Trucks! Shop Tour

Today, you've asked for it. So you got it. We're taking you on a complete tour of the truck shop. It's an up close look at all the tools and gear. We've got that helps us make the show for you. It's all today here on trucks.

Hey, welcome to trucks.

Well, we've been thrashing on our projects and making a heck of a mess doing it to the point where we were tripping over stuff. So it was time to get all of the vehicles out of here, pull everything away from the walls and do a good thorough spring cleaning. And it also occurred to us that a lot of the questions that we get from you guys are regarding the tools and equipment that we're fortunate enough to be able

make our living with here on trucks. So we thought with everything clean, we'd give you a little shop tour. Now, don't get me wrong. This is not about thumping our chests and saying how cool we are to have all these nice new expensive tools, but more to illustrate the point that both Ryan and I learned a long time ago as technicians. And that is having the right tool for the job gets it done safer, faster

and easier.

Now, like Kevin said, we're not bragging about all these great tools that we've got access to. Because believe me, our personal tool collections pale in comparison to all this professional gear. We've got jammed into one room.

Now, by far, the number one supplier of equipment we need to get our jobs done

is Matt Co

tools. Now, we've got these giant toolboxes with lockers and side boxes as well as a couple of other smaller toolboxes and roll around service cars and they're all jammed full of hand tools and air tools, torque wrenches and power tools and they all help us get work done

and all these projects we tackle.

Now, we definitely have a wide variety of hand tools, specialized tools, patent body supplies and equipment,

diesel specific tools as well as suspension and drive, train specific tools. That's because we work on such a wide variety of vehicles around here.

Now, one of the most convenient and high tech pieces of equipment we've got in the shop is our torch mate CNC cutting system.

Now, this thing is invaluable when it comes to cutting out tabs and brackets or pieces of plate.

Now, while it is high tech and really accurate, you certainly don't have to be an engineer to operate

it. It runs off a fairly easy to use C

AD

cam software program

and it saves us a ton of time not having to go to the hand plasma cutter or a band saw or grinder.

Now, you've seen the torch made in action, but you haven't seen these before. These are welding panels from Goth's curtain walls and they could be constructed in a cage or individual like we have them here. What they do is filter out sparks and most importantly, ultraviolet rays. Let's face it. A lot of what we do here on trucks involves cutting, grinding and welding. So this way we can protect the people that aren't actually doing the work and keep the camera guy from getting an unintentional sunburn.

Now stuffed into this corner is our metal rack and it's loaded with scrap and cut off steel and aluminum because this is kind of our metal working and fabrication corner. Now to help us get the work done, we picked up this Miller Arc station welding table that's got these neat clamps so we can hold the work piece down while we're doing the welding. It's also got a few storage drawers and a bench top vice.

We've also got a variety of Miller welders. This is their diversion 165 tig welder. It's pretty easy to use. Now, our big welder is the Miller Matic 210

and our 120 volt welder is the auto set 140

this little guy right here

is the spectrum 375 extreme plasma cutter and it's rated to cut 38 thick steel and quarter inch aluminum. What's cool about it is it can plug into both 240 volt outlets as well as 120 outlets. Just by changing the plug in.

We've also got an old school plasma cutter in the form of an oxyacetylene torch kit and this guy works great for cutting metal, but it's actually a little more versatile than a conventional plasma cutter in the sense that you can use it to heat metal rather than just cut it. We use this a lot in

o systems, frozen bolts and frames all kinds of different applications. So for a diy guy, it's a lot more affordable than a plasma cutter and a pretty well rounded tool. By the way, all of our consumables and welding gasses come from volunteer welding supply. They sell everything online too. So check out the web store.

Now, the deck equipment that we've got is excellent gear like this cold saw. It basically performs the same function as a chop saw, but without an abrasive blade, the constant flow of coolant over the sharpened blade lubricates the cut and keeps the metal temperature down. And the best thing is that the cut is almost completely burnt for free, but the cold saw is not the only piece of day gear that we use.

Now. In addition to the Day Cold Saw, we've also got the vertical bands saw, belt sander and drill press. But what's really cool is this monstrosity right here? And it's probably gonna last longer than the building it's sitting in.

