Full Build: Rolling Chassis to Finished One-Off Hot Rod Street Truck

today we're starting a brand new project to build an awesome 37 ford like this we're going to one of the best glass rod builders in the nation to pick up the rolling chassis for our new hot rod truck that's all today here on trucks [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey welcome to trucks obviously we're not in the shop we're up here at legend motors downs design to check out their facility now these guys manufacture some of the finest fiberglass rods out there and we thought it'd be pretty cool to give you a little tour now we're going to show you how they build these vehicles every step of the process but you may want to pay particular attention to the trucks because a 37 ford just like this one is the start of our next trucks project and when we're done with it we're gonna give it away and it'll end up in one of your garages in this fifty thousand square foot facility downs has been making fiberglass molds of different car designs for 30 years so they can then reproduce a huge variety of parts in a relatively short period of time it starts with what they call a plug taken from an original part then it's customized to give it the downs touch and from there molds are made from the plug so reproductions can be made in the mold and lamination building we talked with j.r singleton a 20-year employee of downs who walked us through some of the process the resin transfer system that we have which you can have gel coated surface on the inside of the part as well as the outside there's a male mold and a female mold add vent tubes for the air to migrate through as you put the two moles together inside of the female side of the mold you add a flexible glass called rovacore and you put the male side of the mole down into the female and close it down with bolts to seal the molds together the resin transfer process leaves you with a part that has an inner panel as smooth as the outer which is particularly nice when you're building a showpiece now this is the female side of the mold and this is the male side and just by looking at these molds it's not hard to figure out why these cars look so straight right out of the molding process these molds are perfect the 67 mold for the corvette we just finished is the most complex mold ever designed here at downs 26 sections we had to bolt together to reproduce that one car believe it or not this is a corvette body that's already been molded and is getting extra layers of glass in key structural areas for added strength [Music] [Music] once the bodies are cured the outer mold comes off and reveals a finished looking replica but this is far from a finished body it goes through a series of steps that includes removing the windshield slugs trimming molding flash off the edges and generally shaping things to spec before the body gets joined with floor thick [Music] now not only do they pop out cool fiberglass street rods and muscle cars but look they make the cape with a superman monster truck how cool is that since everything is prototyped and designed ahead of time down says jigs for all their frame that are assembled in the fabrication shop every frame is fully boxed for strength and a custom finished look with suspension systems that are made to order from an amazing list of options that downs offers including air ride coil overs and down's own independent suspension the body in the frame meet up for the first time at the fab shop which also serves as the r d shop and there's a lot more going on here than just street rods when we get back it's more from these creative hot rod builders and designers stay tuned hey welcome back to trucks we're at legend motors downs design giving you guys a sneak peek at some of the cool stuff these guys got in the works including this retrofit 67 vet body that'll sit on a late 70s corvette frame okay it's looking a little like government work here guys tell us what's going on well we're in the middle of doing a changeover process here um if you've seen the 67 corvette in the other building we're actually going to make that 67 vet fit the newer style frame um i'm not sure what years we're covering on the frames it's like 63 382 see that car we have set up over there is built on a newer chassis now what we're doing is we're designing a floor pan so you can mount it onto the old style yeah of course that body whether you've got a morrison chassis or just a regular old 72 chad yeah okay so when it's all said and done this 67 body is going to be sitting on that 75 frame right yes there it is like i say we'll get that floor pan modified set down on there and then from that point on we'll have a new floor pan mold we'll bolt it down to that body bring on the body like this right out of the mold and it'll snap on basically like a giant model car we have all i'm not i'm not kidding that's true we have it all designed where it fits in snaps in we have peaks on the pan over there or just snaps down like a model car we'll glue it continue on with the builds and down the road we go it's like a fiberglass automotive toupee yes something of that nation it was amazing to see all this r d happening on classic muscle when downs is really best known for the pre-war street rods we actually caught up with jamie downes while he was building a prototype clay model interior of their 69 camaro tribute car well our company started back in 1980 with my father jim downes and he had 25 years experience of building corvettes which are made out of fiberglass and when he was tired of that business he came across four or five molds that were for sale and thought he knew enough about fiberglass to make some street rod bodies and do it for a hobby he uh made a body out of each mold and back in 1980 went to the street rod nationals and set up in the swap meet area and before he knew he was taking orders he sold all of them and turned it into a business overnight now with the merger with legend motors i've been given a good opportunity to branch off into some newer vintage classic cars like the camaros the cuda the mid-year corvette 63 to 67 vets and the 59 vet now the tribute muscle cars are nice but we're into trucks and jamie was the driving force behind the concept for our 37 ford project truck in 1999 i designed that pickup cab and it's been a pretty big hit we won best new product of the year two years later we did adapt a 40 nose to that pickup i like the looks of the 37 even though there's quite a few of them out there it seems like it's still popular and it turns heads more than the 40s did legend motors down's design has got their roots deep in the past and their finger on the pulse of the future this industry fusing timeless designs classic muscle and honest street rod sense over the past 30 years they've honed and refined the process of making replica cars and from what we could see they've got it down to a fine arch and this well this is our truck a 37 ford pickup replica that's already chock full of custom modifications like these mini cooper headlights one piece hood a chop top plus they made room for our 22-inch wide steam rollers out back we've got shape door handles and a gel coat finish that rivals a lot of paint jobs we've seen all in all they've set us up with an incredible foundation to build on and make one very cool street rod pickup to one of you guys what are you waiting for let's get this thing on the trailer you got it so we loaded the 37 onto the trailer and headed home itching to get started on this project and let me tell you along the way this truck turned some heads everywhere we stopped it was like a car show in the parking lot that is awesome what kind of wheels are those in the back those are mickey thompson's yep that's beautiful though that is absolutely cool black leather no no burn yourself i'm with you i don't know this is the cool factor [Laughter] those are brand new mini cooper headlights so they refit the fenders to fit them so you can aim them properly you can see at night and it's a cool custom look it is cool so no backseat for this new not even very cool man after the break we'll come up with a plan for our new hot rod truck project [Music] hey welcome back to trucks well we finally made it back to the shop with our new project hrt which quite literally stands for hot rod truck now that we got some great ideas and inspiration here's what we're gonna do well this thing's gonna need some motivation and we could probably fit any engine we wanted to down in here but this thing started out a ford we're gonna keep it that way we're thinking a hopped up small block would be right at home now we saw lots of great ideas for lighting out in the show field but down's design has already got us a great head start with these fenders that accept modern midi cooper headlights but for turn signals we have all kinds of options we can mount them into bumpers we could use traditional style vintage lights we can flush mount them into the fiberglass but whatever we decide to do we're going to walk you guys through it step by step now we've shown you these wheels and tires before and we had to put them on something 20 by 16 inch one piece aluminum wheels wrapped in 33 by 22 inch wide rubber so with a built small block to launch it and bare brakes all around to stop it well these rollers ought to be right at home on this truck now this is a rolling chassis but it's far from finished there's still plenty of opportunity for great projects that are going to make hrt a one-off custom truck that anybody would be proud to have in their garage and don't forget when this truck is done one of you are going to win this very project so keep watching over the next few months as hrt goes from this rolling chassis to a finished custom street truck that'll turn heads just as easily as it'll turn those massive 20s out back so the most important thing that you guys can do is go to powerblocktv.com and sign up to win this thing hey guys here's a tip for you that'll only cost you a cheap calculator and will help you decide what gear ratio you want to run in your project truck now to figure miles per hour use this formula multiply your target rpm by your tire diameter then divide that by your rear axle ratio multiplied by your overdrive ratio times 336. now since we know we want our target rpms to be 2000 and our tire size is 33 inches that half of the equation will stay constant at 66 000. we also know our richmond has a 0.62 overdrive so by plugging in different gear ratios you can find out how fast you'll go at 2000 rpm we're looking for a cruise speed of about 70 to 75 miles per hour with a 411 gear ratio we're rolling at about 78 miles per hour by jumping up to 456s we're at 69 miles an hour and when we split the difference with 430s we hit 73 miles per hour there you have it you can plug in different numbers and play around with rear axle ratios to see what suits your project goes the best thanks for watching trucks we'll see you guys next week today project hrt is back and we're gonna put a train in it the drivetrain it's a hot small block ford six-speed transmission and a bulletproof rear end all guaranteed to smoke this hot rod truck's 22-inch wide tires that's all today here on trucks hey welcome to trucks well if you're a true gearhead car nut like we are after a while these vehicles when they take on personalities they become characters heck we even name them and even people that don't live for their project vehicles well