Video Transcript
[Eric] You're watching Powernation!
[ Music ] [Chris] Welcome to Dirt and Trails. The dirtiest show on Powernation. [Eric] On this show we take run of the mill trucks, suvs, and side by sides, break them down, and with our expert knowledge in fabrication and mechanics build them back up to the most fun off road rigs possible. [Chris] Come with us out on the trail as we take these rigs into the real world and see how they handle on some of the best trails in the country. [ Music ] [ e-brake handle clicking ] [Chris] So I am stoked to be out here. We're out in Lynnville, Tennessee, out at Wooly's Off Road Park and yeah. Can't really complain. What's up buddy! [Eric] How's it going! [Chris] Good! [Eric] You made it here. It took you quite a while. [Chris] I came from Canada. Still winter. [Eric] We've got a perfect day for this. Sun, no clouds, little bit of a breeze, ton of gear, and two completely untested trucks that need to get some miles on them. [Chris] You want to go hit some dirt and trails then? [Eric] Let's do it. [ Music ]
[Chris] My name's Chris Reader. I'm the newest face of the Powernation family and I am pumped to be here to say the least. I'm gonna be bringing 20 years of experience in off road fabrication to this new shop, Dirt and Trails, and it is going to be amazing. We have some amazing vehicles lined up for you guys this year. I think what I'm bringing to the table is gonna compliment what this guy does to a "T". [Eric] I'm Eric Smart. I'll be handling all of our mechanical work this season. Engines, transmissions, axles, and all that fun stuff, but before we can get to that we're gonna introduce you guys to the vehicles we're gonna be testing today. First we've got an '87 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ-60 and a '94 F-150 that's been kicking around the shop for a while that we think we've got some pretty good plans for. But before we can get these things on the trail we've gotta go pick some routes. [Chris] So we are roughly here. We parked over here. So what we're gonna do hopefully come down through here. Go through Deer Valley. Wrap around and then go through Cow Skull. I'm hoping we can make it but we will find out. I don't know why you're letting me plan the route. [Eric] Only one way to find out if it'll get us there and I'll do just about anything to get away from all these bugs. Let's get rolling! [ Music ] I guess we probably should take it a little bit easy on them today. We are just base lining. I know Land Cruiser is geared a little more. Oh jeez, that didn't take long. [Chris] No it didn't. We're maybe 100 feet. [Eric] I'm gonna go check this out real quick. [Chris] That is definitely doable. [Eric] That definitely looks like the fun side but we've got to remember these things are pretty close to stock. One of the first things you want to do when picking a lane at some place like this where you've got a couple of options. We've got the fun route right here. The easy route on the other side, and somewhere in the middle we've got a couple of ruts. So we're gonna start by looking at our fun side here and we're gonna get as close to the middle of it as possible because that's gonna be the deepest point. So I'm gonna get right about here. That, oh yeah. I'd say that's pretty deep but on top of that there's our bottom. That stuff's real soft. We've got the right tires and we've got some good gears because Land Cruisers are built for this but I don't think we've got the ground clearance to get through here. So next we're gonna be looking at our ruts. Now you want to make sure you don't do that. [ horn honking ] [Chris] You're doing great sunshine! [Eric] You also want to make sure that the track width of the ruts matches what you're driving if you're gonna try and go through them. If it doesn't match where it's narrower or wider you're gonna want to straddle it to either side. If you've got other obstacles on either side you want to err on the side of caution and go towards the side that has the easier obstacle. Obviously if you're gonna slide off straddling these ruts you're gonna want to end up in that puddle instead of that one. I think for right now we're gonna take it easy since we're getting a base line and we'll just go right on through here. [Chris] We could have done that no problem. [ Music ] [Eric] So how'd you get your start with off roading? [Chris] Growing up off roading was something nobody in my family did and it wasn't until 2004 when I started combat school that I actually started learning this is how you off road. Honestly the army is where it started because I always loved going out in the bush. Snowmobiling was always my jam. The first thing I ever four wheeled was a MLVW, which is the Canadian Army's version of the Deuce and a Half. Learned how on that. Then the next one was a Coyote, which is our armored rechie vehicle. Once you've been four wheeling all over the world it's kinda hard not to enjoy it and respect it. [Eric] The military's a great place to learn if you've never done it before because you've got a whole lot of heavy duty equipment that you do not have to pay to fix. [Chris] You have to work on it to fix it but I see where you're coming from. That's where I got my cut there and that's also where I was like, welding is my next career path. Fired up my old company and away we went. [Eric] It's getting a little messy. [Chris] Soupy! It is soupy! Stand by to find out how well this Cruiser can crawl.
