'94 GMC Part II

Previously on search and restore. This Ohio man saw his 94 GMC S snatched for our ultimate makeover.

And as the tear down began, it became clear, winters were not kind to this four by four.

Today, it goes from a six banger to an eight plus. The owner gets to see what's left of his rusted out old frame.

When we started our search and restore project, we were prepared for the outpouring of support that followed from the teams of volunteers donating time and skill to the hundreds of aftermarket companies who stepped up with donated parts

all for one simple goal to lend a hand to a deserving viewer

like 40 year old Anthony Rowe.

This corrections officer is admired by his coworkers. Anthony's a really good guy. Uh He's happy go lucky keeps everybody smiling, loved by his adopted Children.

He does everything for his kids. He always puts his kids first and by his wife of 21 years,

he grew up very poor.

He really did.

He uh would go with no socks

when he went to school. His sister's got socks. He didn't,

he's always had it rough. He's always had to work for everything he's ever got

and he's never had anything new.

And um, this will be something very unique and special for him.

So we traveled to the city of Pomeroy, Ohio to trailer back this man's daily driver all in an effort to make a good guy's dream come true

back in the shop. The volunteers are busting it with build leader Tim Strange in charge, Mark mcan and Randy Fisher from Royal Purple are here to help

and custom metal fabricator, Eli Sweets is doing quite tasty work on the bed

as is Jacob Miles and his crew from milestone paint and body.

Holly's Liz Miles is here to lend a hand and get the drive train in order.

Now with 247,000 miles on the original V6, Anthony's truck desperately needs to be repower.

So GM performance parts stepped in donating it all new ZZ 4 V8 to the cause with a roller cam aluminum heads,

steel Crank Anthony's GMC will get 355 fresh horses. 25 year old Liz flew in from California to help this up and coming. Builder trained at Wyotech was profiled in Hot Rod magazine

and has worked for Boyd Coddington shop

now in her free time, Liz Tunes and road races are 69 Camaro G machine.

It's my baby and I love her

Holly 950 ultra HP on it, which is a big bad carb and it works great. But

because I like that road racey stuff

today. She helps top off the ZZ four with Holly's top of the line. Dominate her fuel injection. That'll up the power and improve fuel efficiency. It's a direct port ef I system that actually tunes itself as the truck is driven. Anthony's gonna drive this truck every day to work to run errands. And the last thing he needs is to need to tinker with it

to light it off. It gets Excel plugs in a billet distributor

and to help it breathe a set of flow tech ceramic headers

with the headers on. It really looks

like an engine.

Excel ignition wires are the last piece of the puzzle and it's ready for the new frame

securing its new home. It gets royal purple breaking oil in a new synthetic filter

with that done. Ian's rebuilt transfer case goes on next and now we're ready for the rest of the drive train.

Next Tim's got a treatment that will protect the underside from those harsh midwest winters. And later on

the family gets a glimpse of what was a potential death trap.

What we got here now like we got a new set of doors with no rust on it.

They come out of a salvage yard. So there is a few dings and dents on them

way easier to fix it. A bunch of rust and hopefully before long we'll have them body working right for primer.

The volunteers for milestone, custom paint and body have had a hand in every aspect of this bill, tear down sheet metal fab and more

the team was so moved by Anthony's story that they decided to do a little sacrificing of their own,

working the regular day jobs in addition to volunteering here. Yeah, we're putting in double D, you might call it guys that come in early, starting about four in the morning and sometimes in

afternoon when we get done here, we go back to the shop and make up the time that we lost. This is truly 100% donating our time to this project.

And one of the team's most labor intensive contributions was getting the cab ready for primer. Just a lot of blocking a lot of straight sanding,

making sure everything was smooth, no little waves in it, making sure it's all looks like one piece.

Some of the pieces we're reusing from the replacement frame include the brake lines,

they look new. But that's because Ryan simply scuffed and cleaned them up.

I thought it was a little weird gonna be using the old brake lines over

that. Ryan inspected them, cleaned them all up,

assured me that they would be all good

for something as important as steering. We're not going to take a chance on an old piece. So a newly remanded steering box goes onto the frame

and even with the new bigger wheels and tires, the stock box and steering linkage that goes with, it will be plenty strong for the driving duties.

