We Build a Demolition Derby Truck

Today, we're going to a truck demolition derby and you won't believe just how much abuse a truck can take.

Then it's back to the shop to show you all the secrets that make these derby trucks so tough. It's all today here on trucks.

Hey, welcome to trucks. Well, people found out we're doing a derby truck on the show. So they called some people who called some other people and our phone was ringing off the hook over the weekend. We found out they were running to Derby over here at Ashland City. And the reason we showed up is, well, it's right here. These boys are gonna tear some trucks up. Let's check it out.

Now, there's lots of fun to be had at the county fair.

But the thrill ride we're here for takes place on a field of mud and dirt. People come from miles away to enter these demolition derbies and truck. Derbies are getting more and more popular with the full size cars becoming harder to find

and more expensive. Whoops.

There are no rules for styling. So the teams get to show some personality when it comes to paint

and there's always a bit of last minute prep to do in the pits before the race.

Oh, great.

Oh,

you got,

I'm

Hammer Man.

That just like every form of racing tech inspection is mandatory.

Not only to make sure nobody's cheating,

but also for safety

to bolt the cab down, make sure the battery box is in its position of where we say it should be and bolt it down securely. Also for the fuel tank supposed to be behind the cab right in the main of the box up front, mainly just safety and not adding any metal and we just wanna have a good show and have a lot of fun.

This ignition looks like a mess but an ignition switch can fail. Two wires stuck together is dependable and it's only 12 volts. Here's a little tip. Some of the guys use. It's pretty simple. All it is is duct tape wrapped around U joints. What that does is that keeps the U joint cup from just slinging out

a roll cage is a must and these guys don't play solid steel eye beams are common and like you're about to see a derby gets roughed

with everybody getting ready in the pits. We got the chance to talk with a couple of the drivers. So there's nothing that compares to driving on that track. I've done a lot in life.

A whole lot of like fun,

but there's nothing more exciting than driving on that track

as our modern day gladiators enter the arena, the gloves are off and everyone knows it. This is a fight to the finish

and the last truck movie will take home the coveted trucks TV,

gearhead trophy.

I

it's not total chaos though. The officials have a keen eye for trouble

with everyone saved. It's back to business.

Carnage is everywhere and it comes down to a standoff between these two survivors

down to these two

bent axles, super heated engines, cooked transmissions, body parts everywhere. It's amazing that these trucks even still move.

And at last, a champion rises from the wreckage.

Hard hitting, not

hard hitting.

Well, how did that feel? Man? That was awesome, man. That's what it's all about right now.

We're in it for the adrenaline and for the fans,

it looked like a good time.

You

got a truck before.

This is my third time.

Well, on behalf of all of us who want to present you with the truck CV trophy.

Oh

Lord. Thank you. Yes, sir.

We can put that in the rear frame rail to the next truck or something.

That's nice. That's awesome right there.

Thank you guys. Thanks for

putting on the show.

Congratulations.

I have spent my whole adult life learning how to fix these things. This was beautiful. This was therapy, man. This is awesome. I can't believe it,

Robert.

Ah,

that's a bad

man.

What happened to your steering?

I don't know, it just broke.

I I hit him. It just broke all of a sudden.

Yeah, I saw a movie little, uh, little wus

there.

Now we got a quarter inch plate steel tying the bed to the cab corner right here in the door. It just sheared it away, just completely ripped it out. Amazing force is applied with this stuff.

It's a lesson in physics.

It's Ben.

Yeah.

Check a cage out

cage. Ro.

Well, the only Ford in the mix

is getting towed out by, by some road making equipment. But hey, he gave it an honest shot old 36. He held up real well, but he broke his thumb trying to steer it out of our wreck. Awesome. These guys are just bulletproof,

stick around because when we come back, we're building our own derby truck.

Those guys are nuts.

Hey, welcome back to trucks. Well, the truth is some of those derby drivers might be a little on the edge, but there's method to their madness because the guys that win, bring home some pretty good money. So if you've ever wanted to get involved in a motor sport on a grassroots level with a minimal investment that pegs the fund meter and with a payout at the end of it,

maybe demolition

is something you wanna try. Now, we talked to a bunch of those guys. So between what we already know and what we found out, we're gonna pass on a bunch of insider information to you guys. For instance, how to build an engine that's gonna survive under extreme temperatures. Like half of those guys run in the heat, finishing it without even a radiator working that and a whole lot more demolition derby tech,

we found our truck is a not so solid, not so complete. 79 Chevrolet that quite frankly was worth more as scrap than it was as a used truck.

