth to do all kinds of different work about everything, you know.

Well, hopefully this gives you an idea how a hydraulic systems laid out. So the next time you see a bulldozer or a backo

now, you know how it works.

This is great, man. We need to hook something up to that and turn something right.

One thing that the world of cars and trucks has in common

is that everybody likes polished aluminum, stainless steel or chrome.

It doesn't matter if you got a street truck or an off road truck, you've probably got some polished aluminum on there somewhere. The problem is

keeping it polished. It's a major pain in the butt and the hands. Well, hold on to your shop rag because Zoop has the answer in what they call Zoop Seal. Now, this is a sealer that you put right over polished aluminum, it seals the pores of the metal and keeps it from oxidizing. So, cleaning up polished aluminum

is as simple as just spraying on some water and just wiping it off. Like you do with chrome.

Also, you only have to put this stuff on every year or so. Now, does that sound too good to be true. Well,

all you have to do is call up Zos,

spend about 100 bucks and you can find out for yourself just how good this stuff really is. Trust me, your hands will thank you

since we're on the subject and making things look good. Let me introduce you to one of the most neglected parts of an engine.

The power steering pump up until now about the only choice you had to make this look good was just to paint it.

Well, the guys at high end custom rod and truck parts has got a solution for that in

this billet aluminum kit made specifically for the GM Saginaw pump.

Now, the kit comes with the polished aluminum housing.

It's got a threaded machine cap. All your holes and fittings are already machined into the back. Of course, you get the hardware and the O ring so you can literally mount this pump into this reservoir and that conversion will only take you a few minutes. So now your power steering pump can look as good as the rest of your engine.

And all you have to do is call high end custom rod and truck parts.

If you ask any 10 hot rodders, what the worst part is about building an engine. All 10 would finally agree

that it's building the short block because you gotta find the block, then you gotta get all the components. You gotta take it down to the machine shop, have the work done, then you have to reassemble everything. Well, believe me, there is a better way and Groom's engines has it.

Now, this is what they call their 355 short block kit.

Now they start with a nice season four bolt main block.

They bore it out, they square deck it,

they al line hone it,

then they assemble it with Trw Ford's flat top pistons,

reconditioned rods. A RP rod bolts, clevite bearings, guys, this is the good stuff. This is what you'd put in if you were building it, but that's not everything.

They also balance the whole assembly. They even include a timing set and an oil pump.

That's a lot of stuff. Now, the price.

Well, Grooms is selling these for around 1200 bucks. Now, when you consider the parts installed and the machine work done,

this is a smoke and deal.

If you've spent any kind of time at all working on a truck, you've probably done some electrical work

where it's just rewiring a tail light or completely rewiring the whole vehicle and nothing is more frustrating

or will cause you to throw more wrenches than a bad electrical connection.

Well, Swen Co products has a whole new twist on electrical connections

and it's called the Pozza Lock. Now, it's a plastic connector. It's got metal inside of it. You stick the wire down in there and just thread it back together. No crimping, no soldering.

And this connection

is as strong as the wire itself. If you're doing electrical work,

you need some of these in your toolbox. Well, that's gonna do it for today. Make sure you come back next week because I have a bare naked bronco body back there and it needs a special coating. We are gonna do that on the show next week. We'll see you.