Now, Royal Purple isn't just sponsoring this bill. We're putting a lot of their products to good use. Royal Purple is a US based company

down in uh Porter Texas and you know, we're committed to staying. We have been blessed to have a product line that's been growing and have been able, actually able to hire people and bring more people into the fold and create jobs.

And, you know, it's our hope we can do more of that.

And what's more important to the company is the opportunity to honor a husband and wife that give so much to so many yet. Ask so little in return. You know, you look at that family and what Anthony does and Cindy do. You know, they give back so much to the community and they're creating a legacy of giving that's far bigger than anything we're doing right now

to protect Anthony's truck from the harsh northern winters that consumed it the first time we're using up

Pole's Raptor,

a commercial grade protective coating.

It comes in little quart jugs. You pour some activator in it. So it dries really quick and some color, any color you want. We spray it on there, it'll make it last longer. So keep all the rock chips and all the salt

and all the snow and everything out from the bottom of all those crevices

really neat stuff.

Chris has got the original front diff off of Anthony's truck and is gonna give it a little upgrade

and it starts with the brand new 410 to 1 ring and pinion set.

The reason for the lower ratio is to compensate for the much larger wheels and tires we're gonna add later.

Another important part of this is to ensure that all bearings and seals are brand new.

Chris will reuse the original stub shaft, then hit it with a coat of paint before it lands under the frame. Once again,

back in the shop, work continues on the front suspension.

Now, Anthony said he likes the look of a lifted street truck and skyjackers stepped up big time and hooked us up and donated one of their 2.5 inch lift kits.

So that in combination with the bushwhacker cut out players offer uh plenty of room for some bigger tires that'll make sure Anthony gets to work no matter what kind of winner, Ohio throws at him.

The stars line up here. Now, brand new CV shafts go in place of the old units with almost a quarter million miles on it.

Earlier in the day, we checked in with the Roe Family VR Web conferencing set up

at first, it was just mom and dad in the shop. Then one by one their Children started to pile in so everyone could get an update on Anthony's truck.

Welcome to the search and restore set. So Where's Kenneth? Bring Kenneth back up there?

Ok. The last time when we came to pick up the truck, you had a little bit of a problem quick. What's your name? And how old are you,

Ken?

The

12 years old? See, that wasn't that hard, was it?

So, we've got all these people that's been volunteering. Not only do we have the power block guys that you see on TV, every week,

but we got Jacob miles from Milestone paint and body does awesome work. We have Eli Sweets from Maryland

runs suicide mafia. He does awesome metal work and he's just

awesome to be around. He keeps the morale up.

Then we have Liz. Miles from Holly. She came all the way in from California

and she's like a little rabbit. She's just running around working on all kinds of things on this thing. So

I think you should be really thankful that we're getting to redo this for you

because we found some pieces on this thing.

I'm not really sure what's going on here. Does this look familiar to you?

That was underneath those big fender flares you put on there? I don't know if you did that on purpose or it just out just from all the years of assault and driving.

I didn't even know it was like that the fender flares were on it when I got it. So you wanna see what the truck looks like right now?

You weren't too sure. About that. Were you get all the kids up around you so they can see the screen really good. So we'll show you what the truck's looking like.

Roll the truck in guys.

We've got this thing tore all kinds of parts.

Wow.

So we found some more holes down here,

done some patchwork here. Started doing some prep work. We got all the glass tore out, we got the doors tore off. You wanna see some up close stuff of this thing? I'll, I'll show you up close.

Ok.

Can you see me?

Yeah,

and you see that,

that's your spare tire mount. That's why that wouldn't hold a tire anymore.

Here's all the inside of the frame

where the rear suspension mounts right here

and right here when you have holes, if you would have got rear ended, that would not have been very good at all. I had no idea.

Or if you hooked anything to your receiver hitch

or if you would have hooked anything besides a grocery cart to the back end of this thing, I think it would have collapsed on you. So

there's little subassemblies going on. There's some back there. We've got parts going, primary body work here and there, a whole bunch of everything going on in this thing trying to give you a safe, reliable and really cool truck. You don't know how much this really means to me and my family. I mean, it's, I don't know if I can ever really thank you all enough for putting the words how I feel about it. I wish I could say more, but

I'm just at a loss for words right now. Well, we're gonna get back to work so we can get your truck back on the road so you can get to work safe. See you next week. Thanks again.

Thanks.

That's good.

All right,

got the wheels and tires mounted.

