Classic Trucks! Builds
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Welcome to trucks. Last week, we rolled our 1934 international pickup, the Hairy Hauler back into the shop where I did some serious modifications to the frame and the rear end by putting in an art Morrison four link rear suspension
and a curry, heavy duty nine inch housing.
But then we ran out of time before I could stick some gears and some axles and some brakes in here. So
that is where we're starting today.
Of course, that nine inch housing is not the only thing we got from Curry enterprises. We also got a center chunk and a couple of axles. Now, the center chunk is their heavy duty nodular iron nine plus unit
and it's packing 350 gears and a Detroit locker.
This is pretty much bulletproof. Now, to go with that,
we got their heavy duty 35 flying axles. Now, if you break something like this, you're gonna be everybody's hero. All right, brakes
for those we went to will wood, got their performance, rear disc brakes set up and it includes drilled and slotted rotors
and you might be wondering, well, wait a minute. That looks like drum brakes to me. No, not drum brakes, drum, emergency brake
slides down inside the rotor gives you a slick emergency brake and a nice clean look. Now to finish that off, we got their polished aluminum four piston calipers.
The first thing we'll do is install the chunk with the supplied hardware,
then reinstall the old Panter bar.
Now with the new bracket in place on the housing,
we'll just slide those huge axles in, bolt them on.
Then it's just a matter of sliding on the rotor
and then finishing it off with the Wildwood caliper and pads. Now, this is a nice combination.
I,
the last thing we're gonna put on are the rear tires. Now, since this thing is gonna be thunder less, they need to be massive. And that's where these big steamrollers for Mickey Thompson come in
18 inch wide. Sportsman's.
Now the wheels
need to be just as special. Remember, we've got the 10 spoke gassers from team three wheel on the front.
So we went back to team three wheel, got these huge 15 inch wide, fully polished five spokes.
If these don't get your attention, nothing will.
Ok. We're all up to date with the chassis and the drive train of the Hairy Hauler. This thing is awesome. Now, the only thing I've got left to do is take it all apart, paint it up and this thing will be ready to go. Now, I know a lot of you are thinking and what about the body. What's going on with that?
Mm Good question. The answer to that starts
with a search for the right paint
because the color we created for Copperhead was so popular.
I wanted to do the same thing again with the red for the Hairy Hauler.
So once again, I got together with Ron Payton at PPG
and told him I wanted a base coat clear
that looked like a candy.
This is a stock laser red color, right?
What kind of, what kind of changes did you make to it? We just uh took some of the pearl out and, and added um,
one of the real nice clean crystalline
Zoric
pearls
to give it a little bit more pop, man. It made a heck of a difference. Did big difference. Cleaned it up.
You like this color? Rich ended it up? Yeah,
it was all right.
It's not really a hot rod color. It's not really the hot rod red. I was looking for not a hot rod color at all,
but you're the boss. You gotta have it your way. It looks like something off of a Lexus.
Yeah.
Uh What do you recommend
going with a different base or what? No, we could just tweak it, we could uh look and see exactly what's in the color to uh change it from whatever direction that we wanna go in
and um, do a spray out and
see what you like.
Let's go with something a little darker let's try something that's a little dark
go.
That is awesome.
That is such a nice red. Now, what did you do here? What have we got? Well, basically, I know how picky you are. So I thought, well, I'm gonna have to go to the book and, and pick out a target.
And I just grabbed this 2004 General Motors red, high intensity red
and just started tweaking it. And this is what I came up with. This has got an awesome flake into it. Ok. Now this is the other custom color you came up. Now, that's a nice color.
But man, it is nothing like that. Now, that is a hot rod red. Yeah. Nice and sparkly and shoot. Have you seen it out in the sun? Oh, it dances like a, like a, well, I don't know what, but
that's awesome. Would you put that in your car? Sure. Absolutely
good. That's all I wanted to hear.
That's cool, man. You did a good job on this. Thank you.
We'll be back with more holler after the break.
Hey, you're watching trucks. We're mixing paint for the Hairy Hauler.
Once the color was created, it was off to auto body color and supply in Nashville, Tennessee
to get Brian Smith to walk us through something that,
that most people have never seen
the ingredients that literally go into mixing up one of these high impact custom colors.
