Classic Trucks! Builds

Episode Transcript

Hey, welcome to the shop. I have got a great show planned for you today because I am buried up to my elbows, putting project Copperhead back together. Now, like I've said before, this is where it starts to get exciting. This is where you actually see what the truck is gonna be.

This is also where you need to be careful that you are taking your time

because it's really easy to forget things and forget steps.

And the last thing you want is parts falling off your truck. The first time you take it down the road

now, last week, bolted the cab on, put the bed together and I've been slowly working my way forward, which means

it's time to do something about the doors. Now, these doors just like the cab are actually genuine original GM parts. So I was really lucky to find these. But if you don't have a good set of doors, reproductions are available and they're nice, but

they're not gonna fit like an original piece, you're gonna have to massage them a little bit. Now, this does not mean that they're bad parts. This is just the reality of it.

So picking up a nice clean set of originals is really nice

if you can find them.

Now, these doors have been modified with a kit from early classic enterprises for one piece

power windows. Now, you can see this combination

works extremely well

and really cleans up the look of the door.

If you're gonna do this kind of conversion, you're gonna have to modify the upper hinge. So it'll clear the window channel

with the doors assembled and the hinges bolted on.

You're ready to bolt your doors on. But wait just a minute. If you've just painted your rig, you need to chase the threads with a tap, make sure everything's clean. So it bolts on nice and easy. Now you're ready to put your door on

and this is usually a very awkward two man job. But I'm using this little tool called the door dolly from brute manufacturing

and it allows you to position the door exactly where you want it. Now, check this out,

this controls the inward and outward tilt of the door these down here, make sure that everything's level and then this jack just lowers it right to where you want it. So you can literally just bolt it right in place. Now, this is a tool you won't use very often. But man, when you need it, it

is a lifesaver.

Make sure you take the time to fit the door properly because nothing looks worse than misaligned body panels.

Once your doors are in place and all your gaps are perfect.

It's time to mount the striker inside the cab and here's how to do that.

You've got a threaded backing plate that goes in the back.

Then the striker itself goes on the outside here. Now, what about all these shims? Well, these shims go between the body

and the striker plate. Now, this allows you to adjust the striker so that door fits and latches. Perfect. Now, one other thing, whenever you're fitting a door,

make sure you leave the window down because that'll keep you from accidentally locking yourself out and

having to crawl through a window,

start with no shims and add them as you need them.

Looks like we're gonna need about three here.

Also, remember

the striker plate can be adjusted in and out and up and down. Now this is what decides just how deep that door fits into the cab. So be prepared to spend a little time here fitting, checking tweaking

until it's perfect and you can get it perfect

even without weather stripping in there,

man, that looks nice, especially with that shaved drip rail. Now, once the doors are done, it's time to move to the front of the truck. Now up here, I've got two new inner fenders

and a radiator support, all of which came from early classic and they're all reproduction parts. But

you're gonna have a hard time telling this from an original. It's got all the stampings, all the fittings, even the captive nuts that the originals had. So this is just a direct bolt in replacement

to install the radiator support set on the new rubber mounts,

then bolt it to the frame

using the new hardware.

Now, the reason that this one on first is that from here on out everything, the inner fenders, the fenders, the hood, the grill, all either mount to the radiator support the firewall or somewhere in between.

So we've left our bolts loose. So we have some adjustment when we go to put it all on. Now, we're gonna take a short break, but we're gonna be right back on this project. So don't start messing with the remote or

you're gonna miss it.

Hey, welcome back to trucks.

We are concentrating on assembling the front sheet metal on this little 67 half ton Chevy.

Now we're working on the inter fenders right now and they bolt to the radiator support here in the front

and then to the bottom of the firewall there in the rear. And as usual, I'm leaving the bolts a little loose for now. So I'll be able to adjust this thing, move it around once I get it all together.

Now, you can see how those inner fenders tie everything together. Now, they're not just for protection to keep mud and rocks and junk out of your engine compartment.

They also supply a mounting point for your outer fender now, a lot of people don't think to paint these inner fenders, they just leave them black and that's fine.

But man, if you want your engine compartment to really pop paint your inner fenders and your firewall and your radiator support,

you'll be glad you did.

All right, fenders are up next. And of course, you've got some choices here, originals, reproductions

or N Os like these are now N Os in this case, does not stand for

Nass or Nitrous. It stands for new old stock, which means these are brand new GM parts that have never been on a truck before. Now, you're wondering. Oh,

and how does that work? Well, it's very simple when a manufacturer makes a vehicle, they also make replacement parts for it.

When they stop making that vehicle. A few years later, they stopped making parts for it

and all the leftover parts down at the dealership become N OS. They're new,

but they're old stock and these are without a doubt the best replacement parts you can buy, however, be prepared to pay top dollar for these. And availability is an issue because once they're gone,

they're gone

to install the fenders, just slide them into place, starting at the rear back toward the door.