[ Music ]
[Eric] Man, right in the mud and the water. That's alright. I'll remember that. [ Music ]
[Chris] We're staying out of that. [Eric] Good thing we went left. Definitely want to make sure we get all this debris out of here. You want to grab that while I head up a little further? [Chris] Yeah, cause that looks like a… [Eric] Looks like a good time for a not stock rig. While Chris is getting that stuff cleaned up we're just gonna take a look at what we're dealing with here. The trail's getting a little bit rocky. It's never a bad idea to hop out and work your legs a little bit, especially with an untested rig. When you're dealing with rocks you want to look at stability for sure. That way you know if you need to be ready for one of them to slip out from underneath you and deal with a little bit of a slide. You also want to keep an eye on your trail edges. Stuff like this, that's not too big of a concern. We've got enough sidewall that that one's not gonna be a problem but you get to stuff like this. This one's pretty thick. So we shouldn't have to worry about it cutting the sidewall if we end up running the tire into it but you do have to watch out for the sharp ones for sure. Now this, this shouldn't be too much of a problem. We should be able to get one side up and we'll just walk right over. The only way to know that for sure is to get the rig up here and try it out. [ Music ] I know we said we'd go up over that but it'll be easier and safer to just go around. Out of the way. [ Music ] [ horn honking ] [Chris] Ha! [Eric] Back it up! Back her down a little. Wait, wait, don't! [Chris] What? [Eric] It's finally time for that tailpipe to go. You got the grinder? [Chris] It's in there somewhere. [Eric] There we go. Get this out of here. Call this trail maintenance. [ grinder buzzing ]
[Eric] Almost! [ Music ] See if we can get her there. [ grinder buzzing ]
[Eric] I think we can break it from there. [Chris] I've heard you say that before. [ Music ]
[Eric] Now we have our first trail trophy. [ Music ]
Alright, we got that out of the way but we've got a ton more debris. The rocks just get worse, and we were already starting to spin a little bit trying to get just up that. I think we've hit the limit with this thing for the day. It did a lot better than I would have expected. I'm pretty happy with it but we've still got a whole other rig to test out while we're out here. So I think we just back it up, turn around, and cut our losses with this one here and go try out that Ford. [Chris] Alright, cool. [Eric] I'll back you down. [ Music ]
Up next, we see how much fun we can have in a bone stock Ford. [ Music ] [Chris] Snap it around, snap it around!
[Eric] Honestly this thing made it in here quite a bit easier than I thought it would. [Chris] It was easier than the Land Cruiser. [Eric] It just walked right up the entrance hill. It made it up to the staging area just fine. Honestly for what is essentially a bone stock truck I'm pretty impressed so far. Getting up that first hill coming in is a feat for most vehicles in stock form. Generally I do lean a little bit more towards the GM side of the house but really you get old enough Ford did not make a bad truck back in the day. You go far enough back and get into the '90s, '80s, and prior everybody made good, solid trucks. This is the era where trucks were still all metal. They were made for work not comfort like they are now days. See if it'll cut through here. And bump! There it is. [ Music ] [Chris] Snap it around, snap it around! [Eric] Oh, oh, oh, oh! [ Music ] [Chris] You can't drive through that. [Eric] Let's not. Let's be smart about this. Well that was a good one. [ Music ]
There we go. [Chris] Keep it, keep it! [ Music ]
This has bad news written all over it. [Eric] We're already identifying a couple of problems with this thing. Obviously it did not like steering itself in the mud. I think a lot of that's gonna come down to one, there's not enough power to break everything loose all at once. Two, there's no locker front or rear. [Chris] This is not even posi. [Eric] As soon as we start losing traction we're running one wheel each axle. Power wise, like we already said. The 300 is an amazing engine. I will be the first person to tout its glories. [Chris] It's not a high revving performance engine. It's just a straight up mule. [Eric] They can make decent power like we've seen before with Pat and Frankie's turbo 300 but that's a ton of work into something like this for most people. As a workhorse engine these things are perfect. [Chris] So where did you cut your teeth driving? Did you start cutting your teeth when you were a Marine or did you start way back when? [Eric] Being from the Pacific Northwest it's kind of a given. There's no way to live out in the woods out there like I did without learning how to do this kind of stuff. You take logging roads to get places and dodge people with certain colored lights you don't want to see. [Chris] Not that you would do that. [Eric] No, never, but just in case. It's one of those things that it's just kinda a part of life around there. Everybody has something or other four by four and there is some pretty seriously built rigs up there. For me off roading in the Marine Corps. I was a combat engineer with a secondary in assault breacher operator. So I modified Abrahms. Anything off road wasn't really a challenge. [Chris] I wouldn't imagine so.