That, that's,
that's sweet. It don't it for, uh, for just a base clear coat job. It just don't get much, hard to believe that's space clear. It's really hard to believe that space clear. Most people would swear that that's a three stage. And, and when I first saw it,
when I first saw it, I thought, well, you know, I mean,
I thought we were gonna try to go with a base coat and, and I think Ron outdid himself with that because
that's just
just vivid man. It's just
something that,
that you just, that's gonna demand attention. When people say,
what do you see in the sunlight?
I'm betting,
I'm betting
you have to wear shades.
What do you say? We show these guys how you mix this up? Absolutely. All right,
the colors, the color is really good. It seems like Ron using his AICs really brought it up to give it a, a different look and then also encompassing that flamboyant pearl into it. It's just phenomenal. You got that, you got that beaded look with the pearl without having that big flake that, that kind of turn some people away
black who'd have thought you put black in red,
white.
I bet you didn't think you put white and black into red.
Now, those are usually really
pearl, that's what's giving you that big plate look.
Um What exactly is that? Now? That's a, that's a Mica and, and what it is is most of the pearls that were
in the cars to begin with were really small. They're really
translucent.
These are actually bigger colors. They're actually uh bigger flakes of Mica, more like a almost a B type product. And that's what's giving you that deal
in the old days. They used to use real pearl, didn't they?
Pearls,
pearls, abalone shells,
glass.
Depends on what depends on what the effect they're after. But you can see.
It's just,
that's vivid,
that's vivid.
Wow,
that's what's gonna set this color off.
Yeah, there it is. There's your color
with the color all mixed up. We had a chance to drool over it a little. It is sweet.
The suspense is killing me.
Oh, man. Let's take a look at that.
Oh, man.
What do you think, Brian? I think that's awesome.
I think that's awesome.
Good enough to eat. Good enough to eat.
Imagine what it's gonna look like on the car.
Now, you're probably wondering what is going on with the body of the Hairy Hauler.
Well, you'll find out after the break.
Remember if you want more info on anything seen on today's power block. Visit us online. Now, let's get back to the shop.
We made a trip to Centerville, Tennessee to a place called Jacob's Custom Auto Body.
Now, this may be a small shop in a small town,
but their work is absolutely first rate. They'll do anything from bikes
to vets
two,
do anything in between.
So, the first step after unloading everything
was to walk through the project with owner Gary Jacobs,
his two sons, Patrick and Sean
and the rest of the crew.
When you go into your trouble,
we're gonna be looking at what's been done before.
Try to get an idea of, uh, what the person was thinking when they welded this or that fitted that
and what and how this is gonna all go together when we get done
that, that
travel,
I really wanna knock the doors that I wanna make sure that it's a tight gown.
It's gonna be interesting as far as is to take rod and build the, build a door up to make it match. And that way the lines are perfect no matter which way you look at it.
Uh,
make sure all the body lines, this particular truck is, is got all the,
the lines going around it and then it's gonna be a job to get the o perfect so that it doesn't one look like it's running up hill and the other and running down
figure that one out.
Ok.
So
here's just the point
and basically what, what we're gonna go into is, is go into it and go all the way around and document everything about it. We'll take digital photos of this thing from top to bottom inside and out for reference. We will uh make some notes
and we'll start cleaning metal and see what we have
if it doesn't look right to us like we would do it on one of our own vehicles. We were done. It'll never leave
until it, until we're satisfied with it. And we like it.
You know what I've got,
I've got another hood.
It's just like with anything else, it's a labor of love. You're gonna get started on it. You're gonna feel real good about doing it.
You'll be doing a line, a door jam, a gap getting something right. You'll burn a hole in it with a welder and you'll get mad and you'll walk off and leave it for a couple of hours and, you know, go put a headlight in or something, you know.
Uh, but this one of those deals that you don't wanna rush that, you don't wanna just sit down and start to finish to it because you won't be happy with the way it turns out
when we work on a car, we see it is ours. I mean, it's here. It's ours
until it leaves. It's our baby
and that's how we treat it.