And I notice I've got tape on this rear edge and up here on the front,

that's so I don't accidentally scratch my paint. Remember when you're fitting a body panel, you're moving it around, adjusting it

having tape on this cheap insurance

with a fender in place and loosely bolted up.

It's time to set your gaps in your alignment. Now you'll need to keep checking these as you add more parts like the hood and the grill. But

the more time you spend now getting this right,

the less you'll have to do on the final adjustment once you have it all together.

Yeah.

Next up the grill,

probably the most unique feature of the 6768 Chevy truck is the grill so clean, so well designed. Now you sharp eyed Chevy guys might notice that that little bow tie emblem is gone. We got rid of that to smooth that grill down even more.

Now, if you're looking for a grill like this, I can't help you. Nobody is reproducing these yet

an original one like this is like gold. So keep that in mind if you're thinking of converting your 69 to 72

to this earlier style grill. Now, the good news is everything else is available from early classic. So the first thing we're gonna do

is rivet in these inserts.

Follow that with the new marker lights

and then the new trim strips

and then just install it

and that takes care of most of our front end sheet metal. Now, step back, take a look at this thing. Is that sweet or what? Now we're gonna take a break but don't go far because we still have more trucks for you after this

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

every once in a while. Somebody comes along who was so good at doing one thing

that they end up becoming an American icon.

The colonel was like that with his chicken

and in the automotive world, a prime example of that

is curry enterprises, legendary rear ends, specifically the Ford nine inch.

But why, why are they so good? What's their secret recipe?

Well, to learn the answer to that, we've got to go back in time, way back, late 19 forties, a young hot roder named Frank Curry.

Now Frank was into everything, cars,

trucks,

airplanes,

even motorcycles, but especially hot rods.

My brother had a motley Roadster and he went in the service and I inherited this model, a Roadster, you know,

it was a pile of junk. You know, I, I

was

a

poor family. We had any money

at 21. He joined the Air Force and became an aircraft mechanic.

But things really took off when they left the service.

I went to work for a company in Anaheim named Taylor Dunn and, and they built electric chicken feed carts.

They were little carts that they,

that they feed chickens years ago with.

So, you know, it's like 2.5 ft wide and about 4 ft long has a bin on it

and it had a Ford R end in it

and it had elect electron

and batteries and, and you drive it down to the, to the rows of chickens and, and you feed the chickens.

And I went to work there as a machinist, machining parts for these electric feed carts.

Now, the owner was buying the rear ends and

yards. So Frank found a way to help the owner and himself. So I made a deal with Mr Taylor, the own tailor shop that I would go out and buy these rooms on the weekend and I would buy a 104 rooms for $5 sell them for 15. So

that's how curry enterprises started

as Frank's business began to grow. So did his family as he and wife, Evelyn eventually gave birth to four sons,

all of which became part of the family business as they got old enough.

All my sons started to work for when they were about probably 12 years old, maybe even a little bit earlier than that when I was 11 years old.

You know, I wasn't big enough and strong enough to disassemble every end yet.

But I started in the machine shop.

Um I started running uh gear hob as the first thing, drill press on the gear hob. This is how it's working. My dad's paying his piece work, you know, we're making sprockets and we're machining down axles and he's got it figured out that if we go out there and really break our butts, we might make, you know, seven or eight bucks an hour. But we, we can't even take a break. You know,

he's got us paying 25 cents for each part with machine and nickel for doing this and 10 cents for doing that.

And we're not, we're not on the clock. And that's, you know, I think that's what taught us how to work. They all like motorcycles,

they love motorcycles. They're always wanting new motor. Well, you know, I just don't give you a motor. You got, you know, you gotta work for this stuff.

And so, and so this motivated them to work and my sons are all hard workers. My dad didn't make me work. But, you know, if I wanted to race with my brothers, then I had to work and earn the same money they did

as the boys grew up, they not only learned how to drive buggies,

ride bikes, shoot guns, all the cool stuff. Frank also taught them how to have success in business quality

is what I strive for and take care of the customer. Treat the customer

as your friend because he is your friend

and we want him to come back.

And that's, I've done that all my life and IP P pound that into every one of my son's heads. I think, I think it's there. I think, I think we all breathe that

and all that pounding paid off.

When we first got into this, there wasn't any anybody out there offering a complete rear end, you can buy components from three or four different companies. You could buy the axles here. You could buy the ring opinion here but nobody actually put it together and gave you an assembly and that was I think for Curry Enterprise is one of its main things.

And the nine inch Ford because of its strength and versatility

became the high performance axle of choice.

Same things that make it good for a race car today, made it good for the industrial vehicles. At that time, had a steel housing,

had a removable carrier.

So if they had a problem in the field with the car, they didn't have to send out a gear technician to set up the gears, they could send out a complete third member assembly

and change the gears in the field

and it, you know, it's easy to work on, easy to fabricate

and basically they lasted forever.

