Dump Truck

Welcome to trucks. You aren't gonna love today's show because I'm gonna show you how to install one of the most unique and usable accessories you can put on a truck and I've got my good buddy smokes here to help me.

Now, question for you. What is the most popular reason that people buy a truck? Come on.

Well, it's for the bed. So you have something to put dirt and gravel and plywood and a TV S and luggage and all kinds of stuff in

and a bed is what makes a truck, a truck. But unfortunately, there's a problem with the bed.

It's a lot easier to load than it is to unload. And every one of us at one time or another have wished there was some way to get this bed to dump. Well, there is and that's what we're gonna show you today. Come on, smokes.

The kit we're using is from load hog and it's pretty easy to install. Now. It not only converts your stock bed into a dumper,

but it also retains the stock look of the truck. You will never know this stuff is on until you flip that switch Now, the kit consists of big powder coated heavy duty hinges.

You got your compressor system,

it's all mounted wired up inside of a steel box.

You got all your wiring, cross members, braces, hoses, all your hardware.

And of course, the lifting mechanism. Now, this is two plates

and sandwiched in between is a huge air bag.

That's right.

This thing gets its lift using air, not hydraulics more on that later on.

Ok. The first thing that we need to do is take some measurements between the bed and the cab

and the tailgate and the bumper and we'll use those as reference points. So when we put this all back together, these gaps are gonna be just right

with the bumper off,

disconnect the wiring for the tail lights,

then unbolt the gas filler neck from the bed.

Now go under the bed, make your mark on this front bed, cross member according to the instructions.

Now

unbolt the bed from the frame,

finally lift off the bed. Now, if you don't have a system like I'm using,

that's all right. You'll just have to enlist about four of your buddies to help you.

Now, we've got some modifications we need to do to the bed and to the frame. We're gonna start here on the frame,

namely with these cross members. Now they lay right here between the frame rails, they're gonna support this whole airbag assembly. Incidentally, this whole load hog kit only weighs 100 and 20 pounds. That is considerably lighter than a hydraulic system.

Now, with this Ford, you've got all kinds of fuel lines running right down the frame rail.

So we're gonna have to pop those loose

and lower them down

to mount the cross members will make our measurements up the frame rails and then drill our holes.

Now, bolt the cross member to the frame rails, making sure that the tops are flat and level

moving on. We need to cut off these rear frame rails

so our hinges

will fit up nice and tight and we'll still have room to have the bed dump.

So we're gonna cut these off right here flush with this rear cross member. And you can use a

Sawzall cut off tool or a plasma cutter.

But out of those three only, the Sawzall is not gonna kick up a bunch of sparks. Remember you're back here by the gas tank, you got fumes, you need to be careful and protect yourself,

clamp the lower hinges in place, drill the holes

and then bolt them up. That is that

while we're back here, load hog also makes a super strong class four receiver hitch

that works perfectly with their dump bed kit and now is the perfect time to put this thing on. So we've jacked it into place. We're gonna mark and drill our holes and bolt this baby up

next up is the compressor assembly.

And like I said before, the motor, the pump, all the hoses, the wiring, the valves, everything is all preassembled inside of this metal box. So you don't have to put it together

and it's all protected from the elements and junk and things like that.

Now, to put it in,

you got this template that comes with the kit

and on a Ford, it mounts on the passenger side out of frame rail. Now, your first inclination is gonna be to stick this thing up nice and high to get it out of the way. But remember you've got a lid that's got to come off that box to service it.

So make sure you set it low enough to where you can get in the box and once you have it, how you want it,

go ahead and mark and drill your holes.

Now,

both the support brackets to the frame,

follow that with the compressor box.

Of course, to make that compressor work,

we need some electrical power. So wiring is next

and it is super easy. Like I said before,

the wiring in the compressor box is all done for you. You basically have two wires. You've got a big ground

that you mount down on the frame

and then you've got this power wire that runs down the frame rail up here and connected to the battery. Now, instead of running directly to the battery, which is never a good idea,

we are gonna run through this supplied regulator, which will protect our wiring and our electric motor.

You're really working hard,

believe it or not, the toughest part of the wiring install is just deciding where you're gonna put your switch. Now it's all prewired. This part just plugs into the compressor box

and where you mount, this is entirely up to you on the dash wherever. But I found one of the best places is down here under the seat where it's out of the way, nobody accidentally hits it.

And once it's in

all you have to do is wire tie things out of the way from the exhaust or moving parts. And that takes care of the modifications on the frame and also brings us up to a break, but don't go too far

because when we come back, we're gonna be right back on this project. You are way too comfortable on that seat.

Hey, welcome back to truck. Now, what we're doing today is taking a stock 92 Ford F 150 half ton

and we're converting the bed to where it'll dump with the flick of a switch.