So that brings you up to date on what's going on with the Hairy Hauler
and it won't be long till I roll it back in here. Put it all together
and we're gonna fire it up and take it for a spin
every year in Louisville, Kentucky. You have a gathering of some of the finest Street Rods in the nation.
Yep. It's called the Street Rod Nationals and we went to go check out some trucks.
Yeah, it's a drug.
Now, trust me, you're gonna see everything that you can imagine at the street Rod Nationals.
And the good thing about a T bucket is it's a little pick up. It's got a little tiny bed, but it's still a pickup right. There you go.
I just love this stuff though, man.
But one thing is for sure, there'll be some sweet trucks around
and it's easy to see why trucks keep getting more popular every year.
Trucks are a big part of the hot rod world right now
and seems to be getting bigger and bigger every year, especially over the last five years. And I think
main motivation or reasoning behind that is that it's still a good affordable entry way to get into the rod
period.
After spending the morning outside, checking out all the cool rods, we decided to head inside to see what else this show had to offer.
Now, these are great.
Unless you're German
first, we checked out the vendors area to see what new stuff we just couldn't live without.
Chevrolet's new crate motor one horsepower.
Come on. What are you doing?
Would you quit goofing around? Would you get serious about this stuff?
What did we find in the street Rod Nationals? Look at this.
Uh
And before we knew it, we ended up in a place called Estrogen Hall because, well, there's a lot of estrogen here.
But believe me, this is important because all those wives and girlfriends have to have some place to go to get away from all that testosterone flowing out in the parking lot.
Guys just be careful that you don't get tricked into forgetting about all the cool rods parked outside.
Back outside. We stumbled on some of the coolest trucks at the show. Yep.
They're tucked in among all the high dollar rods was a pack of old school hot rods and rat rods.
Boy, it's like the rot rod stuff and the old paint and white walls and I just want something to beat around in that would kind of grab some attention.
You can shine one up and paint and everything, drive through and it's just another truck, something like this got a lot of character
about nostalgia.
But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait before you think these are just a bunch of junkers. Take a close look at this Phil
hauler of Joshua Shaws.
His 32 Ford pickup has an upgraded modernized chassis, a
smooth running vintage looking V8
and everything else to make this street legal and drivable.
If you look close at the paint, you're gonna find that it's new,
it's just painted. So it looks old. My dad and I built this truck. We were looking for an old barn, find original truck.
Uh, wouldn't have any luck finding one. So we decided just to make our own.
You tell him Joshua,
you're watching trucks.
You know, you don't have to look very far to see that diesels are popular and even more popular is tweaking them to get more power out of them. Which brings me up to the kit that I've got here on the table from edge products.
Now, this is called the Juice with attitude.
This is basically a power module installs in about 10 minutes and will give you five levels of power. You control those with this controller inside the cab
and it
allows you to dial in up to 100 and 20 extra horsepower and almost 300 ft pounds of torque.
So if you want to really bring your diesel alive,
you gotta give it some attitude from edge products.
If you drive a truck, you can expect two things. Number one, you're always gonna have to put gas in it.
Number two, you're always gonna scratch it. Now, the first one we can't help you with, but for the second one,
dla
color has an answer with their scratch fix two in one, touch up paint for light scratches. Now, what makes this more unique than anything out there is, you have two different types of applicators. One is the brush that we're all familiar with,
but the other is this roller ball tip, which is extremely accurate and easy to use.
So the first thing we'll do is pull out this orange insert, put the applicator back together,
then all you need to do is put the tip where you need some paint press down to get the paint flowing
and you can put the right amount of paint exactly where you want it.
Now, is that simple or what?
And let's see, you do this with a brush.
Now, just in case you're worrying about color match, don't
duplicate colors. Got paint. That is an exact match to your factory colors. So when you get rid of a scratch,
it's gone. Now, what about those scratches that are deep? They go all the way to the metal.
Well, duple colors. Got. This little repair kit
includes spot putty and primer and some clear coat, polishing, compound, sandpaper,
everything you're gonna need to fill that scratch and do the job right
now. One last thing before you do any repair work on your paint,
you need to wipe it down with something like this prep wipe. This will get rid of all the grease and all the wax so that new paint will stick. So if you're ready to get serious about your paint, get rid of all the scratches and nicks, go down to your local auto parts store. Pick up some duplicate.
