Memphis Equipment

Hey, welcome to trucks. You know, there are two things that most kids grew up doing. Number one is playing army. Number two is playing with trucks. Now, wouldn't it be cool if it was a place you could go? That combined the two?

Well, there is and we are gonna take you there.

Now, most people know that the US military pretty much wrote the book on how to build a tough truck

and that's why most people would love to find an old military truck, or at least the components of one axles, transmissions winches that they can use on their current project. But

where do you find this stuff? And what does it cost? And what do you look for? Well, the answers to those questions and a lot more are at a place called Memphis Equipment.

Memphis equipment started business way back in 1946

and their main emphasis has always been army surplus and military parts.

But if you think this is just an old bone yard or junk yard. Oh, no, it is far more than that

sprawling over a yard of roughly 15 acres.

The first thing you see when you enter the yard are big buildings, lots of big buildings

and inside is where you'll find enough military parts

to outfit several small armies.

Now, when I say army surplus parts,

I'm not talking about old rusty crusty parts that have been lying around in a field somewhere. No, I am talking brand new N OS parts in the original government boxes

or slightly used parts. Still in great shape.

You'll find small parts,

body parts,

crate engines, transmissions.

You name it guys.

Wow.

Look at this multi fuel engine. Just

lander on its side.

All these are rebuildable cores.

Wow.

Tell you what. I've got a lot of respect for the forklift driver.

Wow.

So many engines. Not enough time.

I love this stuff.

And if by chance you can't find what you need inside.

I love it.

You have acres and acres of used parts to hunt through.

I mean, there were so many axles

and trannies

and drive shafts and lights and

cool stuff laying around that

the guys had to literally drag me away. So I wouldn't just roll out a sleeping bag and spend the next few nights there.

Look at that man.

You spend hours trying to restore one and they've got stacks of them here.

Stacks of them,

man do that.

That would be awesome. Little Roadster headlight.

I don't even have a place for those and I want them.

That's just awesome, man.

Remind me where those are

who

hemi.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right.

Huh.

Boy, this one's got a nice floor in it. Shoot,

yeah,

I didn't do that.

The one thing that is really surprising about Memphis equipment though

is they are not just a parents place. No,

they actually rebuild big military trucks and sell them to the public.

And as a fellow truck builder,

this really got me excited.

Of course, their facility is massive

and they start right by completely disassembling the rig and going through the chassis with new brakes and plumbing axles, et cetera.

The motors and drive trains get the same treatment with the engines, either being rebuilt

or refurbished depending on their condition

and then tuned for thousands of hours of trouble free operation.

The bodies, well, hell, they receive attention too

in the form of any rust being removed

and then the panels rust proofed and painted with a very strong military style paint. Why?

Well, because these are rugged six by six all terrain trucks with the main buyers being logging companies, oil companies, forest service or even ranchers and farmers. They need a tough truck but not a pretty truck

wonder what happened to these project trucks. Big blaze. Wicked Willies tune in next week for a special episode of where are they now?

Hey, welcome back to trucks. Now, we have shown you where to go to get army surplus parts.

Now, I'm gonna show you how to incorporate them into your project. Now, a lot of you guys have been asking. Hey, when is that Sergeant Rock project coming back?

Now, it'll be soon as soon as it gets out of the paint booth.

But in the meantime, I still have a lot of things to do. Like

get these big old axles ready to go in the truck.

So let's start with a little reminder of what they are and the way I'm gonna set them up, I introduced Sergeant Rock last season and it's a 1941 Dodge power wagon

that's gonna be sitting on 49 inch tall tires and using hydraulic steering. Check it out.

Hydraulic steering has been around for a while. They use it on ocean liners and airplanes and heavy equipment. And if you've got a big truck and you're gonna use big axles and big tires,

it's really the only way to go. That's the good news. The bad news is that hydraulic steering is not dot Approved for street use in most states,

which means if you're gonna put these big old boys on your truck with hydraulic steering,

you better check your state laws. You might be in trouble.