And the best part is this is something that you can do over the weekend in your driveway

if you use this kit from load hog. Now, we've already done the modifications to the frame, the compressor box, the cross members, the hinges, the hitch, there's a lot more to do. So let's get to it

with the bed off. We are ready to mount these upper hinge brackets.

They've also got a spot right here for the stock bumper. Unfortunately,

no bumper I took off of this thing was not only damaged, it was not stock, so I'll get a replacement for that later on.

Now. Put these on, they go right here in the rear using this stock hole, center it up

and mark your hole,

drill your holes

and bolton in plays.

Now we're ready for this safety strut

and this basically allows you to prop up the bed so you can get up underneath there and work. Oh, it's pretty important.

And you don't wanna just crank this thing down because it still needs to be able to rotate on you and notice it'll pivot just about any direction. Now, over here on this side,

you got this little clip and it holds it in place until you need it.

Ok? We are ready to mount our lifting mechanism, which means

this big old air bag.

I know a lot of you wondered about the strength and your ability of putting an air bag on a dump truck.

Let me put your mind at ease here. First of all these thrust plates,

these are made out of what they call fiberglass protrusion.

They're tested to be over six times stronger than steel.

It won't burn, won't rust and it's considerably lighter. Obviously, I just carried all this stuff in here. Now,

the airbag,

this is made out of senior ballistic nylon. This is the same stuff the Navy seals use in their landing attack rafts.

This stuff is basically bulletproof.

Now, using a bag like this will allow you to lift over 4000 pounds using only 13 P si

you don't have any arms, anything that you have to come in here and serve or lube

and you don't have to mess with hydraulic fluid.

This is the deal

to install the assembly, just center it up on the cross members between the frame rails

and then attach it with the supplied self tapping screws,

attach and secure your airline

a little tip here. If your fuel lines are up tight against your cross member, make sure that you use some sort of rubber or padding between them. So you don't change the lines.

We're gonna be all right here.

Finally, we got this thing back in the air. You can see how the bumper mounts are looking. It's almost time to put this back on the chassis. But first remember those lines that we made on these front cross members clear at the start of the project.

Well, that is what these are for these, go down the outside of each frame rail and keep the bed from moving side to side as the trucks running down the road,

roll the bed over the chassis and lower it down,

then wrestle your hinges into place

and slide in your hinge pins

there. See I told you it wasn't that hard. And this thing is really starting to look like a dump truck. Now, we have a few more things we need to hook up and then we're gonna show you how it works. But after the break

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

Welcome back to trucks. I'm glad you made it because it would be a shame if you missed out on the payoff of this little dump truck project. Now, if you're just getting here, you heard. Right. We're taking a stock truck and turning it into a dumper.

Now, I've already got the bed on hinge is all hooked up. It's time to move on. Now,

I shouldn't have to say this, but I'm going to

still have the hoist holding up the way to the bed

and I've got this prop rod in place. That's so when you crawl up underneath the work on this,

the bed won't accidentally fall down on you and crush you. Trust me, that thing is heavy enough to do that. You need to make sure that you're being careful. Now, we're gonna hook up that airbag.

The best way to do this is to start the pump and fill the air bag

while guiding the upper thrust plate into position on the bottom of the bed.

Then just center up between the cross members and mount it up with the self tapping screws.

Now for the first time, you can really see

how this airbag system is gonna work as it lifts the bed

and then holds it in place until I hit the button to release it

pretty slick. Huh?

But that's not all, there's still a few more parts that come with the kit.

This is a safety hold down that utilizes a pin

that keeps the bed from bouncing up and down when you're on bumpy roads. And this relocates the gas filler neck into the wheel. Well,

and that is it. Now, let's take a look at what we've got with the body down,

stock looking track. Look at those body lines. This thing is perfect. Then we just flip the switch and we blow everybody's mind. Now you've seen this thing work. The question is, how strong is it? Well, let's go find out

there's nothing like a big wet load of mulch to see how this thing's gonna work.

And since the load hog will lift over 4000 pounds,

we put in a couple of big scoops

just to make sure we're really testing this thing.

Just make sure you don't overload the capacity of the truck

rolling down the road. The truck is solid as a rock and looks completely stock. No hint of the equipment hiding under the bed.

Now, the moment of truth,

if this thing doesn't dump, we have got some serious shovel time ahead of us.

But with the flip of the switch

system comes to life and easily lifts the bed

in dump city

just like it's supposed to.

So, if you're gonna use your truck to haul stuff, like you should be. Well, you've got a couple of choices to unload it,

this or

this. We'll be back

in the world of cars and trucks. There's about four areas that people really don't wanna dig into

wiring, paint, rear ends and transmissions and that's what we're gonna dig into today. Transmissions, specifically standard shift. Now, what I'm surrounded with here is a whole bunch of transmissions that are out of big 18 wheeler trucks. Now, these things have anywhere from 13 to 18 forward gears.