they can't deny that they get a certain sense or a feeling from the overall look or stance of a vehicle and from there well they're hooked wheels and tires well they set the mood paint follows form proportion and style and before long you've created an extended member of your family with its own unique identity and the project we're working on today shows the beginning of a pretty strong personality and a lot of genuine muscle which is where we're going to focus right now and if you remember this all started when we took a little road trip up to lawton michigan to legend motors downs design and gave you guys a tour of their manufacturing facility we got an insider's view of everything from concept drawings clay modeling fiberglass mold creation all the way up to finished street rods and muscle cars and they put together one of their popular 37 ford trucks for us but made room for these massive mickey thompson hr1 wheels and sportsman sr tires they added a pros pick steel bed with 40 ford fenders and the cab is molded with a chop top and mini cooper headlights and the fenders that when assembled give this hot rod truck looks that kill and as you guys can see we've got this thing all blown apart so we can pay closer attention to the foundation of our hrt project truck namely the drivetrain which as you guys know is really the heart of any vehicle now this is far from an original 37 ford so obviously it's not going to get an original engine but we wanted to stay true to the blue oval and deviate from the engine a lot of guys reach for when it comes time to choosing some motivation for their street ride the small block chevy that's right he said chevy but the reason a lot of guys reach for a small block chevy in their rod even a ford like ours is because you can make big power with these engines and they're cheap to work on but a lot of guys would bristle at the thought of one of these sitting in between the rails of a classic ford well we like the idea of a ford and a fort as well and in our opinion there's no better place to start than the time tested and proven 302 small block but we're not talking about vintage blocks what we had in mind is what made the fox mustang such great performance machines the aftermarket has built an industry on these ford liter engines everything from forged rotating assemblies to efi upgrades it's no big deal anymore to get around 300 ponies out of a stock block and even a little more with some basic power adders so we did some digging a couple of internet searches and we came across a family-owned business at lebanon new jersey named enginefactory.com and they build fords and they build chevys but what they specialize in are turnkey engine packages now after a couple of phone conversations some planning and letting them know what our goals were well this is what showed up at our doorstep now this is a great looking setup and though it's based on a 5-liter engine internally it's a little different engine factory offers this 347 stroker engine that starts out with a 30 thousands overbore polished and d-bird scat crank steel i-beam rods 10 to 1 forged pistons with chromoly rings high volume oil pump and a double roller timing set and sporting all the precision machine works it takes to clearance the block for the stroked internals now for the top end hiding underneath the valve covers we've got a full roller valve train edelbrock performer rpm cylinder heads that have been massaged a little bit for better oil drain back we got endura shine finish on our dual plane intake manifold and edelbrock 650 cfm electric choke carburetor all laid off by a protronix distributor and a high voltage coil driving our accessories up front is this billet aluminum serpentine system from concept 1 pushing a power master 100 amp alternator and this aluminum sand and ac compressor along with your typical dampener water pump and idler pulleys now everything is very clearly labeled and engine factory even gives you a dvd of the engines run in so it's built right it's a drop in plug and play issue and it requires no tuning which makes it the perfect engine for project hrt oh and by the way did i mention that it pushes 415 horsepower at the crank now we set the transmission and engine specs and measurements to downs while they were building the truck so they went ahead and installed these chassis engineering engine mounts they welded them to the frame rail the isolator sits on the lower and the uppers bolted the engine block and sits on the isolator it's a nice clean setup but we're not quite ready to drop this engine in place yet after the break we'll bolt up our v8 and show you how to measure for a new drive shaft stick around hey guys welcome back today we're working on project hrt dropping in our engine transmission and the rest of the drivetrain and today we're just mocking everything up starting with that 347 stroker we got from enginefactory.com but first let's talk about a transmission now we knew we wanted to standard shift just for the fun factor and a five speed is a pretty common choice for a small block ford but we've got a 20 inch wheel with an overall tire diameter of 31 inches so we figured an extra gear would give us the best possible performance with this combination so we called richmond and had them ship us one of their six-speed rod overdrive transmissions features cnc machined and heat-treated internals and total weight is only about a hundred pounds now we did some calculations to figure out what rpm we would be running at different speeds we decided on a 3.28 first gear ratio and ended up going with a .76 overdrive now richmond transmissions have a reputation of being nearly bulletproof and one of the nice features where you can custom tailor your gear selection to match your vehicle's weight engine rpm power band rear axle ratio tire size etc but really the main reason we went with this transmission it's a single overdrive unit compared to a lot of other late model six speeds which have two overdrives and the advantage here is that there's tighter gear spacing which translates to less rpm drop as you shift our engine factory 347 stroker already came with the billet steel flywheel but this one's got to come off so we can install our mcleod steel bell housing normally this is the time that we'd install and align the clutch and pressure plate but since we're just checking for fitment we'll throw in the bell housing so we can bolt the transmission out now that six speed is going to transfer all that power and energy back here and we wanted something that was going to hold together so we had downs load up our chassis with the narrowed nine inch rear end housing that's held in place by this competition engineering ladder bar setup now don't be alarmed by all the surface rust that you see on this frame this is a mock-up phase and all that's going to get taken care of later on now to fill up the axle housing we had curry enterprises send us some 31 spline axles and a loaded third member with 430 gears and a track lock limited slip we went with a limited slip so we could have the best of both worlds we can send power to both rear tires and still retain some street manners without the annoying clunking or chirping of a full locker or spool a ford nine inch is a common choice for a lot of car builders mostly due to its durability if it's good enough for nascar it's good enough for us but it's also easy to work on since the third member comes easily away from the housing with the engine bolted to the bell housing and transmission we'll set it on the rear cross member and front isolators and check for any clearance issues with the serp system up front but the most important thing this step gives us is the ability to see what length drive shaft we need when you're measuring your drive shaft go from the end of the tail housing to the center line of the yoke and we've got exactly 48 inches but also make a note of how much the output shaft sticks out of the tail housing which is about 3 8 of an inch in our case give this information to whoever's building your drive shaft and they can manufacture the correct amount of slip travel based on the rest of the chassis now with this short of a space we can go with a lightweight one piece aluminum drive shaft that's going to look good and be strong enough to get the job done too now don't put your tape measure away just yet you still got to give the drive shaft shop some u-joint dimensions and the measurements they're after are the u-joint cross diameter and the cap width to measure the cross diameter if the u-joint yoke has locating tabs you measure in between the tabs in our case we've got three and five eighths if you don't have the locating tabs you measure in between the flats of the yoke and for the cap diameter well there's generally three choices you have an inch and a sixteenth inch and an eighth an inch and three in our case we had an inch and an eighth up next we'll show you how to set up a chassis for caster camber and tow and later we'll install our new drive shaft stay tuned hey welcome back well the foundation to project hrt is really starting to come together and take shape and it doesn't hurt that we had such a great head start with a full rolling chassis from downs but there's a lot of work to do yet before one of you can drive it home so today we're mocking up the drivetrain checking for things like fit and clearance one of the nice things about starting with the chassis like this aside from the fully boxed frame that looks like a piece of art is that it's outfitted for modern components and systems like independent front suspension and rack and pinion steerings but there's still some things that you're going to need to take care of when it comes to setting up a chassis properly well there's a lot of things to consider but regardless of the style of suspension you're running there's a few basic ground rules to follow let's start with steering geometry for the front end there's three basic variables you have to work with camber caster and tow camber is the lean of the tire as viewed from above with the tire leaning out you've got positive camber but leaning in negative the caster well that's the imaginary line drawn between the upper and lower control arm ball joints as it passes through the steering knuckle with it leaned back a little bit you're looking at positive caster that's what gives the car the return to center feel after you make a turn it also helps the vehicle track straight at speed but too much caster it'll increase steering effort and toe in and toe out well it's pretty self-explanatory when the front of the tires are pointing in towards each other you've got a toe in condition point it out look at it toe out so we're using a fairly common and not too expensive home alignment tool to measure caster and camber and to measure toe well like we showed you guys before you can just use a tape measure but remember that all we're doing right now is getting things close later on when the body's on the frame we've got the full vehicle weight on the suspension then we can dial it in for real with the gauge at the wheel hub center turn the wheels until they're at a 20 degree angle to the frame rail then zero out the bubble and turn the wheels to the opposite position which is just about a complete lock to lock turn and then check the caster bubble now with the vehicle weight off the chassis we can adjust caster by disconnecting the upper arm from the frame mount and turning the