Let freedom ring. [Eric] I'm gonna get through here first so we don't go dinging off these sides. Here we go! [ Music ] [Chris] Go, go, go! No, no, no! Okay! [Eric] Woo, there she goes! [ Music ]
[Chris] If you can just go up to the right. [Eric] I'll try and keep it to the right. She started pulling herself down. [ Music ] Nope! [ Music ]
[Chris] Oh no, that's it! That's it! [Eric] Well met our match. Oh yeah! Yeah Chris, I'd say that's probably it. [Chris] Well you got her stuck. Go get the cable. Start walking. So I'm going to loop this over the frame just because don't have a legitimate tow point on the vehicle. Usually what you'd do is put the pin and you'd come through, and then clip on it like that but this is just small enough that we can't close the gate which is this part here over the pin. It's just slightly too big. What I'm gonna do. It's not the best practice but it's not the worst either in the world is put it all through like that. Also when you're using shackles make sure it's rated for your vehicle and it's the spin on type not the one with the cotter pin. Let's give this a go. [Eric] Good? [ Music ]
[ side by side revving ] [Eric] Come on baby. [ Music ] Yeah! [ Music ] That worked beautifully. [ Music ] [Chris] You know we just got out of that by the skin of our teeth right? [Eric] We did, and by the smell of it we toasted the hell out of that belt. But that's a problem for later. We got this thing unstuck. I think it's pretty safe to say we found its limit. She doesn't like mud. She climbs okay. It needs more of everything. Power, tire, gear. [Chris] Driver! [Eric] Hey now! [Chris] I got out. I'm just saying. Head back to the shop? Lunch and then head back to the shop. [Eric] For the love of god I need some food. Let's get this thing unhooked and get out of here. [Chris] Coming up, once we get back to the shop we are gonna start throwing some heavy duty parts at this '94 F-150.
[ Music ]
[Chris] Now that we're back from Wooly's the work's gonna start. We've got a lot of big plans for this truck and we need to make miles plain and simple. So Eric, you want to walk us through what we're doing today? [Eric] I think it's gonna be easiest if we get started taking all the body panels off. Everything but the cab's coming off this frame and that'll give us a lot easier access to get the drivetrain and suspension out once we get it up on the lift. I think that's a good place to start. [Chris] Cool, pop the hood. [ drill humming ] [Eric] Now that we've got the grille out of the way I'm gonna move on and keep getting all of the front clip torn off starting with these lights and bezels. Chris a lot of this stuff is in pretty good shape. Try to be careful taking it apart will you? [Chris] Alright, no problem. Have you seen my 10-mil? [Eric] I have not. [Chris] I don't believe you. [Eric] That's one thing I don't understand about these OBS trucks is why this part had to be so complicated to take apart. [ ratchet clicking ] [ Music ]
[Chris] There you go! [Eric] I got it. [Chris] So these two bolts here, the captured nut on the back side has broken loose. So all they do is they just free spin. My hands are too big to get underneath with a wrench to actually clamp onto it. So what I'm doing is I'm taking the brackets that hold it into the fender as well as the core support. Undoing those. So I'm gonna take it all out as one unit. So this is what I was fighting with. This is the clip that I was talking about. You can see a little piece over here. This little strip, that's no longer existent and the same over here decided to find a new home somewhere between here and Michigan. So it's out now. [Eric] Chris I'm gonna crack this bumper loose real quick. Watch your toes. [Chris] Ready? [Eric] Careful, don't scratch it. It's still nice and shiny. [Chris] It's cause you haven't gotten into it. [ Music ] [ ratchet humming ] [Eric] Off we go. [ Music ] [Chris] How about a competition? Whoever gets the fender off first. [ ratchets clicking ] [ Music ] [Eric] What are we playing for? [Chris] 10-mil socket. You just give me mine back. [Eric] I don't know what you're talking about but okay. [ ratchet clicking ] [Chris] Oh no! This is gonna get tighter until it gets loose. [ ratchet clicking ] [ Music ]
[ metal clanging ]
[Chris] Time!
