Little Red Wagon Part 3

Welcome to trucks. I got a great show planned for you today

because we're putting the finishing touches on the little red wagon, then we're gonna take it out and see what we got.

Now, if you're not familiar with this project or you missed some of it,

let me bring you up to date a little bit. The idea here was to build a dual purpose well rounded truck,

something that you're not afraid to take to work or to go four wheeling with like an old dodge power wagon, but at the same time

needs to be reliable and comfortable and powerful and look good on the street like the old little red Express. Now, you put all these ingredients together.

You got yourself a little red wagon.

Now, so far we've put on a super charger,

tucked it under a custom hood

bolted on five inches of lift and 35 inch tall tires

slid on massive bumpers and winch

and finally massage the exhaust out through the side of the bed.

Now we're going to turn our attention to the interior.

As you can see this original interior is pretty basic. No carpet, just floor mat.

Cloth seats and

some sort of funky smell, typical project vehicle. So, the first thing we're gonna do is get rid of these seats and that smell.

Oh, yeah, there's that smell.

This is still wet.

Oh, yeah.

Ok. To make that truck a little more comfortable, we went to styling concepts and here's what we got

a molded carpet to go where there was none before

now. Not only is this custom built to fit our floor pan perfectly.

It's also got the jute padding glued right on. So you get good sound proofing

and then to protect that carpet,

we got these floor mats with the little red wagon logo

stitched right in

for seats. We also went to styling concepts and got these leather C five truck seats. Now, not only do they look like a Corvette seat, which is really cool, but they'll also fit just about any rig because they come with the mounting bracket for your particular truck. Now, they also have a matching center console for seating a third person

or

hiding your junk

or holding a drink or two.

Ok. If the old carpet or pad came out in good shape,

it's a good idea to use it as a pattern to mark your initial cuts on the new carpet.

This will at least get you in the ballpark when you go to drop it in the first time

since this carpet is pre molded, it should pretty much drop right into place but

be prepared to spend some time trimming and fitting and gluing to get the wrinkles out and make it look good.

Don't be in a hurry here.

All right, while I'm in here, I might as well do something about a shifter. And for that, we went to hurst, got this competition plus shifter for that five speed tranny.

What this will do is give a shorter throw and firmer shifts.

But as cool as that handle is

not gonna use it because

this is the little red wagon. Obviously, we're building a lot of more par history into this truck. So it's only fitting for a handle

that I use an icon from

Mopar history.

The pistol grip shifter, these little guys are made by Hurst. You can get them from year one and they are exact reproductions of what came factory on your favorite Mopar

muscle car. I mean these are right on the money from the offset to the

chrome to the Hearst word

to the simulated wood handle to the shift pattern in the top. And these are awesome.

So if you've got a truck and you got a stick in it

and you want to give it a dose of attitude,

there is a pistol grip handle that you can make fit it even if it takes some fabrication, it's worth it,

man. That looked good as a transfer case shifter. Yeah.

Oh yeah, that is cool now to position the handle lock a seat into place and get in it

that way you can see how everything's gonna line up.

I noticed this handle is a little far away from the driver.

It's a little close to the dash, but it's not bad considering it's out of a 70 road runner. This is a 99 truck. So, what I'm gonna do is modify the base here.

So it sits a little further back, little more toward the driver right about here

and I'm gonna show you how to do that right after the break.

Hey, welcome back to trucks where we are putting the finishing touches on the little red wagon. Now, what I've got here is a classic pistol grip shifter

that I wanna put on a late model truck

and have it look factory original.

Now, obviously, something like this is not just gonna bolt into place. Now, it's up to you to make it fit and look right. And this is how to do it.

First, we'll cut the base off the handle.

Then by grinding an angle into the base piece, we'll be able to tilt and adjust the handle to the exact position. We want it

now be prepared to do a lot of trial fitting here to get it right.

And once it is right, just weld the two pieces back together.

Now, I'm using a tig welder here because it is so nice and precise. But a meg will work good too.