adjusters in at the rear and out at the front pitching the center of the arm back creating the positive caster we want then everything gets reassembled and checked by the gauge oh cool like three and a quarter degrees positive what'd you end up with it's about three and a half good that's right so with both sides between three and three and a half degrees positive caster it's time to measure for camber we got nothing no camber straight up and down need a little lean in at the top what you got zero all right so we're in pretty good shape we're not going to make any adjustments now what we're after is between zero and one degree negative camber and that's the body and all the weight settles on the chassis well the suspension will compress and we'll probably gain a little bit of camber now if we do need to make an adjustment we'll come down here to the lower control arm because just like the uppers they're adjustable but on the lowers we want to move both ends in and out equally so we don't alter the caster adjustment we've made up top to measure for toe find a common reference point like the center mold line or even a tread to compare the front to the back yep okay 55 and an eighth all right 54 and a quarter well that tells us we're towed out almost a complete inch so we'll adjust from the tie rod ends equally on each side since there's no adjusting sleeve like typically found on an oem tie rod we'll take the rod end out of the knuckle on each side and turn it clockwise to bring the front measurement in more [Music] point 54 and three quarter all right all right 54 and almost 7 8. so we're a 16th of an inch towed in which is right in spec now the rear suspension is adjustable as well but unlike the front it only has one real job to do plant the power to the ground so as long as you're tracking straight and the rear axle is perpendicular with the center line of the vehicle you should be pretty well set but the important thing here is the pinion angle which is set under full chassis load and adjusted here at the ladder bars and we'll do that when the truck's just about complete for now all we're really worried about is squaring up this rear axle the ladder bars use heim joints for mounting points which are threaded into the link bars and adjustable all we're after here is getting the left side move forward a quarter inch and we'll be tracking completely straight let's see 24 and a half and 24 and a half we're square that's about all we can do for now hey thanks for sticking with us as we mock up the chassis of project hrt and now about all we got left to do is drop in our drive shaft so with our u-joint dimension and drive shaft length measurements in hand we gave advantage driveline a call and they sent us this great looking lightweight aluminum drive shaft it's fully balanced and features a steel input yoke that of course matches the spline count of our richmond 6-speed now if you're wondering why we didn't go with a larger diameter aluminum drive shaft well for one it's relatively short at only about four feet and two we've got a bit of a clearance issue here with the frame so we went with a three inch diameter tube and according to advantage driveline even with the built 347 430 gears and these big old tires out back we won't have any issues transferring the power now the reason that your pinion is always going to be offset one way or the other is to initiate needle bearing rotation otherwise you end up with what's called a bernelling effect where the needle bearings actually establish a wear pattern inside the bearing cup so one to two degrees of offset ensures needle bearing rotation and a smooth long life for your universal joints well there you go everything dropped right in and fit really well we are off to a great start on project hrt and we just got to smooth out some of these welds and get rid of some of that surface rust yeah and that way we can give this chassis the degree of detail that it deserves if you're not sure about working on fiberglass then don't be today we're doing bodywork on project hrt and showing you how to work glass the right way we're cleaning up the seams and the panels and we'll show you how to flush mount led tail lights for an even cleaner look that's all today here on trucks hey welcome to the shop and thanks for watching trucks well today we're going to jump with both feet into a subject that some people consider to be automotive voodoo body work and not just your average or under the mail body work on sheet metal fiberglass bodywork now if you've been around body shops much you've heard the rumors about what kind of a royal pain fiberglass cars are to work on and replicas and kit cars can be even worse but that's not always the case in fact fiberglass has huge advantages over sheet metal and being able to customize it faster and easier is just one of them so it's not necessarily more difficult to work on it's just a different animal so today we're going to bust some of those myths and show you guys that customizing or repairing body damage on a fiberglass vehicle is something you can do no problem and today's victim is project hrt our legend motors 37 ford that's already customized and looks as straight as a lot of finished paint jobs even though it's still in raw gel coat but it's still got the mold line right here from the two part manufacturing process now it seems fair to assume you could just sand these lines flat spray on some high build primer block it and paint it but a lot of guys have been bitten by these mold lines showing through or mapping through their paint job and here's why now a cross section of that mold line would look something like this and you can see that if you just resurface that mold line and level it down with the rest of the panel surrounding it well it's going to expose these layers of gel coat which are harder than the polyester material underneath it and eventually due to the curing of the fiberglass and natural heating and cooling cycles well these lines are going to show through your paint and they can't be buffed out so the way to get around that is to completely remove the entire cross-section of layers that are being exposed and fill it in with the material that's as strong as the gel coat and then you can do your paint and body work on top of that and that all starts with removing this mold line here now this is a messy job so wear the appropriate safety gear to protect yourself and do it in a well-ventilated area we're using our downdraft prep station to remove the fiberglass particles from the air and uh by the way when you're done wash up with cold water warm water will open up your skin's pores allowing the fiberglass particles to get in even deeper making you itch worse [Music] ryan's using a carbide burr and grinding about an inch outside the mold line and digging about an eighth of an inch deep into the polyester while ryan works on the rear fenders check out the doghouse now when we first got this truck the body panels were pre-fit but not finished which is perfect for us because it gives us options for instance we can do things like filling these seams rolling lines smoothing things over basically putting our own personal custom touches on this truck and since legend motors cures their bodies before delivery there's no worries of anything shifting or changing shape on us so one of the things that we're going to do is smooth this area up in here and bond these panels together so that when we open the hood we look down in here and everything looks like a real street rod using 50 grit discs we can rough up the surface on each side so the adhesive has something to grab onto as it cures okay hold it right there right now these bolts only serve as locators they'll come back out after the adhesive is set up which is going to take about 30 minutes after that we use fiberglass to fill in the holes all right with the mold line gouged out i went ahead and sanded the edges using 80 grit then we'll fill in that gouge with this two-part epoxy we got from legend motors the epoxy is mixed at a 5 to 1 ratio and will stay workable for about 20 minutes okay with our inner aprons bonded to the outer fender let's take a look at these hood sides now these holes that you see were drilled in here purely for the mock-up stage these holes are going to get filled in and these edges smoothed over and that's going to start with 36 grit on a grinder [Music] we're using short strand filler to bridge the gap between the two panels which will take about 10 minutes to set up with the epoxy dry my fenders are ready now it's just a matter of leveling it out to the height of the surrounding gel coat now we'll follow that with some 80 grit just to smooth over some of the deep scratches and now it's ready for the next step this is not epoxy or bondo the short strand fiberglass sets up as hard and as strong as the panels around it making it less likely to crack or shrink back the sander will knock the basic shape into the filler but you always want to come back with a hand board and do your final shaping by hand all right our gaps are filled our screw holes are filled we got everything blocked down with 80 grit now we're ready for primer surfacer and the blocking starts all over again when we come back from the break we're going to show you guys how to gel coat those rear fenders stick around up next it looks like we're ruining the taillights but have a little faith and later we'll lay out and mount our gauges stick around welcome back and thanks for watching trucks today we're working over the fiberglass body of project hrt and giving you guys a few tips on working with fiberglass now what we're going to do next is not something that you see every day well i've been to 14 county fairs in a horse marriage and i hadn't seen this technique until we went to legend motors to pick our truck up and what those guys do is to spray gel coat over top of a repair and that way they create a rock solid foundation that's ready for whatever type of work you have to do over top of it the gel coat is reduced approximately five percent with acetone to make it sprayable and then mixed in a ten to 1 ratio with mek hardener now this will take three coats to get the proper coverage and will be about 15 mils thick which is plenty thick enough to block or prep for filler now like we were talking about earlier having a fiberglass body gives you plenty of options when it comes to custom treatment and since this is far from a stock truck right out of the box well you're not going to offend anybody if you want to change things up a bit and throw in some custom touches and since we've already got mini cooper headlights molded into the front fenders but we want to do something trick for the tail lights as well because customizing is all about putting your own stamp on a vehicle now we started shopping around and found a couple of cool led lighting options from watson street works like this one piece sequential led tail light kit now we ended up going with watson's two-piece sequential kit that includes all the wiring and hardware lenses and buckets with enough material on the lenses to allow it to be flush mounted and sanded down smooth for a nice clean look now instead of mounting them in the fenders we're going to sink them into the roll pan right here now working with fiberglass sucks because it's itchy but in a lot of ways it's easier than working with sheet metal for instance cutting out the recesses to sink our taillights in is