Revenge of the El Camino

Today on Muscle car, our El Camino parts hauler rides again. Last time our boys blew the rear end out of it. Now, it's ready for another trial by burn out. Our project challenger is going to be a little too fast for its own good. So it's getting some help keeping all four wheels on the ground.

Welcome to Muscle car. Today, we're gonna show you how to bench some pipe. We're gonna brace some in the fender wells and Jared's gonna fix what he broke.

Well, it looks like a ram jet made just a little bit too much power for the stock 10 bolt rear end. So we're gonna get rid of that and put a Ford nine inch in here. And what we show you is gonna work with about any 78 to 87 GMG body. I'm talking to Monte Carlos, the Cutlasses, the regals. You name it,

you broke it, you fix it. Let's get cracking the drain.

I'm

eager

first

hit it. Maestro we dropped the 350 horse freight motor in El Camino and it was looking strong out on the highway.

That's the end of that rear end and we got some fixing to do.

What do you think it's gonna be behind door? Number one, Mr Santiago. I'm taking Pinion. I'm thinking ring gear. I think you're crazy. I think I'm gonna rub it in when I'm right.

Chunk, chunks, chunks, chunks, chunks.

Who

gracious me?

Well, that looks good, dude. It frag the spiders. That is awesome.

Yeah. See, look, here's the springs for deposit unit.

Uh

Let's get it out of here.

What we've got here is the spider gears, let go. And it took out the rest of the lemon slip poza unit. So it's junk.

Well, we won't be taking our parts truck to get a new rear end. So let me show you a little trick what he's doing in Kansas. Are you ready? There's no place like junkyard.

There's no place like junkyard.

No place like that.

Oh,

I hate,

I hate having my atoms spread all over the universe like that. Let's go find a truck.

Let's go over there.

Looks like it might have one in it.

It's a half ton

and watch out.

Yeah, that's 19 inch four is from coil spring cars. The top of the axle tube is flat so they can mount the spring on it. They're a lot harder to narrow.

Oh, yeah.

Better to cut doctor.

We're getting ready to play with fire.

Blame on

when you're cutting those axes off of that junkyard truck. Be careful of those shock mounts. Don't let them flame up.

Call the fire department lou

you don't ever want a shock on fire. You never want to cut the housing of a shock because it's filled with fluid and it can explode.

Time to take it home and cut it down to size. There's two rear ends that Ford makes where this whole center section comes out. The nine inch

and its cousin, the eight inch, the way to tell them apart is the eight inch has got a really pronounced flat area across the top and bottom. Plus the nine inch is just physically larger. Let's get this thing cleaned up. All right, let's get

out of here. Oh,

this is gonna be hard.

You're so strong.

57.5.

The most important measurement you're gonna make is the overall length. That's the number you need

and you get that by going from the face of each axle flange.

What do you got? Brother?

65 and a quarter? Oh, man, we're gonna be doing some cutting. This thing's big.

First step, cut off the old brackets and take out the old axles.

We're gonna keep the housing and replace everything inside

hot spots on ahead.

I think we should do the smell of 98 Gear oil as a perfume.

Yeah.

There you go. And we call it ma

by

Ellen J.

Hollywood. Would love it.

Oh, holy cow.

You

60 in the corner.

Figuring out where you wanna cut can be tricky because P

gear in the 49 inches off center. So you wanna cut different amounts off of each end?

We have a jig that shows you with opinion lines up

so we can measure from there and then grind off a clean spot to mark the bracket locations and then weld them on.

Well, I'm doing that.

Jarrett is taking the mounting points off the rear end. He broke so we can put them on this one.

All right. Well, that means that I gotta find a level plane on this thing so I can get it chewed up, take some measurements. So that when I cut these attachment points off of this rear end and transfer them to the other rear end,

they're in exactly the same spot.

Some of the mounting brackets will transfer to the junkyard housing

others. You're gonna have to make yourself

there. It

is.

Once I cut the other end on, I'll clean it up some more weld the brackets on, send it out to get shot blasted and we're ready to squirt some paint on it.