Now, there's still a ton of work to be done, but we've already got a head start by pulling the bed off. The gas tank is off, the interior is completely stripped out. All the glass is gone. The dash has been cut out and the drive train was already missing. We've also unbolted the body and taken the bushings out. This thing's ready to be prepped for a derby. Now,

now every derby's got its own set of rules and we don't want any violations to keep us from running. But you and I both know rules were designed to be bent.

Now, we're not in any danger of breaking rules plating up the door gaps.

This is a common practice and is accepted by tech inspectors.

The biggest reason other than reinforcing the body a little is to keep the doors closed and from coming off in a battle,

the universal rule of demolition derby is that under no circumstances, do you ever hit the driver's door of another vehicle intentionally?

Even so accidents happen. Heck, the whole derby is one big collision and this plating will help protect the driver as well as the reinforcement that goes on inside the cab. A little later on,

just like we did at the door, we're gonna weld the bed to the back of the cab using 16 gauge sheet metal and then later both the bed to the back of the cab.

We're cutting our metal strips from a sheet of 16 gauge sheet metal.

You can have your metal supply sheer into strips for you for a small fee or just use the tools you got on hand.

If you're using a plasma torch, a guide clamped to your metal will give you a clean straight cut.

Another benefit of building a derby truck is that it's excellent welding practice. You can experiment with settings and you can practice laying down several different types of weld without a lot of pressure

plating. The bed to the cab is just not enough reinforcement,

bolting the cab to the bed panel and then again, to the frame will help keep your vehicle from separating from the frame or blowing apart.

Now, in the back, we don't want to put this original bumper back on. The reason being is because if we get locked up with another vehicle and the bumper hung up together, well, we're done, but we still want some protection. Now, here is where you can interpret the rules, maybe twist them a little bit and still not break for instance,

we can take some of the diamond plate out of the top of the bumper,

we can put it under the rail, fold it up, tie the bed to the frame and we're not breaking the rules by adding metal that wasn't already there. This is part of the original bumper. So it's all in how you look at the rule book.

Now, remember in Demolition Derby, the back end is the business end of your vehicle, especially with this truck. But unlike the original bumper, we definitely wanna put the tailgate back in.

The difference is we're relocating it downward and we're gonna solid, weld it front and rear and across the back. Then we're gonna take our bumper plates, wrap them up there and that hopefully will keep this thing from blown apart.

We use the hot wrench instead of drilling holes just because it's faster and worked over our industrial depot bins using high quality hardware to secure the quarter inch plate.

Larger plates spread the load out and will increase the clapping strength.

And believe me, like we showed you a while ago, you are gonna need it

after the break. We'll show you some tricks and tips from a true derby insider. Stay tuned.

Hey, welcome back. We'll check out our battering ram. Now, what we've done in the corners is plate, our tail lights and tie the bedside into the tailgate, but we've used the same gauge sheet metal here. So technically, we're not breaking rules by adding reinforcement.

Here, we've seam welded the bottom of the tailgate for strength and taken our bumper plates, welded them solid to the frame. Aril wrapped it up around and welded it solid to the end of the gate. Now, a few simple tricks like this will give the business end of your derby machine a lot more strength.

Now up front, we're pretty much gonna leave it stock out back a little different story.

Now, this is our truck stock tim bolt axle.

Now, the problem with it, it uses

clips to retain the axle.

What happens is the axle breaks around here. This part stays in the housing, this part slides out and you lose a wheel. So a smart changes to the 49 inch where these four volts will hold the axle in broken or not.

Now, you can still break an axle right behind the flange. And if that happens, it doesn't matter which axle you're using, you're still gonna lose a wheel.

Now, some guys just run a stock drive shaft when they're

Derian. But you talk to some veterans and they've got a few tricks up their sleeve here as well. For instance, this shaft is out of one of Tommy's cars. It features this agricultural PTO center section which you can pick up at your local farm supply store. Now, the basic philosophy is that your car is gonna accordion at the track or compress. Well, this thing gives you an additional

nearly 30 inches of slip travel. And these heavy duty U joints are quite obviously stronger than the stalkers. Plus the fact that they give you almost 60 degrees of angle without binding and that my friends will give you a serious advantage.