a very simple procedure and starts with a pilot hole on each side now we'll switch to a half inch bit and utilizing our pilot holes we create a perfectly rounded end that matches our taillight lens [Music] okay perfect that's what i wanted now the lens is higher than the fiberglass around it and this beveled edge around here it looks like a mistake but it's not because when we put the filler in there we can block it all smooth and it's going to hold the lens in perfectly well an hour's passed and my fillers finally dry and i hadn't done anything but it takes that long for this fiberglass to set up now if you look you think we made a mess but hey have a little faith now this solvent is just a cheap trick to show you guys what this is going to look like finished up so i'm going to hit this with 600 grit well you guys take a break hey welcome back to trucks if you're just joining us we're tweaking the bodywork on our fiberglass 37 ford project hrt now the last step in flush mounting of these led tail lights we got from watson's street works is mounting the buckets in the back of the roll panel now we've had to trim this guy to compensate for the the license plate bracket here and we also glassed in a couple of the screws that came with the kit to hold the bucket in place from here all we have left to do is wire this into the chassis when we put everything together an original 37 ford had a steel dash that looked a lot more like an old jukebox than this cool looking wrap-around dash that jamie downes designed but like a lot of things on this truck they left the gauge placement up to us obviously you want to put your gauges where you can see them how else you're going to keep tabs or what's going on underneath the hood typically the speedometer is centered in front of the driver with the rest of the gauges on either side but this dash is pretty small so grouping everything together on the left side is just going to be cluttered and make the gauges hard to read there's nothing wrong with the spacing and configuration of the way these auto meter gauges are packed so we're just going to use the box as our template and the cab is small enough that we can put the gauges right in the center and still see them from the driver's seating position now we'll use a hole saw kit to get close and trim the edges of the openings carefully since we don't have a lot of flange on these gauges now just like the rest of this truck the fiberglass on the dash is nice but it's not perfect and we've got something really cool planned for these pieces you'll have to keep on watching to see what we do and since some of these edges are visible from the outside of the truck well we're going to sand them down and make them as smooth as possible now this is just part of the deal when working with fiberglass you're going to get some air pockets and since that's an exposed edge well we've got to fill it so here's a little tip for you if you're doing detail work like that small job small tool using a single edge razor blade to mix your filler allows you to apply it with greater accuracy and less cleanup depending on your mix ratio this stuff will set up pretty fast so within a couple of minutes you're ready to sand and then prime now we really like the symmetrical look of the dash and really from the driver's seat you've got a perfect view of all the gauges plus it leaves this room on either side for ac vents and we'll come up with some sort of center console that has a radio and switches and stuff like that but if you're putting together a truck like this well the cool thing about it there's no wrong way to do it you can lay this stuff out any way you want to after all it's your truck after the break our flaws can't hide from the light so we'll keep smoothing things out stay tuned [Music] welcome back to trucks today we're smoothing out a few rough edges on project hrt and i gotta tell you i'm a little itchy it feels like i've been insulating a house that's okay the effort is well worth it and the work we're doing on this body well it's going to make the paint job smooth as glass now we've talked an awful lot about how nice the gel coat is on these panels there's no tv magic going on here this stuff is nice and straight but it's not quite ready for paint yet for instance if you take a look at the reflection of this pdr light we got from auto body tool mart you can see that the reflection is distorted and that means the panel has waves in it now fixing the waves is easy seeing them is the hard part but if you can learn to read a movable light well you can smooth out every inch all right with our low spots marked now it's time to fix them and we'll do that by cross blocking with 120 grit on a 24 inch dura block cross blocking means using the leading edge of the block and making an x pattern as you travel this uses a straight edge of the block to level the surface you're working on all right this is the low spot that the light showed us earlier and what we're going to do is keep working this area until we bring the surrounding gel coat down to the same height as our low spot [Music] this right here is a real good indicator on when to stop because the gel coat's getting real thin and we don't want to go any further and for these spots right here well we'll come back spray them with some high build primer and block again [Music] our goal here is to create a pleasant viewing experience on our street rod by eliminating as many inconsistencies as possible like this door gap it's narrow at the top and gets progressively wider as it gets down to the bottom but it's hard to see in here because the gel coat's black and the panel gap is black so we're going to fix that by spraying a light colored primer over the gap it highlights the problem areas and creates a contrast that's easy to read okay now take a look again and you'll see exactly what i'm talking about it's narrow at the top and gets wider as it gets to the bottom so now what we're going to do is take a sanding board with 80 grit paper and just work the door edge to widen the gap [Music] it's getting better [Music] now the panel gap is consistent you can tell just by looking at it but you can check it with a homemade gauge made with one of these paint stir sticks it's about an eighth of an inch wide you just slide it in just like gap in a spark plug yeah that's nice if you're wondering why we're paying so much attention to detail on this truck well it's because we want to be proud of it we want to put our stamp on this thing because one of you guys gets to win it when we're done so keep watching and follow the build up of this 37 ford and go to powerblocktv.com to find out how to win this thing thanks for watching trucks see you guys next week hey welcome to trucks well today we're checking in on some friends of ours over here at bay one customs in springfield tennessee one of the nashville area's premier custom automotive shops and they say they got a little surprise cooking for us now you guys have seen their work before bayonne is responsible for this incredible coe chevrolet truck that we had on power block a while back they also finished that crazy looking 65 el camino that looks like a full-size hot wheels car so when tc and the guys offered to help us with one of our projects well we've already seen the quality work they do yeah and we jumped at the chance to include some of their craftsmanship in one of our trucks projects but before we get to that we wanted to show you guys some of the finished and unfinished vehicles that you haven't seen now this beautiful 47 ford two-door sedan it's a great mix of restoration and resto mod and although this thing looks like it could be a trailer queen bay one builds them to be driven and this car's got the miles and the dead bugs to prove it and check out this 46 ford pickup now this one's been updated as well it's got an automatic transmission nice comfy bucket seats and air conditioning and this thing's looking pretty good especially considering it's been completed and has been a driver for over a decade hey ryan take a look at this vet these paddle gaps are perfect yeah when you look at you can just see the attention to detail that went into this thing from what they tell me it started out pretty rough these cars did not look this good from the factory i don't think so now we've seen some good looking finish vehicles now let's go find some work in process now down this hall that's where the heavy lifting happens now this is the fab shop hey tommy what are you doing here hey got here a little early and these guys talk me into giving them a hand day one has a couple of part-time employees and a lot of friends that help out but the main ingredients are tc panic and butch kerr both of these guys have a wide variety of skills to draw from and together they take on almost any project from classic restorations to wild customs and street rods i've worked on cars and equipment my whole life when i was a kid i my first gold card i disassembled it had in a million parts uh later on i got a motorcycle and that's the first thing i did was took it apart put it back together and i've just had a love of working on cars and equipment and especially the specialty cars and antiques and custom street rods for instance take a look at this 1958 chevrolet pickup it's getting small block v8 power an overdrive transmission and a host of other body and suspension mods that'll make it more street rod than truck and this international scout has had some extensive fab work including altering the wheel arches for tire clearance but the proportion is perfect and looks factory correct the 53 f-100 gets a one-piece tilt front end along with some classic custom tricks like the french antenna but no matter how diverse the vehicle is bay one's main driving force with everything they do a heartfelt passion for the hobby we start by coming up with the theme and then we tear it down and bag it and tag it and restore all the pieces and replace what can't be restored and then shine it all up and sand the heck out of it and put it together and as long as the customer will allow us to do our best they're always happy at the end now there's some really cool projects you guys got going on i know these guys have a ton of hours in the frame of our 37 i can't wait to see it so where are you hiding it we got it waiting for you out front let's go see it let's do it man nice man that is impressive looking looks like a show quality job every inch of this frame has been blocked and primed and blocked again every weld is smooth and it looks like it's dipped in this flat clear tc you guys rocked on this thing thanks so much for all the work you put in it well we appreciate the opportunity to do this for you yeah thanks a lot man now we gotta make sure the rest of the build is on par with what was established here let's go get the truck this thing back to the shop right man that thing looks awesome hey welcome back to trucks now that we're back in the shop all the hard work the guys at bay one put into hrt's chassis really shows so now it's up to us to make sure that the standard that bait one has already set with this frame well the rest of the truck has got to meet that standard and that's going to mean a whole lot of time put into those body panels in fact the whole body of the truck has to be test fit and mocked up before it even goes to paint that way there's no surprises when it comes to final assembly so we're going to start by dropping in