You'll be glad you did.
Show Full Transcript
and a curry, heavy duty nine inch housing.
But then we ran out of time before I could stick some gears and some axles and some brakes in here. So
that is where we're starting today.
Of course, that nine inch housing is not the only thing we got from Curry enterprises. We also got a center chunk and a couple of axles. Now, the center chunk is their heavy duty nodular iron nine plus unit
and it's packing 350 gears and a Detroit locker.
This is pretty much bulletproof. Now, to go with that,
we got their heavy duty 35 flying axles. Now, if you break something like this, you're gonna be everybody's hero. All right, brakes
for those we went to will wood, got their performance, rear disc brakes set up and it includes drilled and slotted rotors
and you might be wondering, well, wait a minute. That looks like drum brakes to me. No, not drum brakes, drum, emergency brake
slides down inside the rotor gives you a slick emergency brake and a nice clean look. Now to finish that off, we got their polished aluminum four piston calipers.
The first thing we'll do is install the chunk with the supplied hardware,
then reinstall the old Panter bar.
Now with the new bracket in place on the housing,
we'll just slide those huge axles in, bolt them on.
Then it's just a matter of sliding on the rotor
and then finishing it off with the Wildwood caliper and pads. Now, this is a nice combination.
I,
the last thing we're gonna put on are the rear tires. Now, since this thing is gonna be thunder less, they need to be massive. And that's where these big steamrollers for Mickey Thompson come in
18 inch wide. Sportsman's.
Now the wheels
need to be just as special. Remember, we've got the 10 spoke gassers from team three wheel on the front.
So we went back to team three wheel, got these huge 15 inch wide, fully polished five spokes.
If these don't get your attention, nothing will.
Ok. We're all up to date with the chassis and the drive train of the Hairy Hauler. This thing is awesome. Now, the only thing I've got left to do is take it all apart, paint it up and this thing will be ready to go. Now, I know a lot of you are thinking and what about the body. What's going on with that?
Mm Good question. The answer to that starts
with a search for the right paint
because the color we created for Copperhead was so popular.
I wanted to do the same thing again with the red for the Hairy Hauler.
So once again, I got together with Ron Payton at PPG
and told him I wanted a base coat clear
that looked like a candy.
This is a stock laser red color, right?
What kind of, what kind of changes did you make to it? We just uh took some of the pearl out and, and added um,
one of the real nice clean crystalline
Zoric
pearls
to give it a little bit more pop, man. It made a heck of a difference. Did big difference. Cleaned it up.
You like this color? Rich ended it up? Yeah,
it was all right.
It's not really a hot rod color. It's not really the hot rod red. I was looking for not a hot rod color at all,
but you're the boss. You gotta have it your way. It looks like something off of a Lexus.
Yeah.
Uh What do you recommend
going with a different base or what? No, we could just tweak it, we could uh look and see exactly what's in the color to uh change it from whatever direction that we wanna go in
and um, do a spray out and
see what you like.
Let's go with something a little darker let's try something that's a little dark
go.
That is awesome.
That is such a nice red. Now, what did you do here? What have we got? Well, basically, I know how picky you are. So I thought, well, I'm gonna have to go to the book and, and pick out a target.
And I just grabbed this 2004 General Motors red, high intensity red
and just started tweaking it. And this is what I came up with. This has got an awesome flake into it. Ok. Now this is the other custom color you came up. Now, that's a nice color.
But man, it is nothing like that. Now, that is a hot rod red. Yeah. Nice and sparkly and shoot. Have you seen it out in the sun? Oh, it dances like a, like a, well, I don't know what, but
that's awesome. Would you put that in your car? Sure. Absolutely
good. That's all I wanted to hear.
That's cool, man. You did a good job on this. Thank you.
We'll be back with more holler after the break.
Hey, you're watching trucks. We're mixing paint for the Hairy Hauler.
Once the color was created, it was off to auto body color and supply in Nashville, Tennessee
to get Brian Smith to walk us through something that,
that most people have never seen
the ingredients that literally go into mixing up one of these high impact custom colors.