Now,

our truck came with a small block 305. So a rebuild and modified 350 like this one will not only drop right in,

it'll also give you an edge over the competition.

This engine has a typical 40,000 overboard with flat top pistons.

It's got an Edelbrock performer, cam and bone stock heads.

The valve stem seals have been removed to help with oil drain back and valve stem lubrication at higher temperatures.

It's also got a high volume oil pump again to help with heat dissipation.

It turns out a respectable 240 horsepower and an impressive 342 ft pounds of torque.

Now up top, we've got an HE I distributor and an Excel coil for reliability and an old style cast iron two barrel manifold. But here, Tommy believes that giving the coolant the ability to go straight to the water neck helped with cooling big time. So he bypasses every engine he builds with tap water jackets that lead right into the thermostat housing

where the T sta has been gutted. So it still acts like a slight restrictor but eliminates the possibility of thermostat lock up. Now, another common derby mot

is these dec headers and they make headers for all kinds of off road applications. These are forward dump style where they look

four into one collector and are designed like everything else to evacuate heat from the engine bay.

We had our ceramic coated by our buddies at Nitro plate and with claims of up to a 20% drop in ambient air temps under the hood. Well, it just gives you one more advantage over the rest of the field. Now, this may look like a stock turbo 400 but that's where it ends because the guys at state line transmissions have done some serious internal magic with this thing. It's got machined pistons to accept more clutches which distributes the workload over a larger area. Thereby it works less and stays in effect longer. In fact, with all the clutch material burned off, this thing will still pull. It's also got a recalibrated valve body for extreme duty and 98% of the internal plastic parts, shims and retainers have all been replaced with metal again to last longer under intense heat.

The front pump is converted to full time lube again for better heat dissipation and better lubrication.

And they recommend a stock one ton truck torque converter that stalls about 1400 RPM. And again, this ties right into our engine is going to start making torque.

Now you can buy and modify an aftermarket shift or, or if you got time on your hands, you can even make one. But ours comes from mop derby products. It costs less than 100 and 50 bucks and it features this part gear lock up pin.

It's gonna keep you out of trouble while you're doing battle.

Now, this is pretty heavy duty. But one of the things that makes it particularly nice for a truck is because it's got a tall shift

up next. We'll get our derby truck rolling on all fours. Stick around.

Hey, welcome back to trucks and thanks for hanging around because in a couple of minutes, well, we're gonna find out what this beast is gonna look like.

Now, a tire failure can cost you the derby. So what a lot of guys are on are these heavy duty bias supply truck tires with a tube. Now, since the front just acts as a rudder, we've got a tall side wall and a narrow, skinny tread pattern.

But the back, we've got an aggressive pattern with a lot of space between the lugs. So we get good traction, whatever the weather conditions are. And right here, you'll notice that we protected the valve stem with some bolts that we got from our buddies at Industrial Depot. Maybe not the politically correct way to use grade five hardware, but it's gonna help us.

Now, there's still a lot more to be done. We've got a simple perimeter cage to go around the driver. We've got to mount the fuel cell and the battery. But hopefully this has inspired you guys to grab that piece of junk in your backyard and turn it into something. It's big time fun and you might make a few bucks at it

and don't scratch the paint.

Yeah. Right

now, I know you've seen these Scott shop towels all over the place. Well, they're made by Kimberly Clark who also makes a ton of other products that are really handy to have around the shop. For instance,

these heavy duty filter masks with two straps and this breathable valve that make sure the seal stays on your face.

They've got these grip gloves that are nitro coated so you can hang on to your tools

and heavy duty coveralls to keep the contamination off your clothing.

Kimberly Clark has several different options for shop towels and unlike fabric laundered shop towels, they will never have contamination wax, oil grease, even metal shavings, which can cost you time and money,

the red wipe all towels,

they're as strong as fabric and are perfectly clean every single time. Now, for any questions on these products or anything that you've seen on our shows go to Power Block tv.com. Thank you for watching. See you next week.