the engine and transmission then setting the cabin place and laying out our shifter location and the rest of the interior good yep perfect here it is the shifter gets removed for clearance and then we make sure to protect 100 hours worth of paint and body work on the frame the cab gets set down with the help of a couple of buddies there it is once we make sure it's in the right place we can trim for the shifter position which starts with drilling a pilot hole from the bottom and trimming a little at a time with the reciprocating saw with the steel floor we could just weld in a patch if we made a mistake but with glass it's a little more involved and a lot more time consuming to rebuild structural strength so after trimming only enough of the floor to clearance the range of motion in all six gears we can finally reinstall the shifter and start thinking about the rest of the interior okay how does that look is that where it's going to sit yep oh we're in good shape plenty of clearance there's a room under here too now with our shifter installed we've got a decision to make about seating now there's a few obstacles we're going to have to deal with due to limited space in the cab as well as limited visibility because of the chop top now we gathered up a few seats that were laying around the tech center to try out we've got a low back bucket out of a mustang an old school race seat a high back bucket seat out of a jeep cherokee a full-blown race seat and this seat out of an old muscle car so we'll try these different styles out and see what works best the muscle car seat gave us good clearance to the shifter but restricted our view out the back window we could live with that issue if we had to but there's better options the racing seat would be cool and gives us the clearance we want but it's just not the right vibe for this project maybe the cherokee highback bucket was comfortable no way but it made the truck feel a little like an 18-wheeler this feels like a tractor no the vintage racing seat might work in a rat rod but not in hrt i feel like i need some snoopy goggles we need something a little more classy wake me up in an hour that's what i'm talking about with the steering wheel right in the middle by far the most comfortable seat well let's just say it didn't leave much leg room but it slept great we both agreed that the style we liked was the low back bucket seat from a vintage mustang it's actually pretty good yep you're a little far back could work this is not bad it's from a mustang it gave us the clearance we needed for the shifter as well as the visibility we wanted out of the back glass now we've already got a manual steering rack from flaming river in the 37 so we're going to stick with the recommendation of legend motors and use this flaming river tilt column that's specifically designed for street rods with a limited amount of space under the dash now this column utilizes a double drop for support and each drop is made from billet aluminum and it's polished to a mirror finish for a great street rod look polished stainless steel u-joints support joint and double d shaft will take care of the connection between the column and the rack and for steering wheels you guys already know that the sky's the limit for choices we've got ours narrowed down to a choice between these two wheels and to be quite honest with you i don't know which one's going to look better the steering column placement is probably the most important job in laying out your interior and starts with centering the column to the driver and marking the dash with the relief cut out of the dash we can mark the position of the drops using one inch angle ryan tacks in a support that gives us a pivot point to gauge the angle of the column and tack in a second drop obviously the steering shaft needs to go through the firewall to connect with the rack so a hole is drilled but the important thing to remember here is not to create hard angles that might cause binding as you turn the wheel using coat hangers or tig wire you can create a path and make a template for routing then use it to measure and cut your actual double d shaft once the steering shaft is test fit from the rack working our way backward and since the engine and exhaust placement won't allow a straight shot to the firewall a support bearing is used to make the connection cool all we need is a bracket for the support joint we're done hey welcome back to trucks if you're just joining us we're back on project hrt our 37 ford street rod truck that is destined to end up in one of your garages before it's all said and done and today we're test fitting everything mocking things up before it goes to final paint and that includes the glass now this flat glass has already been pre-cut for this truck so it's not something that we have to worry about but if you've got a truck like this 1950 chevy of tommy's where he's chop the top three inches and the factory flat glass is still the stock size well you got a choice to make you can either farm it out to a glass shop and cross your fingers and hope it turns out okay or you can do it yourself we're going to show you how now to get started you need just a few basic tools your commonly available glass cutter and a pair of plate pliers come in handy and since we're dealing with a safety glass you got to get through the laminate that separates the two pieces of glass that's where the flammable liquid comes in now you would think since three inches was taken out of the top you just take three inches out of your glass and everything will be okay but it's got to be more precise than that so you definitely want to make a template you can use a fiber board like we did or some heavy cardboard for your template and then just trace out the window opening after installing the factory rubber gasket that's been cut at the windshield peak to compensate for the chop you can work your template into the channel for a test fit now this is why we made a template first as you can see we got another 3 16 to quarter inch in the windshield rubber channel so we'll make that adjustment before we cut our glass all right with our template traced out now we're almost ready to cut but before we do that you're going to want to make sure you have a lightweight oil to dip your cutting wheel in otherwise the wheel gets hot the glass flakes and chips and you get an unwanted run when you go to break it following his traced line ryan uses steady and consistent pressure to run the glass cutter being careful to use one continuous motion this reduces the chance of the crack drifting off the cut line that you want now using the ball end of the cutter tap along your cut line to break the glass in a controlled path along the scored surface flip the glass over and then follow the same line with the cutter lightly scoring the other side and tapping and breaking the second layer of laminated glass now make sure you've got a fire extinguisher on hand for this step using a flammable liquid that will seep into the crack lighting it on fire simply melts the plastic material in between the glass allowing you to separate the two pieces of your cut and trim the laminate with a blade the plate pliers just give you a little more control over a tight corner then making sure your glass stays wet to keep it cool you can use a belt sander with a fine belt or a high-speed rotary sander to round off the corners and trim the glass to its final size now with the glass cut we'll use some quarter inch nylon rope to install the glass into the channel and you've just saved yourself a couple hundred bucks that's it looks good out here that fits like it's supposed to that's good hrt uses a steel pros pick bed with an oak wood floor now oak is a natural choice for a pickup bed because it's a dense wood which makes it very strong and it's got a beautiful grain now these slats have already been stained and varnished and they look great we don't actually have to do anything to the floor here but we wanted to do something a little different with this project and a while back we were at strip masters having a frame media blasted and we noticed something really cool they had a wooden stand on wheels that they used to roll parts into the blasting booth now just over the passage of time the blast media had attacked the surface of the wood creating this cool topographical effect where the soft part of the wood was eaten away leaving these ridges in the wood which created this really neat textured effect and that is what we're going to do the oak bed slats will take a little longer than this pine but the end result will be the same an interesting and unique wood treatment that raises the grain of the wood and really shows off its beauty now this probably isn't practical for a daily driver that's going to get used for work but hrt is a show truck and it's all about the cool factor and what you end up with is the coolest thing since sliced bread this looks like a piece of 100 year old driftwood and i prepped another piece the same way but i used a mahogany wood stain and a clear lacquer and the results well they're outstanding now this just goes to show you that it pays to think out of the box and do something a little bit different so guys don't be afraid to take some chances because that's the only way you can make your truck your own [Applause] hey welcome back to trucks we're here at one of our favorite places to visit advanced plating in nashville tennessee advanced plating is one of the best chrome shops in the country and we've used them several times on projects in the past now since hrt is an all glass body we came up with a pretty cool idea now our truck features a wrap around fiberglass dash and we thought it would look really unique totally chromed now you guys remember our friend steve tracy who owns advanced plating and we've got obviously a piece of fiberglass here so steve explain how this is prep to us what we do kevin was we start off by prepping the surface by media blasting it and then we clean it with an anti-static cleaner we also apply studs to the back of the part for conductivity and to hang our part in the plating tank and that gets it ready for coatings yes sir this first coating some sort of primer that is correct that is a three component adhesive filling primer what we do is we take the material and the reducer and the catalyst and we spray it on there and allow it to dry for 24 hours and the other coating on the other side is that just a another primer well that's actually a copper conductive coating and it is sprayed over the top of the prolane it's reduced down because it's very thick material spray it on allow it to dry for 24 hours that allows it to be plated that's right we'll go straight to the copper tank ryan let's go check it out all right the conductive primer sprays like any high build primer with a large orifice gun in a controlled environment for safety this completely coats the part fooling the rest of the chroming process into being able to plate it like steel a quick test confirms we're ready for the next step the parts are then dipped in the copper tank using the electrodes to deliver the current and the copper layers now we told you chroming plastic is no big deal for these guys this is actually going to be a chrome plated plastic skid plate for a chevy avalanche and i'm using the term skid plate very loosely using sanders and grinders to level out the copper is where the foundation of chrome plating is created without