ClasSix Part 7: Custom Grill - Budget Style

Today, we're going to the newly rebuilt advanced plating. The Nashville flood nearly wiped them out, but now they're back better than ever. And we're taking the grill to our project class six to get a unique and budget friendly copper plated finish.

It's all today here on trucks.

Hey guys, welcome to trucks. Well, today we're back up here at advanced plating in Nashville, Tennessee

and it probably looks the same as it did every other time we've been here, but back in May of 2010

where the Middle Tennessee area got hit with well over a foot of rain in a single 24 hour period, putting the Cumberland River 12 ft over flood stage.

And if I was here, then

no, I'd be underwater and I'd be swimming.

But today everything once again is dry and gleaming like jewelry. You could even smell. The new paint. Advanced plating is back bigger and better than ever, but it wasn't long ago that I would have been standing chest deep in water and everything in this entire facility was covered with this funk, this muck from the Cumberland River. It wasn't pretty.

These rising waters are the result of a flood that was supposed to happen only once every 500 years.

Damage estimate to the Nashville area have exceeded $2 billion in property damage. The whole Nashville area community

was stricken by a tragedy of huge proportions.

Now as bad as it looks in these photos. The truth is this was after the flood waters had already started to recede.

But the actions that owner Steve Tracy took the day of the flood are nothing short of inspirational.

Well, to get here, I swam across the parking lot and then to get out, I was rescued by boat.

There was never a doubt in my mind what I was gonna do from the minute I got on the boat and that was just basically do a restoration of a different type here.

So Steve and his helpful crew rolled up their sleeves and got started on an extreme chrome makeover.

So advanced plating did their own version of a frame off restoration, not only repairing the damage from the floodwaters, but also taking the opportunity to make improvements where they deemed they were necessary.

I had quite a few people that came from out of state. Some people that we knew some that we didn't and uh various amount of car builders that had come and a lot of industry people that came and they all pitched in,

some of them rescued the cars, some of them helped with the renovation. A

lot of moral support a lot of encouragement, all of it. Very important. Very lucky, very blessed.

Now, the truly remarkable thing here is that not a drop, not a single drop of any of these chemicals was spilled into the Cumberland River.

As a matter of fact, there were only two tanks that needed any kind of repair or replacement

that it wasn't just outside help involved. Steve's employees worked in shifts around the clock and really dug in to help improve things and get the facility back up and running.

Now, the buffing shop is where the artisan craftsmanship happens. And it was also one of the areas that got

hit the hardest.

All of the electronics in each workstation, including electric motors had to be completely replaced,

but it didn't stop there. The buffing wheels play a critical role in the polishing and plating process, but these didn't stand a chance against Mother Nature.

Now, this is something that's not new, but we've never shown you this room before. That's because it's been greatly improved due to the effects of the flood. This is a room, this temperature controlled to 100 degrees and no humidity specifically for the purpose of curing the buffing pads.

Now, advanced planting loss,

nearly 50 years, supply of buffing pads for the big wheels. And again, it was a tragic loss, but it gave them the excuse to take some time and improve the situation

and this room is

well, is perfect for its purpose but

it's hot

and as big of an impact as Mother Nature had on the shop, but they took the opportunity to reduce their own

by installing new air filtration systems and added ventilation throughout the building.

Now, rightfully or not, the chrome plating industry has kind of acquired a reputation of being not so environmentally friendly

but advanced plating has always been ahead of the curve.

Now, this is the recycling room where all the chemicals get processed, neutralized and treated. They go through these four drums and ultimately end up in this giant container here where the liquid passes over 500 ft of grating that's stacked up inside that container. The clean wastewater is separated from the solids which gets filtered out.

They end up over here.

This green colored electroplating by-product is kind of indicative of how they operate here at advanced plating. Very green. None of this stuff ends up in a landfill never has. In fact, this stuff here is gonna get shipped off. The metal is gonna be reclaimed and used in the zinc die casting process.

Now, one of the last steps in getting the facility back up and running involved replacing some of the equipment necessary to handle the huge amounts of current that are required for electro plating.

Last critical piece was to replace our rectifiers that allowed us to get our use and occupancy permit.

So as of yesterday, we are 100%

up

next. A copper only chrome job, not only looks cool, it's the right price and later making our new transmission fit. Our class six is engine stay tuned.