Chris has been to the tire shop to get our new DX C pe

30 fives mounted in ballots.

They look pretty good though, don't they?

Yeah, they know they turned out nice.

How noisy are those gonna be going down the road? Pretty noisy or not too bad. They'll have a nice little home to them, but it's not bad. It's ok. We're putting a big stereo in it and just crank it up.

Oh, yeah.

Now to handle these new bigger wheels and tires, the task of fabricating a rear end falls to ear

off roading.

Yeah,

this axle is that of a newer, heavy duty version of the Chevy pickup truck.

It still has a six L wheels to match the front, but it's a semi

float 14 bolt. Now that'll give us a 33 flying axle and a larger ring gear to make it a lot stronger than the 10 bolt that was originally under this truck.

Wait for it.

Air locker

to beef this axle up. All I did was strip everything out, install an A RB air locker and then change the gear ratio to a 410 to 1. Now, that'll help compensate for the 35 inch tall tires that we plan to install on this rig before we're finished.

Nine. That's not bad. If we're building a hardcore rock crawler, we definitely want to go with the full float 14 Bull or even a di A 60 axle. But considering that this rig is going to spend a lot of time on the road and we need to keep it six log on the rear to match the front. The only option for a good upgrade is this semi

float 14 B.

You see that guy there, Ian,

he's not talking right now. It's kind of scary

because I'm thinking, I can't think and talk at the same time

with the project, keeping the team working around the clock. Local KFC manager, Terry Jennings and his staff volunteered to bring in buckets of chicken

and feed the crew.

They brought tons of their original recipe and extra crispy chicken and strips, mashed potatoes and tons of coleslaw

enough to feed a mob,

but just like the volunteers in the shop. KFC realizes that what we're doing here is more about giving back KFC is a big part of our community here and, and we just wanted to be a part of what you guys are doing and what you guys are doing for this family is just amazing. And

KFC doesn't deliver

but, you know, in a case like this, we'll bring you guys lunch down.

It's awesome.

Do you want any sauce or anything? I love the mashed potatoes and gravy

full from lunch and back at the frame. Chris and Ryan installed the new to us torsion bars.

Making a dusty mess. Is our good buddy, Brian Finch

do.

He's cleaning up and repainting the original gas tank splash shield

and with a little help from Ian in a brand new tank, he's getting the piece back in the frame.

Yeah.

Wow.

Back in the paint booth,

Tim's putting a lot of thought into how he's going to lay out the design for the new hood.

So this is gonna be the stripe color for the graphic

Rick, mixed it, mix me up some custom baby blue that I like

using some PPGD BC base coat with a little bit of activator in it to kick it off. We got this stuff from auto body color. I'm gonna go spray a little stripe on it.

It looks weird having baby blue on there,

but that'll be like a pinstripe line with that thin tape.

I'll lay out the stripe what I want

and then I'll spray silver in the middle where the graphic will be let that dry

mask off the silver and the baby blue

and

the rest of the hood is just gonna be black.

We just kind of go in the booth with a couple of us that have paint skills and start laying up stripes. And so we like it

and then some of them might leave the booth and I'll do it whatever I want anyway. So that's pretty much what I did

with that done. Kevin, along with the milestone, guys can take the primed and body work, sheet metal off the old cab.

These panels will be laid out and prepped for painting. And the way that gets done is through Tim's favorite method of sandy, wet,

sandy

and whether it's wet or dry, it roughs up the surface and gives the paint something to stick to.

There's two types of adhesion here,

chemical

and mechanical.

Right.

That's right.

Wow,

that's a long ways up there.

Someone has set the hangers too high in the paint proof, but the guys will figure it out.

I'll get us a runt jack. Can I borrow yours?

A

runt jack

two?

See these builds really are all about teamwork and Cooper

where

unaware of the chaos just feet away in the paint booth. The rest of the build team actually is busy working on making the new frame, a rolling chassis.

Ian's freshly rebuilt and repainted 14 bolt rear end goes in first

followed by the brand new Dix C

peck 35 inch wheels and tires.

And one of the very last pieces of the suspension puzzle is four brand new skyjacker shocks

chassis that rolls this calls for celebration

next time on search and restore

Anthony's truck starts to take shape with full custom paint safari rack and more. Plus, remember what his truck used to sound like?

Not anymore. Thanks to a very special guest.