this care and attention to detail the reflection of the chrome can get distorted and show flaws and imperfections and that is just not their style now as beautiful as this piece is it's still not finished so by the time our fiberglass dash is at the same stage as this fiberglass cover well the process is the same as plating steel right exactly kevin true electroplated nickel and chrome over the top of fiberglass your dash is going to look just like these 37 ford grills here that are also made out of fiberglass well i can't wait to see it now we can get these back in a couple of days right looks like we better get busy thank you c you're welcome today we're painting project hrt first we're planning out what makes for a great looking and timeless paint job for our hot rod truck then it's off to the booth to spray more than a dozen different layers of paints and after all that we'll put it all together to check out the coolest paint job to ever roll out of the truck shop it's all today here on trucks [Music] hey welcome to trucks well check out project hrt now it's looking like a truck again and it's getting closer and closer to being ready for one of you lucky viewers to take it home and add it to your collection and just in case you haven't entered the contest is still open and you can't win if you don't enter now the body is finally ready for paint but it took a ton of work and we've kept pretty good track we figure we have almost 300 hours to get it in the shape it's in now while our buddies at bay 1 customs smoothed and painted the frame for us we got to work on the fiberglass and blocked and blocked and fit and blocked some more because that's what it takes to get a true high-end custom paint job on your vehicle after we set the engine down into its new home we then mated the body panels back to the frame for a final mock-up and test fit and then proceeded to prime and block and block some more which brings us to a very important place in any project planning the overall look and appearance of your vehicle the paint job which takes a lot of preparation something you just can't wing in the paint booth and having a plan will save you time money and disappointment now you can't build a house without blueprints and you can't do a full-on custom paint job without knowing what your end goals are [Music] so we assembled a team of automotive designers and started with a blank slate for something i like the idea of a two-tone because we've got a perfect style line right there to break it up and the pad on the back yeah yeah the bed it's not really in the same line but that would give it nice proportion steve longacre our in-house graphic artist tommy boschers ryan and myself all have some pretty strong opinions when it comes to our projects and having the chance to toss around some ideas really helps get a perspective now nothing says hot rod like flames but there are so many styles to draw from and we want this paint job to be perfect for hrt now you've got the grill is a great launching point right up here off the grill into that division i think that's nice flames are a must and a two-tone would look great too if the colors are right color sometimes dates a design i mean you remember the in the late 80s it was all the pastel exactly exactly even the style of the flames too we can get to that later but color i don't know i i want to grab something universal so that in 20 years this thing still still looks good yeah and you also want to stay away from a lot of metallics and cane or those kind of candies that'll be hard to match yeah any touch up yeah touch it up later well if you've ever seen a 10 year old candy job you know that they fade out in the sun if it gets any kind of street use at all and we're hoping somebody drives this thing as well and you know it'll be sitting at a few car shows here and there so it's going to see the sunlight so we want it to be a matchable color wanted to be easy to repair if they have to and so we're leaning towards a solid color too right so colors yeah yeah yeah just a basic primary color nothing crazy there's two yeah yeah so to really visualize our paint scheme we pulled out the crayons and one of the great things about planning on paper first is that you can truly see and judge all the different opinions the two tone looks right but the colors just don't pop the solid colors are cool but we're trying to make more of a statement ryan was definitely thinking out of the box with purple and gray but it still wasn't totally hot rod tommy had a great idea with black and gold but that combo has already been done with a certain le mans we all agreed that steve hit the nail on the head with the solid red on the bottom and the black on the top to us that color combination screamed hot rod truck yeah if we're gonna do a two-tone i think that's it yeah yeah and then there's a question of what style of flame yeah i think we keep it kind of timeless and goes like a classic flame nice long stretched out licks you know to really show off the fender lines and the uh the style of the truck something like that i like them i'm sure we'll maybe follow the style and a little bit more yeah it needs to follow the lines of the body more let me guys think about something like that it's not bad a little heavy in there yeah just a little just a little big what do you think real simple it's not bad it's nice and clean but it's almost too simple for a truck that's kind of over the top yeah yeah it begs for more doesn't it i like how it follows the style in in the end steve's rendering borrowing from everybody's ideas gave us a flame design that worked for everybody [Music] what do you want to do like colors on the flame i'd say more of a white to orange traditional with purple tips just a nice color fade throughout almost following the spectrum of color white into maybe purple at the tips yeah steve had one more suggestion to really make this paint job come to life if we're going to do the red and black do a screen delineation between the two colors just something subtle right nothing too too wide yeah nothing in your face but that he's right it'll make it pop okay it'll i like that long sweeping flames coming off of the grill dividing the two colors that's perfect pretty clear why we work on cars and you do the creative art thing nice job so armed with a pretty accurate rendering of what we all wanted to see we had a plan and we definitely had our work cut out for us starting with one final round of hand sanding and blocking with the final urethane primer surfacer using 400 grit paper now when you're final sanding it's your last chance to make sure that everything is straight so it's time well spent [Music] up next the paint's gonna start flying as the base colors hit the glass and later all the pieces come together to make metal fiberglass and paint become project hrt don't go anywhere hey welcome back to trucks while the guys are in the booth prepping for paint i'm in here taking care of a few things on the chassis like these headers that we got from sanderson these make for a nice clean installation on a street rod they've got a patented leak-proof flange nice durable ceramic coating plus sanderson hooked us up with these angled reducers to help us keep the exhaust tucked up in the frame rails now you've seen this guy around helping us today on project hrt this is brian barker from legend motors the people that make these bodies now brian's an award-winning custom painter so check out some of the work that he's done that's been featured in calendars and magazines now that is some nice looking work and since brian has had his hands on his fair share of these trucks he's a handy guy to have around right now now we're getting these panels ready to apply some color they've already been final sanded with 400 grit we're wiping them with some alcohol to get rid of the static electricity you're going to see us use these gun hangers in booth boxes they're made by the carriage and corp and they're designed by a painter for painters they feature strong magnetic attachments so you don't have to drill holes in your booth to mount them they offer storage for tape tweezers tack rags all the things you need to reach for while you're in the middle of a paint job that you don't want to have covered in overspray now the panels we've got in the booth only require one of the colors of our two-tone so we're going to get them colored and cleared and out of the way so we can focus on the cool part of our custom paint job [Music] another good thing about painting any pre-war fat fender vehicle apart is that you can reach every corner and every angle of the panels if you were to try and paint the front rear fenders with the vehicle assembled you'd never get an even coating of color and especially not clear and you'd end up with a lot of dry spray it takes longer this way but it's worth it with the color and clear laid down these parts get set in a corner to dry and the main canvas of our custom job gets rolled in namely the cab and hood sides now dupont paint has been around for decades but dupont's hot hues line is a relative newcomer in the custom painting scene they've got a great array of factory package colors as well as a nice line of candies that allow you to build your own custom colors hot hues is user friendly it's easy to spray and it's a high quality coating system so it's what we're going to be spraying all the way through this custom paint job the cab has been prepped just like the rest of the body 400 grit wet and wiped down with alcohol to lose the static charge but we've used the braces to mock up the hood sides exactly like they sit when the truck is fully assembled this makes sure our flames will line up when we reassemble the body after final clear coats then the cab gets coated in hot hues firecracker red factory packaged color following our rendering as a guide the two-tone gets established right below the style line this allows us to be able to focus the flame job below the hood the hot hues black that we're laying down on top gives us the bold two tone we want and breaking the color below the style line keeps the graphic off the hood making it a simple but very effective layout [Music] after the break we're burning down the tech center spraying more flames than a flamethrower stick around [Music] hey welcome back while hrt is in the booth getting a fresh coat of custom paint i'm in here putting some finishing touches on the chassis and drivetrain now with our headers on i went ahead and installed the shift linkage so we can measure for exhaust clearance and figure out how the heck we're going to get the exhaust tubing to the back of the truck what do you think pretty cool huh if you think this looks cool just wait do you see what's coming now you saw us lay down both of these colors before the break but what i did is come back with a 6222 protective clear coat to act as a barrier between our ground coat and our custom work that way if we decide to change our mind or make a mistake and have to do a repair we don't interfere with our two ground coat colors armed with our rendering as a guide we still have the freedom of laying out flames that look good on the vehicle and not just on paper quarter inch fine line tape gives us a nice bold line to visualize and is easy to turn corners with all three of us have laid out flames before but being able to work together without ego and work off each other's talents made the job a lot easier with a