However, a lot of guys, especially in the off road world were using Dani style axles. So Curry stepped up to that and

beyond,

we make a lot of high bred stuff. We'll take the best from every rent

and put it into one rent. Instead of saying, well, if you buy a DNA 60 you gotta use Dana 60 knuckles. No,

you could put the nine inch Ford and put Dana 60 knuckles on it. We'll build it any way you want to build it.

However with all the good times and bad

one question still remains. How can a family of rough and tumble guys all work together and not kill one another?

It's called respect,

respect for the father.

I have to say the biggest influence would be my father. Yeah. No, no question. My biggest influence would have to be my father

because um

been around him so much

and he's, you know, he's everything you'd wanna be. He's worked hard all his life. But now he's done working, he builds cars every day. I would hope uh

just like my dad

that uh

I think, you know, my legacy is my kids.

Um

Hopefully, I, I have instilled a lot of these same values that my dad instilled in me

into my uh my two kids.

Respect for the sons.

I don't know how to explain it.

My sons are probably my best friends.

They always have been. The priorities will be

and respect for each other and the customer

whenever I, people ask me, well, how does your family business work when so many others don't?

And I think because

um we've always been a team

and we've always worked together

that we basically don't know any other way to do it.

So I guess that Frank as far as icons go has surpassed even the colonel because he didn't just do one thing right, rear ends,

he did four other things. Chuck John Ray and Andy and for that,

the whole automotive aftermarket. Thank you.

We'll be right back.

Welcome back. Right now, I'm gonna talk about a subject that I get a lot of questions about shocks. How do they work? What's the difference in them? What is the best application for my truck? Well, we're gonna answer some of those questions. Let's go over to the table

when it comes to shocks. Almost everybody has heard of Bill Stein. They've been in the business for over 40 years. They've been involved in everything from formula one to off road racing.

So we're gonna use some of their shocks as a demonstration.

All right.

What's a gas shock? What does it do? What does that mean?

Well, when your shock gets hot, the oil inside, of course, warms up and it starts to foam that makes the shock lose its dampening ability.

A gas shock uses a charge of nitrogen gas

to hold pressure down on that oil and keep it from foaming that keeps your shock working. Now, a couple of examples of this,

these are Bill Stein, street performance shocks that go a good 100,000 miles. Be great in a street driven performance truck.

Ok. What about coil overs? What are those?

Well, they're just what the name implies. They're a coil spring

over a shock absorber which puts it all into one nice tight compact package. Now, the benefits of these are, of course, they're small. They don't take up a lot of room

and they are extremely adjustable. Let me show you what I'm talking about.

This is a Bill Stein performance coil over

and notice it's got the adjusting knob at one end

coil spring here, a completely different coil spring here. Now, this all adds up to give you a very adjustable custom suspension for whatever kind of driving or competition you might be wanting to do.

Now, this little guy

is a street rod style coil over. Now, the benefits of this is you can tuck this into a little tiny area

and still keep a performance shock. All right. How about these off road shocks with these big old reservoirs? And

what does long travel mean?

Well, long travel means exactly that longer travel of the piston.

And that is exactly what you want if you're doing any kind of off roading or four wheeling

now to get that longer travel, they don't just lengthen the body of the shock,

they take the oil and relocate it into a remote reservoir.

It's not only gives you more oil capacity,

it keeps it cooler. That's always a good thing.

All right, until now, there really hasn't been a shock. It fits right between a heavy duty off road shock and a stock truck style shock

that was until Bills Stein came out with this 5150 series. Now, this is a mono tube gas shock has the remote reservoir

and this is specifically for lifted or custom applications and it fits right between the heavy duty off road shock and the stock style shock. So, if you have a lifted truck, you need to check out Bill Stein's 5150. Now, hopefully this answers some questions you might have about shocks and what you might need for your next project.

One of the biggest hassles with owning a truck is loading things in and out of the bed, especially if you've got a cap over the top of it.

Well,

Dura

Con has an answer to that age old problem in what they call the cargo pro rolling cargo bed. Now, this is how it works. You have a lightweight aluminum frame that easily bolts to the bed of the truck

and

then you have this plastic tray that goes down on top of it. Then when you wanna load things in and out,

you just pop the lock

and it all rolls right out to you. Now, the best part is Duric con rates this thing to handle 750 pounds and this whole structure comes out in just a few minutes if you wanna use the bed for something else,

if you're looking for the simplest, most affordable way to pick up some extra power for your truck, it's got to be the computer. Great and super chips.

Uh They've been helping guys pick up some power in their gasoline engines for a long time.

But how about diesels? Well, super chips has you covered? There too with the max micro tuner for the Ford power stroke, Chevy

Duramax and Dodge Cummins diesel engines. Now, all you do is plug this into your

agnostic port, punch a few buttons and boom.

You can pick up an extra 110 horsepower and up to 100 and 80 ft pounds of torque. Yeah.

Not bad for just punching a few buttons. Now, that's gonna do it for me today. But you,

you still have time to get out and work in your garage. So I'll see you next week.
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