Ok. If you've decided that a hydraulic steering system is what you want to do, first call you need to make is to Vince Noak at the Noak company now, Vince has been building hydraulic steering systems for over 20 years and if you've ever seen Bigfoot or any other monster truck for that matter, then you have seen a no,

a steering system in action. Now, as you probably guessed, I'm gonna put hydraulic steering on the front and the rear of Sergeant Rock,

this is how the system is laid out. Now with hydraulic steering, you're using fluid instead of mechanical linkage. So you don't have a steering box, no drag link, no pitman arm, no ty rod, nothing like that in

its place. You've got what they call a Shalin valve. Now, this bolts right to the frame

and then this goes to your steering column. So when you turn the wheel, this sends fluid down to the cylinder on the axle and turns your wheels back and forth. Now, of course, you need a pump. So for the front steering,

a power steering pump off of a one ton pickup is perfect for your rear steering.

No, a company has this electric pump that they'll set up for the weight of your vehicle and exactly how you're going to use it. So this is the way to go on that.

Now, down on the axle, of course, you need some sort of a cylinder.

Now, the no, a company has got this double cylinder and the reason this is so good

is it gives you equal steering either way it's very balanced.

Now, the final piece to this puzzle are these little crevices that come from one up off road.

They slide right on the rod ends

and then your stock tie rod end threads right in here. Then this whole assembly replaces your stock tie rod over on the axle

and that's it

ok to mount the cylinder to the axle. The first thing you need to do is center it up between the spindles.

Then design some mounts to hold it.

A good rule of thumb is to mount the cylinder as close to the axle as possible to protect it.

Once you have the measurements,

make your pieces.

Now, before you weld these on, don't forget this is the best time to make the brackets for the rear axle too.

Now weld them in place.

All right. Take a look at this.

I'm using nice thick 38 inch steel plate for these brackets, but that alone is not enough. Remember you have a tremendous amount of lateral pressure going on here, 10,000 pounds coming out of that cylinder. Then it's pulling 49 inch tall tires back and forth in the mud and the rocks. So to keep these brackets from bending and flexing on me, I'm gonna fabricate some gussets that I'll weld to the brackets two per side

and that will give us the strength we need. Remember when you're building a big off road truck, if in doubt, always overbuild it.

Now, when you're working with thick metal, make sure that you grind a bevel into the edges where you're gonna run a weld

because this will allow you to sink the weld beat down into the center of the metal and give you proper penetration.

Especially important if you use an, a mig welder

and there's my mounting brackets. Now notice that these gussets come up above my mounting bolts for extra strength. These are very strong,

but I wanted to make them even stronger. So I

fed up this brace

that's gonna go right under the hydraulic cylinder

and it's gonna use the existing bolts. And

what it's gonna do is tie this bracket together with this bracket into one solid unit incredibly strong

and it's gonna look good too

and that's it. Now, all you have to do is take the stock tie rod ends, put them into these extensions

and this axle

is ready to go in the truck. Now to hook it up, all you have to do is run a couple of hydraulic lines up to the Sha

Lynn valve on the steering column. We're gonna show you how to do that

when I put these axles

in Sergeant Rock,

you know, if you watch this show very often, you know that I am always talking about tools because that is what helps you get your job done.

So it's only fitting that we headed off to the Matco Tool Expo to see what is new in the world of tools.

The first thing that we had a drool fest over were the wild bikes that were on display from both Ron Finch and Andy Trotta.

Now, these things were not only spectacular,

but both had been featured on the great biker build off on the Discovery Channel. Hm.

I wondered if they mind if I borrow one of these for a while, like the next five or 10 years.

Anyway, enough of that, we were here to see if Matco has some new tools that we can't live without.

The first stop was to check out the toolboxes. And that's when I spotted it.

Yep.

The new Rat Fink toolboxes.

Now, even if you're not an Ed Roth Band, these things are so over the top cool

that I consider it my duty to have one of these in the shop. You should too.