collective effort and a few adult beverages we settle on this design everybody's happy with it so now it's just a matter of transferring this over to the other side and there's an easy way to do that using the two-tone break as a guide we're using the time-tested method of tracing the graphic onto paper using a pencil perforating it on the floor with a pinwheel that punches tiny holes in the paper tape the trace side of the perforated paper towards the panels on the other side and using a pouch pad filled with drywall chalk and what you'll end up with is a perfect mirror image of the driver's side to lay your tape on for masking we're using frisk film which is basically wide clear plastic masking tape to mask the flames off the rest of the truck gets masked off to protect it from overspray which gets us ready to lay down a ground coat of white that'll start our color fade and really make the other colors pop we're using an lph80 from iwata to lay down the larger colors these guns allow maximum coverage without a lot of build up so our graphic won't be hard to bury and clear later the next color is sun kiss orange which is yellow and is faded from the white and carried back almost to the end of the flame legs next is red and it gets loaded into an iwata highline th which is an airbrush with a trigger so you get the trigger control you're familiar with as well as the precision of an airbrush tommy's mixed red and yellow to get an orange color to fade into and since all the hot hues base colors have no hardener they're safe to use with a charcoal mask with flame licks to cross over or under each other just use masking tape to mask the direction and then spray against the tape to give it a two-dimensional look amazing grape goes on the tips of the licks and we're using a micron plus from a water for a bit finer detail with the white ground coat it takes very little color to cover and we get the effect we want fast even the most experienced airbrush artists use two hands to steady the brush this just gives you maximum control over your work with the colors laid out and checked by the peanut gallery the masking comes off and we get the first glimpse of what the finished product will look like with the graphic laid out the body comes apart for the door jambs and backsides to be painted the parts get cleaned and the graphic gets masked for protection following the graphic into the door gems is one thing that separates a regular paint job from a true custom job the time investment is huge but the payoff is work that's on par with the big boys the fine line tape creates a nice clean edge to the graph and we'll take and back tape this when we fill this in with red peel this off it's a nice finished edge when we come back we're putting the puzzle back together for the last time you don't want to miss this [Applause] [Music] hey welcome back to trucks as you can see hrt is finally under paint and ready to go back together and since we can't possibly show you in real time all the hours that it took to get us finished up well these are the basic steps once the jams were painted and after the first two coats of clear were sanded flight was 600 grit muscle cars rick bacon was nice enough to pull some lines for us and outline the flames and the midori sour green accent stripe as well as a final touch we followed that with a candy purple drop shadow to give us a 2d effect and lift the flames off the panel then everything was buried in another four coats of hot hues 5100 hot clear and four stride after a ton of sanding and buffing every single painted surface the bottom of the cab as well as the fenders and running boards were coated in dupli-color bed liner for some added protection if you're doing a paint job this elaborate it's worth a couple of six-packs to get your buddies to help put it back together carefully just don't crack the drinks open until you're all done [Music] [Music] well here it is finally after hundreds of hours of labor thousands of dollars worth of filler primer sandpaper paint and polish yeah not to mention quite a few bucks worth of parts thrown in this is project hrt now this truck is not the work of just one guy there are plenty of people that have poured their heart into making this truck a stunning one-of-a-kind hot rod tommy boschers has a hundred hours into blocking alone and ryan and i well we've got tons of time invested as well very few high-end street rods are the product of just one person and hrt is the result of some great and talented people jumping on board to make this the coolest truck ever to come out of our shop and now that you've finally gotten to see what our vision has been for this truck everything that follows the interior and all the finishing touches are going to be just as cool as the paint hey welcome back to trucks now unless you've been under a rock for about the last year you know that we're giving away project hrt this 37 ford pickup is all street rod with the best of the best in the aftermarket right down to the cool flame paint job and it's not quite finished yet but it's closer every day so that brings us here to a quiet unassuming corner in shelbyville tennessee to what very well may be one of tennessee's best kept secrets bnb auto trim so come with us with me and tommy check out what's inside [Music] michael young of street rods by michael introduced us to these guys bnb auto trim has been doing quality custom interiors since the 1950s over the years they've been building a very impressive resume of completed vehicles now don't let the name fool you because these guys will upholster just about anything that'll stand still long enough like this jabaru aircraft that's manufactured in australia but assembled here in the united states bnb throws an interior in about one of these a week steve gifford bnb's head designer is a hands-on leader working right alongside his guys overseeing every project that comes out of the shop steve uses his years of skill as well as a keen sense of styling to anticipate new trends in the market giving bnb's customers every possible option it used to be tweeds everyone with the hot rods now suede's leathers and the exotic materials now are just really hot bnb takes their design cues from a mix of what the vehicle demands and what the customer wants with project hrt we wanted it to be elegant and classic at the same time the chrome and the black you know the leather and the suede just gives you a luxury feel on the inside that you have something that's high dollar on the inside as well as it's definitely sporty man would you take a look at this this interior is outstanding there's three different types of fabric carpet a custom overhead console with dome lights hidden speakers in the corners completely reupholstered seats a center console and everything is wrapped around the custom chrome plated fiberglass dash from advanced plating we got to get this thing back to the shop show you guys a closer look so we loaded up hrt and thanked bnb for their incredible workmanship and headed back to the shop oh by the way you can find bnb auto trim by going to the trucks website you won't be disappointed man that thing looks killer man those guys at b and b really hit one out of the park check out the details the leather accents on the chrome dash re-wrapped steering wheel custom-made center console and the six-way power seats borrowed from a late model pontiac it all looks like it was made for this truck and that's the result of experience and a sense of style and design custom speaker grilles an overhead console with chrome accents a plush padded insert that houses our auto meter gauges even the storage compartments behind the seats show b and b's incredible attention to detail and function of course the chromed wrap around dash from advanced plating and watson streetworks billet flame door latches just add to the whole appeal of this interior the combination of all these components is exactly what we had hoped for today we'll show you all the work that's gone into project hrt and a few of the little details still left to go then one of the very best metal crafters ever ron covell stops by the shop to teach us how to make a handmade and very unique air intake for our hot rod truck it's all today here on trucks hey thanks for watching trucks and thanks for sticking with us on the show well it's been a jam-packed year with tons of cool projects and most of them have been finished and paid off big time but there's a couple that haven't quite been finished up yet like our section 66 chevy c10 but don't worry you guys will see that thing again soon enough and when you do well it'll be road ready and then there's this thing our 37 ford project hrt now we're going over this thing making sure every nut and bolt is tight and that it performs flawlessly for whoever wins it but we've also got one more new project for this truck the one that's gonna give it a lot more personality and peg the cool meter with some handcrafted automotive jewelry we'll talk more about that a little bit later and we're also gonna remind you guys how this truck got to where it is from where it started if you remember we started out with a fiberglass body on a box frame rolling on giant mickey thompson wheels and tires but that's about all it did and as good as it looked it was a long way from a driver after we had the front end dialed in and the driveline in place the bodywork was next and as straight as the gel coat was it still was not up to the standard we wanted to set with this build so the time-consuming process of blocking filling seams gapping the doors and final fitting all of the panels was drawn out over several weeks now that bodywork kept all three of us plenty busy but it's no secret that we had lots of good help along the way because these frame rails well they didn't get looking that smooth on their own bay one customs stepped up and offered to smooth and finish the frame for us while we had some other stuff going on what they gave back to us was quality craftsmanship smoothed welds blocked primer and perfect semi-gloss paint were now the foundation of this hot rod truck and that fit perfectly with the plans that we had for paint and body prep and that meant priming and blocking and priming and blocking and blocking and blocking and fitting until the body was mocked up fit perfectly and was finally ready for a new coat of paint now we're all proud of this paint job and you guys know that that doesn't just happen by accident and the paint doesn't just fall out of the gun but one of the things we were able to do is show you some insight into what it takes to plan a paint job like this and to execute it afterwards before the first drop of paint was in the cup we sat down for a planning session and me tommy ryan and steve longacre tossed around some ideas on form proportion colors and designs and with steve's talents as a graphic artist we ended up with a killer rendering to go by for the layout of the paint with a plan to go by the red and black base colors were laid down and brian bodkar from car crafter customs helped us lay down the flames we used the time-tested method of tracing using a pounce pad to transfer a mirror image of the flames onto the other side and then shaded in the traditional flame colors rick bacon from muscle car outlined the fire and after a drop shadow was added to the flame licks everything was buried in clear coat and then cut and rubbed to a glass-like finish now we've managed to keep