The question is, how do these compare with the transmission that's in your truck? Well, the only thing to do is break one open and show you how it works.

Oh, it works,

brought to you by Wyotech.

All right, Chad, we gotta cut away of a big rig tranny here. There's a lot of gears, what's going on in here.

Well, all these gears are gonna receive power from one item and that's this input shaft which is gonna be driven by your clutch. Power is gonna come in and split down both of your counter shafts. You got two counter shafts as opposed to one

by doing this. Basically, we've strengthened the training by doubling our, our surface area without making the transmission overly large by increasing the gear size

from the counter shafts. The power is gonna come down to our speed gears and all we have to do from there to engage any forward gear is to

actuate one of the clutching colors. Now, I notice you don't have any kind of sync rows or anything like a normal transmission. Now, why is that?

Well, this type of transmission we, we want to get at least 750,000 miles out of and with today's technology synchronizer just will not last that long burn those up real quick.

Now, how many gears is this? This is five Ford speeds,

five forward speeds. I noticed there's no yoke back here. So obviously there's something else that goes on here. Well, what we're gonna do is we're gonna bolt on a secondary transmission or an

au auxiliary box, short rock box, um which is basically another three speed transmission

that we'll be able to use in conjunction with the various main box gears. How does this work?

Well, let me go ahead and place this in first gear here.

Uh Our various uh shifts here, I'll show you three different speeds with using the first gear in the main box.

First de production is obviously a pretty low gear ratio.

Yeah,

regular low gears is a little bit faster but not near is low.

And our third being high range is the fastest of the three

and those are all in first gear. Yep, that's the exact same main box gear. Ok. Now, why are you using air on the aux box and manual shift up here on the front. Well, there's two reasons. Number one to cut down on that second shift or being inside that truck and number two, air shifts are a lot faster which will, uh, aid the transmission driving down the road. Ok.

Now, so you've got five gears up here.

Three back here you can use

a combination of any to give you a total of 15 years. Right. Right. Ok.

Now, a transmission like this, what kind of wear and tear do you get in it?

Well, the, the, the, the key thing is just to,

to prevent gear wears, to change your oil on a regular basis. Ok.

So the next time you're running down the road and you see a big rig and the guys ramming through all those gears. Now, you not only know why

you also know how it works. Ok. The big question, how heavy is this? It is about 700 pounds and

won't work in a Jeep

if you're into building a street cruiser truck. Well, you know, it's got to be down on the ground, preferably the lower, the better

the problem is when you slam a truck down to where the lay frame.

Well, you got to put in ac notch and cut and weld and fabricate.

It's the stuff that not just everybody can do. Well, air ride technologies decided to help you out, came out with what they call the road grater for the S 10 truck. Now, this is a bolt in three link rear air suspension kit

and you've got the air bags, the shocks, everything you're gonna need to literally bolt this thing in, in about four hours.

This will give you a 12

inch drop and allow you to lay frame while tucking a 20 inch wheel. Now, if you add to this, the shock wave front suspension kit, you're gonna have a truck that frame all the way around

and you can put this in in a weekend.

Sometimes it's the little things that can really make your life easy. If you've got a plastic bed liner in your truck, you know, your cargo can slide all around because they can get slick. Well, these are called the bed bugs and they're from Eaton Detroit spring

and your cargo or toolboxes fit into this side

and on this side, you've got little rubber feet that fit into the grooves of your bed liner

and keep things from moving around.

Ingenious design. Very simple, inexpensive. And these work,

the last product that we're gonna look at is for you dodge guys that are running the Cummins diesel engine. Now, you probably know that opening up, that exhaust system can give you some more power. Well, bully dog technologies can help you with that

with this huge four inch stainless steel exhaust system.

Now, you've got your straight pipes,

all your pre vent pipes. So things are gonna fall right into place.

We've got a nice flow through muffler for sound and flow

and you've got all the mounting hardware so you can literally bolt this thing in and go, not have to make one trip to the muffler shop and that is cool.

Hopefully, if you're working in a shop, you realize you need some protection,

ear protection, safety glasses, gloves, things like that.

But if you've got a faithful companion with you like smokey here, like most of us do,

well, you need to make sure you're keeping an eye on them too now. Pretty much. Everybody knows. You keep them away from antifreeze and

solvents and poisons and things like that.

But if you're grinding metal or pounding on metal up on a bench, make sure they're not laying down below you where something can fall on them.

And also if you're a welder,

that light is mesmerizing to a dog, they'll sit there and stare at it for hours

and you won't realize it until one day old Fido starts walking into walls. So

if you got him in the shop with, you need to keep an eye on him

that's gonna do it for today. Smokes and I are gonna go play with a dump truck. We'll see you later.

You've got some serious dog breath, you know.