Crazy Horse Re-Cap

You know, without a doubt, one of the most popular vehicles I've ever built here on the show

is this little 66 Ford Bronco called Crazy Horse.

Now, the main reasons for this build up were number one to take something that was such a piece of junk. So beat up that everybody had given up on it and to show you how to build something really special out of it. And number two

to pay tribute to one of the greatest race car drivers of all time, Parnelli Jones and, and one of his most famous racing vehicles, the Big Oly Bronco.

Well, as you can see this truck is done,

however, looking at it now, it's a little tough to remember just how rough this thing was or the magnitude of this build up. So if you don't remember or if you missed some of it, or if you've always wondered what's involved in the total reconstruction of a vehicle.

Here's how it went.

Crazy Horse started out as a $350 piece of junk

that I literally had to push into the shop because the old six cylinder engine had breathed its last a long time ago.

And of course, the first step was to assess the truck and see just how bad it really was.

It looks like somebody stripped this shaft that comes out of the steering box. So they drilled a hole down through it and put a bolt in it.

Now, wait a minute time out. If you're doing this kind of stuff, stop it. This will get you killed.

I believe that that is a uh plexiglass window.

Now, you wanna make sure

to check your rocker panels and your floor pans. Now, look at this, see that rust hole there, a lot of deep Bondo.

Somebody has riveted in a piece

and who can forget the roll bar made out of plastic PV C pipe.

I don't know what to say.

Here it comes, Barry, look out

now that I knew what I had to deal with. What a piece of junk

it was time to start at the bottom. Literally, the floors of this thing were completely rotten with rust. It was all the way up here into this tow board.

Yeah, that one shot.

So once I had the body dressed up, so it would stay in alignment.

We cut out the old rusty rockers

and the door striker

and replace them with new pieces.

That's right on.

Now, we're ready for the rocker and it should pretty much just slide into place

with that done. It was time to move on to those rusty floor pans,

which meant they had to be carefully cut out. This is where you're gonna be really glad you got that. Tetanus shot.

The cross members were either replaced or restored

and then the new floor pans were installed

great.

The rear suspension went under the knife next

as the rig was modified for new dual shock brackets

and fitted with James Duff's 3.5 inch lift springs and a new curry high pinion nine inch rear end.

Then it was time to get really serious. So the body was lifted off of the frame

and the chassis rolled out so I could continue tearing this thing apart without the body being in the way.

And of course, the first thing to go was the old front suspension

with all that old junk out of the way.

The new front end came together fast with a duff suspension

and a Curry Dana 44.

And when the smoke cleared, I had it all rested on 35 inch tall Parnelli Jones dirt grip tires

and Mickey Thompson Challenger wheels.

At this point, you may have thought that the chassis was finished. No,

no, no, we were just getting started.

The next thing to hit the trash heap was the old steering box

that was followed closely by the old six Banger

three speed and transfer case.

But even that wasn't enough. The motor mounts. Wow, they also had to go.

So they were treated to a visit by the plasma cutter

and then sitting down the road one last time

then and only then could the new V8 motor mounts be welded into place.

At this point, the chassis was done

at least the fabrication part. So with everything fit and welded into place, I took it all back apart, took the frame down, had it sandblasted and then rolled it into the paint booth, shot on the primer basin clear and put it all back together and set it aside,

but it wasn't finished. No, no, not yet. Still need a five train. Putting that together was the next step.

A 302 was stroked to a 349 by Keith Thorton, an automotive specialist

giving me roughly 400 horsepower

backing that up is a center force clutch

and an NB 3555 speed tranny

and bringing up the rear is none other than the massive Atlas two transfer case from advance

chapters.

However, I don't think for a second that this combination just slid into place like magic.

There was a tremendous amount of fabrication and design work that needed to be done on the cross members and brackets, et cetera before the chassis and drive train all fit together like it should

like I keep saying that's just a normal part of this kind of project. So you need to be prepared for it.

With that, the new chassis was finally completely finished and ready for the body to go down on it

except there was one problem at this point. Most of the body was still pretty serious piece of junk, but not for long after the break. I'm gonna show you the steps I took

to get it to look like this.