the screwdrivers belt buckles and jack handles out of the paint so far but there's still a ton of work to do before we give this thing away and even with all this pretty paint on it well it was still a hollow shell of a truck so it was time to pay attention to the interior and it needed to be outstanding we had already spent some time picking out a seat style no way and sadly the armchair lost out but once we decided on a comfortable design that fit the truck we focused on driver controls and layout and then we carried the whole truck over to bnb auto trim steve gifford and his crew started with the layer of insulation from dei to make sure the road noise was held to a minimum then the process of making the headliner and trim panels was started followed by the custom center console door panels recovered seats from a 90s vintage pontiac some cool accents in detail followed by several cows worth of hides stitched together to finish it off the centerpiece to any interior is the dash and this truck already had a cool design so with our gauges laid out steve and the guys over at advanced plating chrome the wraparound fiberglass dash and door trim for a seriously cool look a lot of time and energy was put into this truck and we thank everybody at b b for their hard work man they did a good job up next details details details and we've got plenty of them and later ron covell's in the kitchen cooking up something inspired by this hot rod stick around [Applause] hey welcome back to trucks today we're giving you a little insight on all the progress that's been made on project hrt in between the shows you've seen like the brake system tommy bent up some 3 16 stainless steel brake line held everything in place using these t-clamps were made for you then we sent it through the frame rail utilizing rustle fittings now if you guys are doing this kind of work at home make sure you use steel fittings not aluminum it just won't hold up to the extreme pressures of a hydraulic brake system then to finish things off we installed these color matched crown flex lines now to keep this thing from running hot we're using the all-aluminum radiator from be cool incorporated for hoses we're using the erl's formaflex with the chrome ends now it doesn't matter how much measuring test fitting or mocking up that you do on a build there's always going to be stuff that has to be adjusted after reassembly for instance take a look at our running board here there's not enough tire clearance this doesn't allow any lateral movement in the axle or tire swell but it's okay because we can trim along the line that i've marked this is a thick running board and our fender edge starts right here so we got lots of room i guess what i'm trying to say is that it takes a long time to debug a vehicle so in the immortal words of my good friend randy estes it ain't messed up until you can't fix it anymore now on a truck this nice we wanted to make sure it was still a driver and part of that is making sure the driver and passenger are comfortable so we're installing a vintage air compact gen 2 system it tucks nicely up behind our chrome dash and should handle climate control no sweat get it no sweat for fuel delivery we're using 3 8 inch braided stainless fuel line and is connected at the top of the rail with more t-clamps to keep it away from anything that moves nice and safe and it's feeding an edelbrock electric fuel pump that's internally regulated there's a filter behind the carburetor and since this is a carbureted application it's nice and clean since we don't have a reason for a return line at the tank we're using a dash 6 stainless connection yeah and if you guys ever wondered what the dash 6 and dash 12 all those numbers mean well it was a system developed by the us military based on 16 of an inch so if you've got a half inch well that's 8 16 the dash 8 line you've got quarter inch well it's 4 16 so you got a dash 4. it's really kind of simple now we didn't have a whole lot of room to work with as far as a fuel tank so we took some careful measurements and sent them over to rick and hector at rick's hot rod shop and they crafted up this great looking stainless steel tank it's fully baffled has a nice brushed finish and comes with a fuel level sender now to get some gas in this thing but we'll have to do like we did on project old school and put a fuel filler in the bed floor now as good as these optimum batteries look this thing is not going under the hood it's too clean in there and there's not enough room so with the street rod you got to get creative and we found some free real estate back here behind the fender the wheel's not going to come in contact with it so we talked to our buddies at blue torch fab and they sent us a battery box that's specifically designed to house an optimum battery with the nitro plate coating we had put on it it should stay nice looking and rust free as long as this guy owns this truck now to separate this truck from a lot of the other hot rods out there we wanted to run a manual transmission a six speed but we didn't want a hard to depress clutch pedal so we ended up going with a complete hydraulic setup from a cloud like kevin was talking about with the battery we didn't want a bunch of stuff in the engine bay or on the firewall cluttering up the nice clean look so we've got everything mounted down here on the frame rail where it's hidden and out of the way now this truck is really starting to come together but like we said there's one more project that we're going to do that's really going to make this engine bay pop and it's going to be handmade by a master craftsman and it's going to happen right before your eyes so stick around when we come back it's metal forming taught by the master stay tuned hey welcome back to trucks well with project hrt on the home stretch we wanted to do one more thing to dress it up under the hood we heard her good buddy ron covell is here in the area presenting a workshop at metal craft tool so we dragged him over here to help now those of you who've studied welding or metal fab well you probably know ron as professor hammer from his magazine columns now ron's been working with metal for more than 40 years and he presents workshops all over the world that's right kevin every year i cross the country from coast to coast presenting workshops primarily on sheet metal fabrication i cover both aluminum and steel and the workshops are open to both beginning and advanced students not only does ron put on his workshops he's got a full line of instructional dvds covering many aspects of metalworking and welding that's right ryan for those who can't come to a workshop i've made 23 dvds that cover a wide range of metal working processes it's like having a workshop at home and believe it or not ron has a master's degree in metal sculpture and the project he's got for us today is pretty darn cool what we're going to sculpt today is an air cleaner and we'll start with the base plate so i've made a form from medium density fiberboard the form has the contoured edge that we want the base of the scoop to have we're working with aluminum this is 1 16 of an inch thick and i'm going to soften this metal by annealing to make it easier to work annealing is done with an acetylene torch in two steps the first step is applying the soot which becomes a temperature indicator step two is burning off the soot and when the soot is gone you know the metal is fully annealed that means the friction is changed and lowered between the grains of metal relieving internal stress making it softer we're using pins to keep the parts aligned while hammering and using the vise to hold the form tight against the metal hammer forming allows us to create a curved edge around the base while keeping the center flat with the base formed it's time to shape the sides this time by hand using the base as a reference these pieces have previously been annealed so they're nice and soft and easy to work with the sides can now be tack welded to the base ron's tig welding with aluminum rod the rod he's using is 1 16 inch diameter 1100 rod which is pure aluminum [Music] to give the scoop its dome shape on the top runs using an english wheel from metalcraft the metal gets rolled between the upper and lower wheel stretching it and doming it ron's chosen the lower wheel with the same crown that the top piece needs one edge of each top piece gets peaked using a t-dolly mounted in the vise and a slap hammer [Music] with the top halves formed and checked you can start to see the design emerge as they get tacked together [Music] after the break ron will finish up our custom intake for project hrt don't go away hey thanks for watching trucks as we get a hands-on lesson from ron covell with our final hrt project so there's two more pieces left to complete our air cleaner and those are the air intake or nostrils and they look just like this and they're made using another type of a hammer form this time a metal one the nostrils are made with a different hammer form this time with the flat stock sandwiched in between the wood and metal forms using pins for alignment with the fixture mounted in the vise ron uses a wooden drift to fold the edges flat against the internal metal form for the corners he uses a rounded dowel to shape the flange hammering gently gives him the control he needs so the soft aluminum doesn't split now with your work piece shaped and out of the hammer form here's a cool tip you can use quarter inch fine line tape to get a perfect half inch and quarter inch outside dimension for your final cut when it's cut your finished piece looks exactly like this the nostrils are tack welded together at an angle that matches the front of the scoop and i made a template that shows the contour it needs to be shaped too this is a homemade fixture made from scrap pieces of metal any of you could make a project like this and it's perfect for giving a curved shape to the opening of the nostrils i think i'm done with everything tacked together to form the basic shape now it can be finished welded with the same aluminum rod tig welding aluminum takes a lot of finesse but ron's had a bit of practice and lays down a flawless bead once the seams are welded they get metal finished first with a grinder then they can be filed or sanded depending on the type of finish that you want so with a couple more hours of cleanup work this is what we've got so let's slip this into place and there you go man this looks fantastic ron and if this looks familiar to some of you guys out there there's a reason for that take a look at this this is greer black and prudom's famous 1962 front engine dragster with its distinctive air scoop made by wayne ewing and this car is the inspiration for our handcrafted piece ron thanks so much for spending some time with us today and showing our viewers some excellent tips on working with aluminum thank you kevin i've had a ball with this project and i really appreciate your help with it well it's going to be a nice finishing touch for project hrt but i've got this car at home in the shop i wanted to do a molded in hood [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Gunpowder & Gasoline

Views: 298,977

Keywords: powernation, powerblock, powernation tv, powerblock tv, how to, cars, trucks, do it yourself, truck, hot rod, hot rod truck, full build, ford, 1937 ford, ford hot rod

Id: PbQ4jbWso5A

Length: 99min 59sec (5999 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 29 2022