[Eric] But now who's sweating and breathing heavy and who's just chilling. [Chris] Hey man, I won. Windows down.
So that wasn't bad or what we got accomplished today. I can't complain. We got the truck stripped down, the box is off, ready to show, and we are getting so much closer to dropping this 600 horsepower-ish 460 under this hood. After that we've got so much we want to do. Want to run through it real quick? [Eric] Yeah, so on top of adding this big block under the hood we mentioned wanting to make sure this was as old school as possible. Just get back to the roots of American four by four. So we're gonna do a little bit of custom stuff on the interior. We'll get to that later on. I think style wise we can't go wrong with throwing a big chrome triple-double roll bar in the bed. Obviously we're gonna have to upgrade these axles. We've got a custom nine inch outside we've still got to bring in. Go ahead and take this fuel tank out. Put a fuel cell in the bed for safety. [Chris] Then when it comes to the suspension department we are gonna be running with a six inch lift, 35 inch tires, and they are going to be chunky. You're gonna hear this thing coming from a mile away. It's gonna sound like a world war two fighter plane. It's gonna be great. [Eric] I don't know about you but I am itching to get started on this thing. [Chris] So am I but we need to call it for today. [Eric] Yeah, it's been a long one. [Chris] Catch you guys later.
Show Full Transcript
[ Music ] [Chris] Welcome to Dirt and Trails. The dirtiest show on Powernation. [Eric] On this show we take run of the mill trucks, suvs, and side by sides, break them down, and with our expert knowledge in fabrication and mechanics build them back up to the most fun off road rigs possible. [Chris] Come with us out on the trail as we take these rigs into the real world and see how they handle on some of the best trails in the country. [ Music ] [ e-brake handle clicking ] [Chris] So I am stoked to be out here. We're out in Lynnville, Tennessee, out at Wooly's Off Road Park and yeah. Can't really complain. What's up buddy! [Eric] How's it going! [Chris] Good! [Eric] You made it here. It took you quite a while. [Chris] I came from Canada. Still winter. [Eric] We've got a perfect day for this. Sun, no clouds, little bit of a breeze, ton of gear, and two completely untested trucks that need to get some miles on them. [Chris] You want to go hit some dirt and trails then? [Eric] Let's do it. [ Music ]
[Chris] My name's Chris Reader. I'm the newest face of the Powernation family and I am pumped to be here to say the least. I'm gonna be bringing 20 years of experience in off road fabrication to this new shop, Dirt and Trails, and it is going to be amazing. We have some amazing vehicles lined up for you guys this year. I think what I'm bringing to the table is gonna compliment what this guy does to a "T". [Eric] I'm Eric Smart. I'll be handling all of our mechanical work this season. Engines, transmissions, axles, and all that fun stuff, but before we can get to that we're gonna introduce you guys to the vehicles we're gonna be testing today. First we've got an '87 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ-60 and a '94 F-150 that's been kicking around the shop for a while that we think we've got some pretty good plans for. But before we can get these things on the trail we've gotta go pick some routes. [Chris] So we are roughly here. We parked over here. So what we're gonna do hopefully come down through here. Go through Deer Valley. Wrap around and then go through Cow Skull. I'm hoping we can make it but we will find out. I don't know why you're letting me plan the route. [Eric] Only one way to find out if it'll get us there and I'll do just about anything to get away from all these bugs. Let's get rolling! [ Music ] I guess we probably should take it a little bit easy on them today. We are just base lining. I know Land Cruiser is geared a little more. Oh jeez, that didn't take long. [Chris] No it didn't. We're maybe 100 feet. [Eric] I'm gonna go check this out real quick. [Chris] That is definitely doable. [Eric] That definitely looks like the fun side but we've got to remember these things are pretty close to stock. One of the first things you want to do when picking a lane at some place like this where you've got a couple of options. We've got the fun route right here. The easy route on the other side, and somewhere in the middle we've got a couple of ruts. So we're gonna start by looking at our fun side here and we're gonna get as close to the middle of it as possible because that's gonna be the deepest point. So I'm gonna get right about here. That, oh yeah. I'd say that's pretty deep but on top of that there's our bottom. That stuff's real soft. We've got the