Well, it looks better than it did in that truck. You're so good with a rattle can. It's not even funny. Hey, guys, I want you to know we had to remake these top mounts just out of mild steel because the ones on the 10 bolt rearing are cast. So they wouldn't work. What we did was we took a piece of quarter inch plate, cut it out to fit and then we made these sleeves so the top bushings don't flex any works out good. Let's go get the parts.

Don't break this rear end now. Oh, I'm gonna try. I'm talking about some revenge.

You always wanna remember to lube up your shaft before you put it in the rear end. This way. It's a thing of beauty.

The parts we're putting in

some good stuff that curry supplies 31 flying axes and an eating positive.

Yeah,

we'll see if Jared can tear up all those brand new gears.

And next, the Mo

Nationals show off some of the finest rides on the road.

Sometimes you need a little bit of inspiration. So we took a break from our Mopar project. Go watch some finished mo parts in action.

All muscle car fans are loyal to that brand, but Mopar

guys are way over the top. Their cars are the same way with bright colors, radical designs, super cool names like roadrunner, super beam Barracuda.

Back in the day, all mo

cars had the

hemi

option.

So those things were notorious for making smoke

for these fans. There's only one event to see every year.

The Mopar Nationals kind of like a Mecca for Mopar Lovers.

This event which takes place annually at National Trail Raceway in Columbus, Ohio has grown steadily for 25 years and it has everything to satisfy a Mopar appetite.

There's a burnout contest

and when we say burn out.

We ain't lying.

Now, burning ain't your thing. Then you can run the quarter.

And that's what's different about these B

car people. They like to drive their show car. It's more of a driver actually. It just turned out that I can show it. It turned out nice,

but I drive it a lot. One of the coolest things at the Nationals is the killer car show. We saw the best of everything dots

the birds and the bees and my fave this amazing 1968 roadrunner inside. Now this thing is flawless. That's nice. But what about this 69 charger RT. Absolutely perfect, man. I'd love to restore one of those.

If you're interested in restoring your Mopar.

There's the Mopar midway with over 400 vendors who specialize in building new parts to go into your resto

or if you wanna stay vintage,

there's the swap

meet where folks buy selling

original pieces of Mopar.

Muscle one warning this stuff ain't cheap.

Oh, yeah.

And we also learned a little bit about the history of Mopar here like how one of its most famous cars came to be. We just took the low line Belvedere one

coop put on the GTX hood

in the grill and tail lamps. We painted them dark Argen instead of light Argent. The road runners guts were a breeze too. Thanks to a police engineer team, a cop, big block cop brakes and a cop suspension. Got great results on the street.

There was only one thing left.

You still needed a name.

One morning, my ace assistant Gordon Jerry came in and said, Jack, I've got the name.

What is it, Gordon? He says watch cartoons on Saturday morning. I did. It was fast. It was fun.

It was hot off the line.

It could stop on a

dime.

It never got beaten, nobody could catch it

and it even went beep, beep.

And another thing that's made Mo Park collecting and restoring more than just fun is the money in the last decade or so. The value of these cars just hasn't gone through the roof,

the roof's been blown off because your hobby now all of a sudden is your 401k. So, uh, you know, that's great. Some of these cars are half a million dollar, million dollar cars and you guys are out here driving them, you know, they're doing the burnouts and, and they're enjoying the cars. So it's, it's kind of nice, you know, you can drive your 401k, so to speak.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the shop. You know, there was some really top notch mo parts at the Nationals, but ours is gonna be way over the top

since we changed how the suspension works on this car. Most of the load is now carried at this point right here. So we're gonna brace up our inner wheelhouses and really make them strong

like the 90 what about you. Yeah, I think that's the way to go, for sure.

Yeah, that's it right there.

So, first we're gonna cut some braces.

One of 581 20 wall dom.

Then we're gonna introduce him to our new friend.

Just be a tube. Shark tube. Go in tube, come out bend. All she's gotta do is eat

sleep, be

little tubes

and the steel is going to spring back a little bit when you're done bending.

So you want to go just a couple degrees past your angle.

32,

you're the man.

My favorite.

Hi,

we're gonna be welding right next to our new front suspension and we don't want to ruin those airbags the way we burned up Jesse's coat a little earlier on this project.