There's more carnage ahead. As Stacy continues tearing the truck into thousands of pieces. Most of which are destined for the trash heap

and then slowly from the pile of rubble, a completely different vehicle starts to emerge.

Hey, welcome back to trucks and the show that a lot of people have been wanting to see for a long time. Yep. Project Crazy Horse is done and today is all about showing you what it took to go from a cast aside piece of junk that nobody wanted

and turning it into what you see here. Now, the purpose for this is two fold. Number one

had a lot of people request to see a complete in depth recap of this build up. And number two

to show you what's involved in this kind of project. So you know what to expect when you're doing it yourself. Now, when I left off, chassis was all done, painted ready for the body to go down on it, but the body,

the body was not ready for the chassis,

but that was about to change.

The first job up was to finish disassembling the body and interior since our harness is completely

shot and it was not a pretty sight.

Most of it was not reusable.

Then it was time to start cutting

and I don't mean just a little bit. I mean, the whole front clip had to go because of rust and damage,

but not just the front clip, the front door jam panels and part of the firewall needed the metal too.

So the old metal was cut out

and replaced

with that done. The fit of the doors was checked yet again

to make sure everything was still in alignment.

Finally, it was time to start assembling the new inner structure. And of course, the main tools here was a welder

and some vice grips and some clamps and a tape measure.

And of course, those measurements you took before you started the project, you did take measurements, didn't you

defenders slide them into place

and then just clamp them on.

Now using that as a reference,

go ahead and line everything up and make sure you double and triple check it because this has got to be right

when it was all lined up square and true.

All the new sheet metal was spot welded together just like the original pieces

which resulted in a solid one piece body tub

that was just as strong or stronger than when this rig rolled off the assembly line in 1966. Check this out.

At this point, we could start to assemble the rest of the body. This is starting to look like a Bronco

and although it seemed to go real quick and easy on the show,

I spent many hours fitting fenders, building brackets and fabricating mounts to get it all to fit and work. Right.

Like I've said before, over and over, don't just expect this stuff just to fall right into place. Especially on a project of this magnitude. Now, you need to be prepared to spend some time to make it all fit.

Now, once it does all fit,

you get to take it all back apart. Why I'm gonna show you why after the break

coming up next, it's paint and body time. As crazy horse continues getting a major facelift as its body and chassis are finally put back together, then it's time to reassemble the truck with all the pieces and parts that will make it a state of the art off road vehicle.

All right, we're back and we're walking you through the crazy horse build up. Now when we left off all the metal work and fabrication was done on the body.

Now it was time to pay a visit to a stripper. Oh,

come on. I'm talking about a metal stripper media blaster. I never mind.

I love doing this right here.

Look at that, completely stripped, completely clean.

Then the whole body inside and out

was coated with LINX to seal it and protect it.

So rust will never be a problem again.

I then laid out the paint scheme. I wanted

and dropped the body off at the Nashville Auto Diesel College where a bunch of students and instructors smoothed out the body and laid on the paint.

Finally, it was time to fit that new body down on that new chassis.

Ah, yes, a big moment. And like I said before,

if you spend some time measuring and chewing everything up, when you are reconstructing the body,

when it comes to this step, it should just drop right into place and bold on like ours did.

And there is nothing like seeing a rig finally take shape

at this point. It was time for the final assembly and this is where the vehicle really starts to come together quick.

However,

there was still some cutting and fabricating to do to get things to fit the way I wanted.

Of course, the last things to put on are our accessories and off road equipment

and do any final tweaking until everything fit the way it was supposed to

and it was all bolted in place for the last time. That is sweet

and that is an extremely abbreviated version of what it took to build this rig.

And hopefully this inspires you to get out there and start working on a project of your own. Something that fits into your skill level and your budget, it doesn't have to be this advanced, just get out there and start working on something. I promise you you'll love it.

So is this it.

Is this the last, you're gonna see a crazy horse. What are you crazy?

I'm not gonna build something like this and not show you how it runs. You know, me better than that.

So next week we are out of the shop, it is time to drive.

If you drive a vehicle with an internal combustion engine,

you know, that heat can be an issue, especially if it's a diesel. Now, most people know that too much heat. That's a bad thing. But did you know that not enough heat? That's a bad thing too. Now, you really confused. No,

that's a really bad thing. So, hold on, we're gonna show you how it works.