right tires and we've got some good gears because Land Cruisers are built for this but I don't think we've got the ground clearance to get through here. So next we're gonna be looking at our ruts. Now you want to make sure you don't do that. [ horn honking ] [Chris] You're doing great sunshine! [Eric] You also want to make sure that the track width of the ruts matches what you're driving if you're gonna try and go through them. If it doesn't match where it's narrower or wider you're gonna want to straddle it to either side. If you've got other obstacles on either side you want to err on the side of caution and go towards the side that has the easier obstacle. Obviously if you're gonna slide off straddling these ruts you're gonna want to end up in that puddle instead of that one. I think for right now we're gonna take it easy since we're getting a base line and we'll just go right on through here. [Chris] We could have done that no problem. [ Music ] [Eric] So how'd you get your start with off roading? [Chris] Growing up off roading was something nobody in my family did and it wasn't until 2004 when I started combat school that I actually started learning this is how you off road. Honestly the army is where it started because I always loved going out in the bush. Snowmobiling was always my jam. The first thing I ever four wheeled was a MLVW, which is the Canadian Army's version of the Deuce and a Half. Learned how on that. Then the next one was a Coyote, which is our armored rechie vehicle. Once you've been four wheeling all over the world it's kinda hard not to enjoy it and respect it. [Eric] The military's a great place to learn if you've never done it before because you've got a whole lot of heavy duty equipment that you do not have to pay to fix. [Chris] You have to work on it to fix it but I see where you're coming from. That's where I got my cut there and that's also where I was like, welding is my next career path. Fired up my old company and away we went. [Eric] It's getting a little messy. [Chris] Soupy! It is soupy! Stand by to find out how well this Cruiser can crawl.
[ Music ]
[Eric] Man, right in the mud and the water. That's alright. I'll remember that. [ Music ]
[Chris] We're staying out of that. [Eric] Good thing we went left. Definitely want to make sure we get all this debris out of here. You want to grab that while I head up a little further? [Chris] Yeah, cause that looks like a… [Eric] Looks like a good time for a not stock rig. While Chris is getting that stuff cleaned up we're just gonna take a look at what we're dealing with here. The trail's getting a little bit rocky. It's never a bad idea to hop out and work your legs a little bit, especially with an untested rig. When you're dealing with rocks you want to look at stability for sure. That way you know if you need to be ready for one of them to slip out from underneath you and deal with a little bit of a slide. You also want to keep an eye on your trail edges. Stuff like this, that's not too big of a concern. We've got enough sidewall that that one's not gonna be a problem but you get to stuff like this. This one's pretty thick. So we shouldn't have to worry about it cutting the sidewall if we end up running the tire into it but you do have to watch out for the sharp ones for sure. Now this, this shouldn't be too much of a problem. We should be able to get one side up and we'll just walk right over. The only way to know that for sure is to get the rig up here and try it out. [ Music ] I know we said we'd go up over that but it'll be easier and safer to just go around. Out of the way. [ Music ] [ horn honking ] [Chris] Ha! [Eric] Back it up! Back her down a little. Wait, wait, don't! [Chris] What? [Eric] It's finally time for that tailpipe to go. You got the grinder? [Chris] It's in there somewhere. [Eric] There we go. Get this out of here. Call this trail maintenance. [ grinder buzzing ]
[Eric] Almost! [ Music ] See if we can get her there. [ grinder buzzing ]
[Eric] I think we can break it from there. [Chris] I've heard you say that before. [ Music ]
[Eric] Now we have our first trail trophy. [ Music ]
Alright, we got that out of the way but we've got a ton more debris. The rocks just get worse, and we were already starting to spin a little bit trying to get just up that. I think we've hit the limit with this thing for the day. It did a lot better than I would have expected. I'm pretty happy with it but we've still got a whole other rig to test out while we're out here. So I think we just back it up, turn around, and cut our losses with this one here and go try out that Ford. [Chris] Alright, cool. [Eric] I'll back you down. [ Music ]
Up next, we see how much fun we can have in a bone stock Ford. [ Music ] [Chris] Snap it around, snap it around!