How did you do? How did you do it?

So we cover these airbags with some welding paper cats with sparks

whenever you're bending tube

for a roll cage or whatever and you want the left and the right to be the same.

I always leave the tube a little bit long. This way you can get the bend in the same place, then you can just mark it, cut it and you have a perfect mirror image.

Also make sure it has a good place to land

like this, whether it's bracing or roll cage. If it goes to sheet metal needs to be on a piece of plate. Keep it strong.

All right, brothers. It's tack time.

Once the place tacked on, draw some crosshairs. So the tube lands in the same place every time,

then get ready for a lot of trimmings to make the pipe fit

on this. Here. I'm just gonna have to

just kind of take the marker and sketch out a rough shape because it's such a compound shape that I'll just have to take my time and use a car by bit and hog it out until it fits like a puzzle piece

while I'm cutting the pipes.

No way.

Then some bars,

who's we on the plate? On the other side?

I just started this out by just making some rough cuts, general shapes and then you can really refine it later with a grinder. Get it to fit perfect.

We'll put a plate just like this one on the inside to hold the crossbar. Then we'll drill a hole through a folk to make it all line up.

Looks like it'll make it.

Oh, yeah, it'll work fine. We'll clean all that sea sea

at it. It will be good.

But before we weld the tube on the plate, let's make sure it'll clear the tire. I

mean, I left the gap just, you know, because it actually make it stronger and

weld

it

because what we did was we ran the suspension all the way up,

you know, worst case scenario kind of thing, make sure we don't hit nothing.

It's also turned all the way too to make sure we don't get into these pipes.

It looks like we're in a pretty good shape, man. If we hit that, we're doing something wrong, I'd say something's already broken at that point.

So that's cool. I like it. Let's spin another one. Just like this.

You got it where you want it. I think here we go

on the way

too late now, buddy. No, I was just kidding. Anyway,

when you welding something like this, it's gonna take a lot of stress and strain on it like this brace, it's gonna support the whole front end. You wanna make sure you get good penetration and avoid that cold weld.

Here's a perfect example of what Lou was talking about. It's actually penetrated through

the base metal so you can see the discoloration.

I mean, it's just right. It's not too hot, not too cold.

Not only the very strongest welds can stand up to the,

oh, you're so manly. Damn.

You

so strong.

Well, next we're gonna tie the two braces. We just put in with a bar that goes across behind the dash.

But first we're gonna put the dash and some other things in to make sure we don't have any problems with the clearance

before you can weld any roll cages or under dashes. You need to spend at least two years in the circus and be a contortionist.

Well, what do you think lou,

I think it's really cool, man. Yeah, this was nice. And strong too.

Do you think we should try fitting the dashes? See how bad we gotta cut it up.

Even with all this work,

one big part of this project is still missing. What is a dang deal

your side's gotta come up.

Well, we're gonna take care of that

right now

with all the man hours and time and effort that we've put into this project. We finally decided to name our challenger. Yeah, this thing is so full of bad ass parts and it's just over the top. We're gonna call it overkill.

I like that.

Me too. So live with it.

We all got this baby buttoned up for you guys that don't have the time to modify 984. Like we did, all you gotta do is call someone like summit. They've got all this g body stuff in stock. One more check. We're on the road. Hey, Jared. What?

Fire this thing up? All right, Dan.

Hi.

Remember me?

Yeah,

it's payback. Time

coming down.

Well, it's time to claim some payback on our El Camino.

That's not too bad of a start, but we need a nice quiet country road to really see if our fix works.

All right now, don't break it. All right. We'll see

that is worthy of muscle car. Yes, it is awesome.

This time we're gonna tear up the pavement

instead of the car.

Let's see what you got. Santiago.

I think mine are longer, I think they look pretty much the same.

I'm not gonna argue with you about it. The point is that our El Camino held together and it looks like our parts repairs work. So, and that's the whole point of muscle car. Buy it, build it beat the hell out of it. We're out of here

to break it. We'll see you guys

wanna get a cheeseburger. Let's go, man. I'm hungry.