And that's how it started. Yeah. Before I knew it I was deep in the middle of a shopping spree.

Oh, check, check this out

now that my friends is a creeper.

Oh, yeah.

See this is a new air hammerer. Oh, man, you got Chisels punch

cutter for exhaust system. Another Chisel hammer.

And

that

says this is the most powerful impact in the world.

Yeah,

this is nice. Got to have one of these

and their line of professional grade mig welders with a change on the fly emper control. Right on the torch.

Too bad that welder won't fit in my box. We gotta find another way to get that out of here.

Of course, any mechanic worth his salt

needs a stash of beef sticks in his box to, you know, help him get through those late night building sessions.

There's that mig welder, the air hammer, let's go hit that torque wrench.

And he also needs a couple of these digital torque wrenches

if he's serious about keeping his torch settings accurate.

Wow, those are nice. These go in the box.

Yeah,

there is no question where that uh that is so stinking. Awesome.

That is just awesome.

As you can see a place like this is absolutely a gearheads dream. This is the ultimate place for a guy to go shopping.

Now, some of you might be thinking, oh, man,

this really sucks. There's no way that I could go through and fill up a cart like you just did.

Well, yes, you can because Matco is gonna give away a shopping spree just like what I just did to one of you

and if you wanna know how to win it,

well, you just better keep watching trucks. Had you. Yeah.

Oh, that is cool. I've been looking all over for that.

You know, one question that comes up from time to time is why should I modify my truck?

Isn't it better just to leave it stock like it came from the factory.

Hm.

That's a question we're gonna answer on today's gear for trucks.

I'm not gonna show you any particular parts to put on your rig.

Instead I'm gonna show you a stock truck and explain to you why it is. I'm always encouraging you to modify them.

Now, the truck I have here is a brand new Toyota Tundra step side four wheel drive V8 truck.

And guys, this is a nice truck. They're tough, dependable last forever and can be the perfect starting point for that special rig you've always wanted.

Let me show you what I'm talking about

now, even though this is a four wheel drive rig, you can't really tell it by the stance because it's, well, it's stock

and that's fine because stock will take you places like this.

But if you wanna go places like this,

well, that gives you a pretty good reason to put on a suspension limit.

Now, obviously, the stock tires are fine on the road

but not so great when you start wheeling.

And as far as power goes, all the new trucks have tough V8 engines with respectable power

and the good news is there are a ton of aftermarket parts available from programmers to crate engines to make them faster.

Stylistically, the new trucks are nice, but it's going to look like all the other Toyotas out there if you leave it stock.

Now, if you're a point A to point B kind of driver, that's ok.

But most gearheads want the rigs to be different and unique

after all. Which one would you rather have the truck in the front or the truck in the back?

Now, if you're still not sure you want to cut into your rig and you still need a little more convincing.

Well, keep watching trucks because my friends,

I can be very persuasive.

You know, everybody knows that the new Ford Super duty is a big truck and a lot of you have been asking where can I get a big lift for that truck?

Well, Skyjacker has just come out with their 8.5 inch class two suspension system for the new Ford Super duty.

Now, this converts your stock front suspension to a state of the art four link with new shocks and springs and

brackets link bars, you name it.

And when you put this on and the smoke clears, your Super D is gonna be sitting 8.5 inches taller

and able to tuck 38.5 inch tall tires. So if you're ready to get that for

up in the air,

Skyjacker's got your lift,

you know, a lot of people are wondering what the difference is in protection. If you're using a conventional oil, a synthetic oil or a synthetic blend.

Well, if we're talking about mobile high endurance oil, it's pretty simple.

Their conventional oil protects for 5000 miles.

Their synthetic blend protects for 7500 miles

and their full on synthetic Mobile one protects for an incredible 15,000 miles between oil changes. So if you use this stuff to keep up with engine maintenance or if you use it, so you don't have to keep up with engine Maintenance. Mobile's got your oil.