That, that's,
that's sweet. It don't it for, uh, for just a base clear coat job. It just don't get much, hard to believe that's space clear. It's really hard to believe that space clear. Most people would swear that that's a three stage. And, and when I first saw it,
when I first saw it, I thought, well, you know, I mean,
I thought we were gonna try to go with a base coat and, and I think Ron outdid himself with that because
that's just
just vivid man. It's just
something that,
that you just, that's gonna demand attention. When people say,
what do you see in the sunlight?
I'm betting,
I'm betting
you have to wear shades.
What do you say? We show these guys how you mix this up? Absolutely. All right,
the colors, the color is really good. It seems like Ron using his AICs really brought it up to give it a, a different look and then also encompassing that flamboyant pearl into it. It's just phenomenal. You got that, you got that beaded look with the pearl without having that big flake that, that kind of turn some people away
black who'd have thought you put black in red,
white.
I bet you didn't think you put white and black into red.
Now, those are usually really
pearl, that's what's giving you that big plate look.
Um What exactly is that? Now? That's a, that's a Mica and, and what it is is most of the pearls that were
in the cars to begin with were really small. They're really
translucent.
These are actually bigger colors. They're actually uh bigger flakes of Mica, more like a almost a B type product. And that's what's giving you that deal
in the old days. They used to use real pearl, didn't they?
Pearls,
pearls, abalone shells,
glass.
Depends on what depends on what the effect they're after. But you can see.
It's just,
that's vivid,
that's vivid.
Wow,
that's what's gonna set this color off.
Yeah, there it is. There's your color
with the color all mixed up. We had a chance to drool over it a little. It is sweet.
The suspense is killing me.
Oh, man. Let's take a look at that.
Oh, man.
What do you think, Brian? I think that's awesome.
I think that's awesome.
Good enough to eat. Good enough to eat.
Imagine what it's gonna look like on the car.
Now, you're probably wondering what is going on with the body of the Hairy Hauler.
Well, you'll find out after the break.
Remember if you want more info on anything seen on today's power block. Visit us online. Now, let's get back to the shop.
We made a trip to Centerville, Tennessee to a place called Jacob's Custom Auto Body.
Now, this may be a small shop in a small town,
but their work is absolutely first rate. They'll do anything from bikes
to vets
two,
do anything in between.
So, the first step after unloading everything
was to walk through the project with owner Gary Jacobs,
his two sons, Patrick and Sean
and the rest of the crew.
When you go into your trouble,
we're gonna be looking at what's been done before.
Try to get an idea of, uh, what the person was thinking when they welded this or that fitted that
and what and how this is gonna all go together when we get done
that, that
travel,
I really wanna knock the doors that I wanna make sure that it's a tight gown.
It's gonna be interesting as far as is to take rod and build the, build a door up to make it match. And that way the lines are perfect no matter which way you look at it.
Uh,
make sure all the body lines, this particular truck is, is got all the,
the lines going around it and then it's gonna be a job to get the o perfect so that it doesn't one look like it's running up hill and the other and running down
figure that one out.
Ok.
So
here's just the point
and basically what, what we're gonna go into is, is go into it and go all the way around and document everything about it. We'll take digital photos of this thing from top to bottom inside and out for reference. We will uh make some notes
and we'll start cleaning metal and see what we have
if it doesn't look right to us like we would do it on one of our own vehicles. We were done. It'll never leave
until it, until we're satisfied with it. And we like it.
You know what I've got,
I've got another hood.
It's just like with anything else, it's a labor of love. You're gonna get started on it. You're gonna feel real good about doing it.
You'll be doing a line, a door jam, a gap getting something right. You'll burn a hole in it with a welder and you'll get mad and you'll walk off and leave it for a couple of hours and, you know, go put a headlight in or something, you know.
Uh, but this one of those deals that you don't wanna rush that, you don't wanna just sit down and start to finish to it because you won't be happy with the way it turns out
when we work on a car, we see it is ours. I mean, it's here. It's ours
until it leaves. It's our baby
and that's how we treat it.
So that brings you up to date on what's going on with the Hairy Hauler
and it won't be long till I roll it back in here. Put it all together
and we're gonna fire it up and take it for a spin
every year in Louisville, Kentucky. You have a gathering of some of the finest Street Rods in the nation.