[Eric] Honestly this thing made it in here quite a bit easier than I thought it would. [Chris] It was easier than the Land Cruiser. [Eric] It just walked right up the entrance hill. It made it up to the staging area just fine. Honestly for what is essentially a bone stock truck I'm pretty impressed so far. Getting up that first hill coming in is a feat for most vehicles in stock form. Generally I do lean a little bit more towards the GM side of the house but really you get old enough Ford did not make a bad truck back in the day. You go far enough back and get into the '90s, '80s, and prior everybody made good, solid trucks. This is the era where trucks were still all metal. They were made for work not comfort like they are now days. See if it'll cut through here. And bump! There it is. [ Music ] [Chris] Snap it around, snap it around! [Eric] Oh, oh, oh, oh! [ Music ] [Chris] You can't drive through that. [Eric] Let's not. Let's be smart about this. Well that was a good one. [ Music ]
There we go. [Chris] Keep it, keep it! [ Music ]
This has bad news written all over it. [Eric] We're already identifying a couple of problems with this thing. Obviously it did not like steering itself in the mud. I think a lot of that's gonna come down to one, there's not enough power to break everything loose all at once. Two, there's no locker front or rear. [Chris] This is not even posi. [Eric] As soon as we start losing traction we're running one wheel each axle. Power wise, like we already said. The 300 is an amazing engine. I will be the first person to tout its glories. [Chris] It's not a high revving performance engine. It's just a straight up mule. [Eric] They can make decent power like we've seen before with Pat and Frankie's turbo 300 but that's a ton of work into something like this for most people. As a workhorse engine these things are perfect. [Chris] So where did you cut your teeth driving? Did you start cutting your teeth when you were a Marine or did you start way back when? [Eric] Being from the Pacific Northwest it's kind of a given. There's no way to live out in the woods out there like I did without learning how to do this kind of stuff. You take logging roads to get places and dodge people with certain colored lights you don't want to see. [Chris] Not that you would do that. [Eric] No, never, but just in case. It's one of those things that it's just kinda a part of life around there. Everybody has something or other four by four and there is some pretty seriously built rigs up there. For me off roading in the Marine Corps. I was a combat engineer with a secondary in assault breacher operator. So I modified Abrahms. Anything off road wasn't really a challenge. [Chris] I wouldn't imagine so.
Let freedom ring. [Eric] I'm gonna get through here first so we don't go dinging off these sides. Here we go! [ Music ] [Chris] Go, go, go! No, no, no! Okay! [Eric] Woo, there she goes! [ Music ]
[Chris] If you can just go up to the right. [Eric] I'll try and keep it to the right. She started pulling herself down. [ Music ] Nope! [ Music ]
[Chris] Oh no, that's it! That's it! [Eric] Well met our match. Oh yeah! Yeah Chris, I'd say that's probably it. [Chris] Well you got her stuck. Go get the cable. Start walking. So I'm going to loop this over the frame just because don't have a legitimate tow point on the vehicle. Usually what you'd do is put the pin and you'd come through, and then clip on it like that but this is just small enough that we can't close the gate which is this part here over the pin. It's just slightly too big. What I'm gonna do. It's not the best practice but it's not the worst either in the world is put it all through like that. Also when you're using shackles make sure it's rated for your vehicle and it's the spin on type not the one with the cotter pin. Let's give this a go. [Eric] Good? [ Music ]
[ side by side revving ] [Eric] Come on baby. [ Music ] Yeah! [ Music ] That worked beautifully. [ Music ] [Chris] You know we just got out of that by the skin of our teeth right? [Eric] We did, and by the smell of it we toasted the hell out of that belt. But that's a problem for later. We got this thing unstuck. I think it's pretty safe to say we found its limit. She doesn't like mud. She climbs okay. It needs more of everything. Power, tire, gear. [Chris] Driver! [Eric] Hey now! [Chris] I got out. I'm just saying. Head back to the shop? Lunch and then head back to the shop. [Eric] For the love of god I need some food. Let's get this thing unhooked and get out of here. [Chris] Coming up, once we get back to the shop we are gonna start throwing some heavy duty parts at this '94 F-150.