Oh, yeah. Now that is where it should be. Look at this, we're right off the steering wheel onto the shifter boom, boom. This is neutral, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and reverse and look how tight that throw is. That is awesome. Now, we still have some room here for somebody's legs, very small legs, but there is room here

and I also did the modifications so low to where all that's gonna be covered up by the boot, which will come up to about here.

Now, all we have to do now is actually bolt these seats in, put it all back together.

All right, we're getting close, but there's one last thing that I still wanna do,

remember that the little red Express had the logo on the door.

Yeah.

So it's only fitting that we put the little red wagon on the side of this rig for that. I made it called it Jason Bliss

at Bliss custom Automotive artwork. And this is what we came up with

the little red wagon that we all wish we had.

You got a wagon sitting on 40 fours with a Hammy

engine

and something like this will definitely give you rig some identity

and it's also printed on a high quality automotive grade vinyl. So once we put this on,

it's gonna be on there for a while if you're in need of some automotive artwork from a serious rendering to something crazy like this. Give Jason a call. He can help you out.

Ok. To put on a vinyl graphic

squirt on a nice heavy layer of soapy water,

then set the decal in place and square it up.

Now, the soapy water will let you move the decal around until it's perfect.

Now, once you've got it right, and you're sure then just squeegee out the water and bubbles and that's it.

She's on and ready to go.

And we are too after the break

out on the road. The little red wagon is one cool looking truck.

This thing is definitely an eye catcher because it's so, it's, it's so light.

The five inches of lift and 35 inch tall tires give it the perfect stance,

making it bigger and much more aggressive than a stock truck,

but not so big as to where you can't use it every day

or have to be concerned about getting sacked for violating bumper laws

when you go off road. This thing takes on a whole different personality

with a suspension, giving you plenty of articulation and movement for when things get rough.

And of course, the extra clearance is always a good thing.

The stock gearing was fine.

However, I definitely need to install a couple of lockers into the axles to get better traction.

Of course, the thing that really separates this from just your average everyday lifted truck are the little things like those massive awesome bumpers hanging off the ends,

seeing this thing roll up behind you and hearing the wine of that supercharger will definitely get your attention

and just try to do this with a stock front bumper

or this with a stock rear bumper. Come on. I dare you.

Now about that Super Charger,

that's what takes this rig from being just a typical

road rig to a runner too.

Even with the extra weight of the bumpers, winch and tires, this thing will flat get with the program,

especially if you knock it into four wheel drive for extra traction.

And let me tell you, banging the gears through that pistol grip shifter is so much fun. It should be illegal.

Now, this stock NV, 3555 speed tranny is good,

but it's not that good.

And if you're gonna take the thing out and drag race it and flog it, well, you're gonna blow it all to pieces.

But if you drive it sensibly, you know, use it when you need it.

Well, it should last you a long time. Of course saying that and doing that,

that's two different things. So if you're gonna log it, you may want to look into a Richmond or a trimming.

The only drawback to running the A T I Pro charger on an off road truck is the intercooler is in a very vulnerable position in front.

I'll definitely have to build a cage around it to protect it from bashing it on the rocks or running a stick up through it.

Right.

Well, there you have it,

the little red wagon

and hopefully this makes you wanna go out and build a little red wagon of your own, which brings me up to the final deal here. If you've got a vehicle that you've built and you think it is worthy of being called a little red wagon. I don't care what it is.

Why don't you send a picture to Stacy david.com? Because

I have got 50 signed and numbered little red wagon decals that I'm gonna give out to the 1st 50 vehicles that meet the criteria.

So now it's up to you, show me what you got,

you know, when you're driving down the road in your car truck and a big rig pulls up beside you, you look out the window,

the first thing you're gonna see is a big old tire rolling right outside the glass.

Now, once you get past the shock of just how big these things are

most people start to think,

you know, are they that much different than what's on my rig?

Yeah, they're a lot different. That's what we're gonna show you

how it works is brought to you by Wyotech.

All right, Danny, we are gonna enlighten the viewers on big rig wheels and tires and we got some rears here. We have some fronts.

Let's start in the front. All right, this is a 22 5 steel belted radial tire a lot like you'd find on it in your cars or your pickups.