Yep. It's called the Street Rod Nationals and we went to go check out some trucks.
Yeah, it's a drug.
Now, trust me, you're gonna see everything that you can imagine at the street Rod Nationals.
And the good thing about a T bucket is it's a little pick up. It's got a little tiny bed, but it's still a pickup right. There you go.
I just love this stuff though, man.
But one thing is for sure, there'll be some sweet trucks around
and it's easy to see why trucks keep getting more popular every year.
Trucks are a big part of the hot rod world right now
and seems to be getting bigger and bigger every year, especially over the last five years. And I think
main motivation or reasoning behind that is that it's still a good affordable entry way to get into the rod
period.
After spending the morning outside, checking out all the cool rods, we decided to head inside to see what else this show had to offer.
Now, these are great.
Unless you're German
first, we checked out the vendors area to see what new stuff we just couldn't live without.
Chevrolet's new crate motor one horsepower.
Come on. What are you doing?
Would you quit goofing around? Would you get serious about this stuff?
What did we find in the street Rod Nationals? Look at this.
Uh
And before we knew it, we ended up in a place called Estrogen Hall because, well, there's a lot of estrogen here.
But believe me, this is important because all those wives and girlfriends have to have some place to go to get away from all that testosterone flowing out in the parking lot.
Guys just be careful that you don't get tricked into forgetting about all the cool rods parked outside.
Back outside. We stumbled on some of the coolest trucks at the show. Yep.
They're tucked in among all the high dollar rods was a pack of old school hot rods and rat rods.
Boy, it's like the rot rod stuff and the old paint and white walls and I just want something to beat around in that would kind of grab some attention.
You can shine one up and paint and everything, drive through and it's just another truck, something like this got a lot of character
about nostalgia.
But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait before you think these are just a bunch of junkers. Take a close look at this Phil
hauler of Joshua Shaws.
His 32 Ford pickup has an upgraded modernized chassis, a
smooth running vintage looking V8
and everything else to make this street legal and drivable.
If you look close at the paint, you're gonna find that it's new,
it's just painted. So it looks old. My dad and I built this truck. We were looking for an old barn, find original truck.
Uh, wouldn't have any luck finding one. So we decided just to make our own.
You tell him Joshua,
you're watching trucks.
You know, you don't have to look very far to see that diesels are popular and even more popular is tweaking them to get more power out of them. Which brings me up to the kit that I've got here on the table from edge products.
Now, this is called the Juice with attitude.
This is basically a power module installs in about 10 minutes and will give you five levels of power. You control those with this controller inside the cab
and it
allows you to dial in up to 100 and 20 extra horsepower and almost 300 ft pounds of torque.
So if you want to really bring your diesel alive,
you gotta give it some attitude from edge products.
If you drive a truck, you can expect two things. Number one, you're always gonna have to put gas in it.
Number two, you're always gonna scratch it. Now, the first one we can't help you with, but for the second one,
dla
color has an answer with their scratch fix two in one, touch up paint for light scratches. Now, what makes this more unique than anything out there is, you have two different types of applicators. One is the brush that we're all familiar with,
but the other is this roller ball tip, which is extremely accurate and easy to use.
So the first thing we'll do is pull out this orange insert, put the applicator back together,
then all you need to do is put the tip where you need some paint press down to get the paint flowing
and you can put the right amount of paint exactly where you want it.
Now, is that simple or what?
And let's see, you do this with a brush.
Now, just in case you're worrying about color match, don't
duplicate colors. Got paint. That is an exact match to your factory colors. So when you get rid of a scratch,
it's gone. Now, what about those scratches that are deep? They go all the way to the metal.
Well, duple colors. Got. This little repair kit
includes spot putty and primer and some clear coat, polishing, compound, sandpaper,
everything you're gonna need to fill that scratch and do the job right
now. One last thing before you do any repair work on your paint,
you need to wipe it down with something like this prep wipe. This will get rid of all the grease and all the wax so that new paint will stick. So if you're ready to get serious about your paint, get rid of all the scratches and nicks, go down to your local auto parts store. Pick up some duplicate.
You'll be glad you did.