[ Music ]
[Chris] Now that we're back from Wooly's the work's gonna start. We've got a lot of big plans for this truck and we need to make miles plain and simple. So Eric, you want to walk us through what we're doing today? [Eric] I think it's gonna be easiest if we get started taking all the body panels off. Everything but the cab's coming off this frame and that'll give us a lot easier access to get the drivetrain and suspension out once we get it up on the lift. I think that's a good place to start. [Chris] Cool, pop the hood. [ drill humming ] [Eric] Now that we've got the grille out of the way I'm gonna move on and keep getting all of the front clip torn off starting with these lights and bezels. Chris a lot of this stuff is in pretty good shape. Try to be careful taking it apart will you? [Chris] Alright, no problem. Have you seen my 10-mil? [Eric] I have not. [Chris] I don't believe you. [Eric] That's one thing I don't understand about these OBS trucks is why this part had to be so complicated to take apart. [ ratchet clicking ] [ Music ]
[Chris] There you go! [Eric] I got it. [Chris] So these two bolts here, the captured nut on the back side has broken loose. So all they do is they just free spin. My hands are too big to get underneath with a wrench to actually clamp onto it. So what I'm doing is I'm taking the brackets that hold it into the fender as well as the core support. Undoing those. So I'm gonna take it all out as one unit. So this is what I was fighting with. This is the clip that I was talking about. You can see a little piece over here. This little strip, that's no longer existent and the same over here decided to find a new home somewhere between here and Michigan. So it's out now. [Eric] Chris I'm gonna crack this bumper loose real quick. Watch your toes. [Chris] Ready? [Eric] Careful, don't scratch it. It's still nice and shiny. [Chris] It's cause you haven't gotten into it. [ Music ] [ ratchet humming ] [Eric] Off we go. [ Music ] [Chris] How about a competition? Whoever gets the fender off first. [ ratchets clicking ] [ Music ] [Eric] What are we playing for? [Chris] 10-mil socket. You just give me mine back. [Eric] I don't know what you're talking about but okay. [ ratchet clicking ] [Chris] Oh no! This is gonna get tighter until it gets loose. [ ratchet clicking ] [ Music ]
[ metal clanging ]
[Chris] Time!
[Eric] But now who's sweating and breathing heavy and who's just chilling. [Chris] Hey man, I won. Windows down.
So that wasn't bad or what we got accomplished today. I can't complain. We got the truck stripped down, the box is off, ready to show, and we are getting so much closer to dropping this 600 horsepower-ish 460 under this hood. After that we've got so much we want to do. Want to run through it real quick? [Eric] Yeah, so on top of adding this big block under the hood we mentioned wanting to make sure this was as old school as possible. Just get back to the roots of American four by four. So we're gonna do a little bit of custom stuff on the interior. We'll get to that later on. I think style wise we can't go wrong with throwing a big chrome triple-double roll bar in the bed. Obviously we're gonna have to upgrade these axles. We've got a custom nine inch outside we've still got to bring in. Go ahead and take this fuel tank out. Put a fuel cell in the bed for safety. [Chris] Then when it comes to the suspension department we are gonna be running with a six inch lift, 35 inch tires, and they are going to be chunky. You're gonna hear this thing coming from a mile away. It's gonna sound like a world war two fighter plane. It's gonna be great. [Eric] I don't know about you but I am itching to get started on this thing. [Chris] So am I but we need to call it for today. [Eric] Yeah, it's been a long one. [Chris] Catch you guys later.