That's because this 70 ton, not 1770 ton hydraulic press was designed and engineered to last 1000 years, excluding the hydraulics, of course. And it makes quick work of pressing axle bearings on and off or diff bearings or straightening out heavy wall control arms that were damaged while off roading

and to demonstrate the power of this thing,

check this out.

Now, that's a piece of 120 wall dom tubing. Not so easy to flatten like that. This thing didn't even break a sweat but it's got other uses as well.

So you want to take out the day's frustrations.

It also makes for a great heavy duty movie prop.

When things are slow around the shop,

I parked at the car show.

70 hour,

I got some

dusting out. My truck is broken. Oh, man, it makes me so angry. I

would tell

you

up next. This ain't no Hollywood set. It's a real working shop that we make TV in

and later there's also some pretty cool toys outside the shop. We'll show you them too. Stay tuned

as a

matter of

fact,

hey, guys, welcome back to trucks. We're taking you on a little bit of a shop tour today showing you some of the equipment that we use to make our living and the truck shows and taking the time to show you some options that some of these manufacturers offer now a media blast cabinet. Well, it's a really handy tool for surface prep, especially on small parts like this, we can get inside and the media will take care and remove all of the paint. And depending on the media that you select, it will profile the metal and set it up to take paint perfectly without the linear scratch pattern that can and will show through the paint and that sandpaper will get you

but small parts like this. That's not all you can do with a blast cabinet.

This one's pretty big in the first place, but check out the extension that blast all offers. On the other side,

the extra cabinet length really opens up the possibilities to what we can media blast in here. Now we can do

sended link bars, long pieces of tubing sheet metal, even a complete axle housing without having to go outside and blast in the elements and without making a mess in here. But the extra side cabinet was not the only accessory that blast. It all offers

this accessory ties into your existing air supply.

It's got its own foot switch and its own canisters. So you can separate and have a different type of me, maybe an aluminum oxide or soda. So you can do fine a detail blasting but check the nozzle.

The nozzle is tiny and the fact that the canister has its own regulator. Well, you can do all kinds of detail work, you could blast on transmission or carburetor parts, even do artistic airbrush type etching on chrome or glass. The bottom line is this gives you extra versatility and two tools with one.

Now you can check out these accessories or other affordable add ons by blast

all by following the link on the truck's website.

Now, when we tackle some of these low budget projects, we inevitably get a drive train that's greasy, grimy and just plain nasty.

And the last thing you want to do is take some nasty grimy parts and throw it in the blasted all cabinet and contaminate the media

so we can clean up the parts here and keep the mess contained to do that. We've got this affordable safety, clean parts washer. The guys stop by regularly and change out the fluid, keep it nice and fresh

that way. You don't have to worry about anything.

Now, like we said before, we're not trying to brag, but I gotta tell you between the second chance Silverado and the cheap Cherokee, our mighty pole unibody and frame alignment system has paid for itself. No kidding. Even with the accessories like this boom that gives us the ability to do a hydraulic up pull

along with this stuff. We've got a good selection of chains, clams, smalls, all kinds of great stuff to do professional and safe unibody and frame alignment. But check this out.

This guy

is nicknamed a monkey on a stick. It's called a friction jack and it can push and pull along the length of the rod and any body man worth his salt already has one of these or should get one and this thing runs in. It's a little bit over 100 bucks.

Think about it.

Now, spring compressor like this is the same exact style compressor we used in the last repair shop that I worked at.

Now, struts are more prevalent in the car world, but you are finding them more and more underneath the front end of late model trucks and suvs

and having a piece of gear like this makes a strut or spring replacement

easy and safe. Simply crank down on the coil, spring, old strut out new strut in decompress the spring, you can reinstall it into the vehicle.

Now you can get this job done without a piece of gear like this. But doing it this way, make sure it's done safely and done, right. You don't want this spring coming loose, putting a hole in the concrete wall

and we've got quick rise, low profile and heavy duty floor jacks like this one here with the five ton capacity and it comes in really handy when we've got a diesel one ton duly in the shop. We've also got heavy duty jack stands and this under lift, adjustable stand that comes in handy when doing underbody work while on our lift.

Now, speaking of lifts. This 15,000 pound capacity. Hydraulic two post has been here since day one of trucks TV. And it's never given us any trouble. And even with the heaviest trucks that we've put on here, well, we're still coming in at half its rated capacity.