How it works is brought to you by

Wyotech.

Hey, Danny. Want you to go ahead and grab onto that.

All right, we're talking about diesel engines. Temperature both good and bad in them. Most people have heard of Glow plugs. What do they do? What are they

low plug? Uh, just heats up the intake air, uh, going into the intake chamber. That's the only purpose for it heats up that air mostly on a cold engine. Uh, once they're warmed up, we don't have to worry about, but once they're cold, we need to heat up that air prior to firing it. Now, that's because you don't have a spark plug.

That's

correct.

Now, this is kind of old technology. What, what are they using now? What we're doing right now? Is, is what we call a grid heater. And it's doing exactly the same thing only it's doing it all across the intake manifold. We're heating up that air prior to it going into the intake manifold.

Hypothetical situation.

Say you get into your diesel truck, fire it up, take off down the road, don't warm it up properly. What happens? We're gonna have some problems there.

And what we're gonna have is these, these metals that this is made out of the piston,

the block, the liner all made out of different metals and they expand at different temperatures. So, if we jump in there right away, don't wait for it to warm up, hog on the pedal, guess what's gonna happen?

Oh, yeah. Something very expensive.

Ok. Now what happens if you overheat the motor?

They can do the, exactly the same thing. Let's say that we would lose a belt on a water pump, lose an impeller on a water pump. A thermostat would stick, it can climb up there pretty quickly and do exactly the very same thing that we just saw right here. You got a paperweight either way. That's

exactly right. Ok.

Now, what happens if you don't have the proper combustion temperature in there? What your fuel and your economy? What happens if it's too cold? We just talked about it being too hot.

If it's too cold, we're not gonna burn that fuel in there that we're introducing into that combustion chamber we're not gonna burn it very well at all. And we need to, we need to have those temperatures up to burn that cleanly.

Ok. And that reduces emissions. Of course,

what does that do for your performance? Same thing.

If we can burn that better and hotter,

that's the better performance we're gonna have and the better fuel economy we're gonna have all that engine. Ok. And how do you regulate that temperature

with the thermostat,

the cooling system?

We also have, when we go back the other direction as far as cooling, we have what we call piston squirters that, that cool the piston to keep this very thing from happening as far as scoring the piston

good.

Now, for those of you who wondered about heating, it doesn't matter if you're working on a diesel or gasoline engine, you got the same sort of things happening. Now, you know how it works. All right. Hot Rod, how'd you do this?

I know you've got your name all over it, man.

When it comes to vehicle maintenance, most people realize that you need to change your oil regularly if you want your engine to last. But while you're at it, don't forget you've got gear oil down in your differentials and your manual shift transmission.

Those need to be changed once in a while too.

That is where this valve line high performance gear oil comes in.

Now, this is specially formulated for high horsepower, high speed, high torque situations so your gears can handle the abuse you put on them with your heavy right foot.

Don't forget this stuff.

One aggravation that people have with trucks, especially lifted ones is that they're kind of hard to get in and out of. Most people want some sort of a side step

and running boards don't always have the look and style that you're after.

Well DZ has got an answer for you

in these tubular side steps. Now this is a big three inch stainless steel chrome plated tube.

Gotta read thees

area here for you. Step so you don't slip and fall off. Then the mounting brackets slide up underneath for a nice clean out of the way. Look. Now they custom make these for almost any truck out there. So

if you're into the tubular look and you're tired of jumping up into your truck,

Dee's probably got a set of these with your name on them

any time you put bigger tires on your rig. The issue of fender flares is never far behind, not only to look better but to keep you legal. Well, bushwhacker has just come out with these pockets style fender flares to help you out.

Now, these will give you an additional two inches of coverage over your tire

and they've got a real rugged look with these pockets and these exposed screws. However, these screws are not how these are mounted to your truck. Now, these actually utilize factory hardware factory holes, which means

no drilling, no cutting of the fender. Now you can leave them black or you can paint them the color of the truck like we've done here. But either way if you want the look and the function of fender flares without cutting the fender

bushwack is where you gotta go and it's time for us to go too. We'll see you next week.