Just a lot bigger.

It's a lot bigger. What kind of pressure do you run? Something like this in the steering axle? We're running about 100 and 10 P si, man. A lot of pressure. Quite a bit up from 35. It

is. Now, when you have a blowout

on the front, a tire like this can, the driver control that he sure can.

Um, is it dangerous? It sure is. Um, but he can control it. Yeah, the guy out there just going on, but it's dangerous.

Sure is. Now, when most people think of a big rig will and tire, they think of the old split rims. I noticed you don't have that anymore. Why is that? The reason is, of course, a long time ago we got away from it and it's, it's all safety. It really is number one from the installation, you know, very dangerous. And of course, going down the road, these are much safer. Safer rim. Ok.

Now, these are rears. I notice you got the line here. These have been recapped.

Don't have

caps on the front. Why is that safety again? Uh, they will not allow recap tires on the steering axle. They don't. And again, for safety.

Now, once you wear a front tire out, you can take it, have it recapped, put it on the rear. So how many times can you recap a carcass quite a few. Um, and the guys that do that in the tire shops and everything, they mark them each time that they get recap and they, and they'll tell you how many times it can be a recap. So you can really get your money's worth it.

All right.

Now, we're gonna talk about how to stop these boys. I'm talking about brakes.

Ok. Once the viewer gets past the shock of the size of these components,

they're gonna find that these are not a whole lot different than a typical drum brake set up. But there are some differences there.

Let's talk them through it. I think the first thing that we see is the size of the brake pad itself. Well, they're huge. They really are.

And you got them down here on the ball on the bottom. How about, how about the thickness? We've got plenty of material here to get that 80,000 pound stop going down the road. Ok. Now, how do you actuate these brakes?

I notice there's no hydraulic lines here. No hydraulics. It's all done by air. The air comes into this pancake which moves the slack adjuster which turns the S cam.

All right.

You've all heard about burned up brakes, guys losing the brakes going down a hill. What happened?

What happens sometimes we're in the wrong gear as we come off the hill. Uh If we don't get in the right gear to slow this thing down and we've got to get on the brakes a little bit more.

We can get in trouble. We sure can. Now what if you need more brakes than this? Um, we're just gonna turn the jake on. No, no, no.

Forget what he said. We're going to deal with the jake break in a later show.

So it's driver error that causes burn up, break. It sure can. I mean, if he gets in the wrong gear coming down there,

I mean, he's got to get down a lot harder. All right. So now you don't have to wonder when you're driving down the road, how one of these rigs stops and runs because now you know how it works. I can't believe you did that

for another show.

If you are a, do it yourself sort of person like to work on your own rigs. There is one tool that you have got to have

and that is a floor jack. You gotta be able to get things up in the air. Now, this is a new all aluminum jack from craftsman only weighs 44 pounds,

but it will lift 4000 pounds and it will lift those two tons, 18.5

inches high. Also,

it's got the rollers and the handles and the casters of a racing jack. So this thing's easy to maneuver, easy to get around.

So if you need a jack or you're just ready to upgrade that old dinosaur you've been using forever, this is worth a look

question for you. What is one of the ugliest areas on your truck?

That's right. The brake booster and master cylinder.

And there is not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it. Of course, you can paint them up and put a chrome cap on there, but

that's about it. Well, this is brand new from stainless steel brake corporation. Now, what you're looking at

is a chrome seven inch booster and a polished billet aluminum master cylinder. Now, look at this.

You got the ports for the brake lines coming out either side. So you can run the lines. Either way.

You've got your choice of boards so you can make it fit your application.

Heck, you even have flames cut right into the machine. Top. These are sweet.

So if you're serious about your brake system,

you need to go to Stainless Steel Brake Corporation and get you one of these. They are nice.

Today's final truck gear is for you. Diesel guys and it's called the rapid power module and it comes from bully dog.

Now, this is very simple.

It plugs into your stock wiring harness under the hood.

Then you just hook up the switch and boom, 70 extra horsepower and you flip it.

That's nice. Clean and simple. It's gonna do it for today. We'll see you next week.