And as heavy duty as this thing is, I'm sure it'll be here for another 10 years

now. It's pretty clear, we're fairly spoiled when it comes to access to great tools and equipment.

But by far, the piece of gear that takes the

and allows one person to do a lot of heavy lifting

and get a lot of work done is our cundall overhead bridge crane.

This K track crane stands in at 15 ft tall and has 2 43 ft long bridges with a one ton Harrington electric hoist hanging from each one.

Now, this setup is a little overkill for most shops out there, but they do offer a much more affordable and smaller snap track system for shops and even home use

up. Next. We've got a new prep station next to our shop and later it's behind the scenes after the tour. Hang around.

All right. Now,

guys, let's go, Kevin Ryan. I gotta go fishing. Let's go, let me down.

Hey, welcome back to trucks. Well, during the clean up, I kind of commandeered this area to create my own little painter's corner and I've got a nice bench top, my booth boxes for storage, some Matco spray guns and my insta water spray equipment. Pretty much everything we need here to paint the next trucks project. But what we don't have is a place to paint that project.

All that magic happens here in our co

me

downdraft and heated spray booth. As a matter of fact, Muscle car, well, they got some pieces in there for one of their projects they're painting right now. But remember, paint is not the only coating that you can put on your project

powder X has got us fixed up with one of their industrial powder coat application systems starting with this application booth which is big enough to put just about anything in

the application. Gun electrostatic applies a powder with it hanging on the rack, then we move it on down the line.

Now, once the powder is applied,

you need a heat source to flow the powder out and cure it and they've got us covered with this walk in oven that features a 1 million BTU heater.

Now, this thing short of a full frame

gives us all kinds of great options for different things that we can powder coat

or

you can bake cookies in it like rick bacon.

But this is not the only way that you can powder coat and powder X has a lot of diy options. So check their website.

Now, I know you haven't seen this piece of gear because it's brand new. This is our new prep station from Col

Mat spray booth.

It features a two fan system, one intake and one exhaust to properly balance the airflow so we can effectively and safely evacuate all the body shop dust that comes from prepping, blocking and buffing vehicle. And

we've got the gobs curtain walls to keep the light in and keep the dust outside of everything else. And more importantly, let you guys see proper and safe techniques for doing all of those procedures and more importantly than that, we don't get that nasty body shop dust on everything else in the shop. You're going to be seeing a lot more of this thing in the future.

You're watching trucks for a DVD copy of this episode, just go to Power Block tv.com and order your copy for just 595 plus shipping and handling. Start your own trucks, collection, delivered right to your door from the power block.

Hey guys, welcome back. Now. We've shown you just about every square inch of the truck shop, but one thing we haven't shown you is our 4 ft sheet metal break that we picked up from Woodward Fab

and we've got that along with this plant

hammer that's gonna enable us to quickly make compound curves and dome shapes in sheet metal. Now, while these two pieces of gear might not look like a whole lot, but between the two of them, you can get quite a lot of metal working done

now to hold all these projects together. Industrial depots got us supplied with all kinds of hardware. We've got metric and standard fasteners, grade five, grade eight along with a bunch of other odds and ends like hose clamps, zip ties, heat shrink tubing and cut off wheels just to name a few.

But we've also got a bunch of chrome plated fasteners from Gardner Westcott. And that gives us options in hardware depending on what we're working on.

Whether you use your diesel truck for towing or you just put a lot of miles on it traveling around. Well, it probably didn't take you long to figure out that your factory fuel tank has its range limits. Well, Titan tanks has got that problem solved. These huge capacity tanks go in easily with no modifications necessary.

They're also durable and lightweight and they include everything you're going to need to install them. They also work with your factory fuel gauges, making installation a breeze. Now, this one happens to be for a dodge mega cab short bed, but they offer extended range tanks for a variety of late model diesel pickups. And if yours happens to be a four wheel drive, Titan also offers a high impact rock shield to protect the bottom side of it.

Now, one more thing before we go, our cundall crane is capable of lifting more than just car parks, check this out.

Now, if you got any questions about what you saw on today's show, go to Power Block tv.com and check out the truck's website. Hey, guys, thanks for watching. We'll see you in a week. That means you too. Camera guy, Rob,

give me a call if you need any uh food or water

sucker.

All right now,

guys, let's go, Kevin Ryan. I gotta go fishing. Let's go. Let me down.