Hey guys, welcome back to trucks and welcome back to the newly restored advanced plating.

Now, Steve and the rest of his crew have done a fantastic job at getting advanced plating back up and running and in a big way, which is a really good thing because we needed some more stuff plated. But instead of going the typical restoration quality chroming process that they usually do here at the facility, we're gonna take a little more budget minded approach and a theme that's gonna follow right in line with our Patina 49 Chevy project class six. And it all starts with this replacement girl that we picked up at Chev of the forties.

Now, this is a budget approach that we're taking to a cool looking plating project and anything that you can do at home, like disassemble the grill. Well, it'll save you money

whether the parts are painted or E coated like our grill. They sit in a bat of methylene chloride for about 30 minutes to completely remove any finish.

But this is one more way that you can save money at home. You can strip with a simple aircraft stripper that's available at almost any auto parts store and send them to the bare.

Now you're going to see us do a series of clean water rinses after the acid process. It serves the same general purpose which is to neutralize the acid from the previous step and get it ready, set it up for the next step.

Then our grill parts sit in a soap cleaner and activator tank for about five minutes.

Now, the brushing just helps remove any fingerprints or residue and really drives the solution down into the pores of the metal, making sure the parts are ready for the next step.

I feel like a mad scientist

kind of cool.

And just like in between every step in this process, we take our parts to a rinse tank or quick dunking water.

Next, our parts go in a mild alkaline acid etch tank for about a minute.

This sets up the surface or profiles, the metal creating porosity for the copper to stick to

and one more trip to the rinse tank neutralizes the acid.

After the rinse, we go to a cyanide copper deposit.

But don't think that just because there's cyanide in there, it's dangerous. There's a small amount of cyanide and it's a very high ph level making it safe for the technicians.

Now, the crazy frigates,

science fiction bubbles mean that there's copper being deposited

and I think of everything like a body shop. This step is the primer on your metal

that gives a solid foundation for the filler. And by the way, the bubbles that's hydrogen gas forming in the solution.

Now, you can see the wires that hold the parts up while they're electro plated too.

But these wires don't just serve a single purpose of spacing out the parts and holding them where they need to be. They also help complete the electrical circuit that's necessary for electroplating.

Finally, this two hour long bath of acid copper plates, a thick layer onto the metal. This new co

is used as a restoration tool. It allows the parts to be buffed and polished, removing any imperfections in the surface, creating a foundation for a perfect chrome finish.

But this is where our process ends making the finish that we will allow to weather and age to fit the character of our project. Class six.

Ah, nice.

That looks killer.

But one final rent. What have we done?

All right. Well, there you go. We've got a beautiful, unique and custom grill for our 49 Chevy.

Well, you guys can't come down here and become part of the process like we did,

but you can certainly send your parts in and have them copper plated. And remember this, it costs about a third of what it would run you to have the same exact parts chrome plated

man. That looks awesome

up next. Class six goes from this to this stick around.

Hey, welcome back to trucks. Well, it's great to see that advanced plating has survived the flood and they're back better than ever. And it's no secret we've shown you before. Those guys are capable of the finest chrome plating in the world. But they're also pretty darn creative check out our grill. This is fully assembled and man, it looks cool and because of the fact that all they do is plate this and ship it, they don't spend the time surfacing and polishing. Well, it cuts the cost do about a third of typical chrome plating and just the short amount of time that we've had it. It's already started to change color and oxidize it in these cool different patterns.

If you leave this alone, it's gonna age way beyond its years. It's gonna give us this very cool effect, but you can polish it to a high gloss lock, the gloss in with a clear coat and let it be bright polished copper. Now, these two panels are original to the truck and you can see if you look a little closer that some of the scratches and chips and dings. Well, they left them in and all this is gonna do is add to the character of the vehicle. So if you're doing a fa truck like we are, this is perfect. If you're doing a rat rod, it's an alternative. Or if you're doing a high end custom and you want a really cool alternative look to chrome plating, you might wanna check out advanced plating, get him to do you some copper. Let's get this stuff on the truck.

Now, if you've ever worked on a vehicle that's 50 plus years old. Well, you know that the fasters are usually fine thread and they usually flat head. Both of those mean a recipe for disaster. Fortunately, for us, this truck had been kind of restored before. So all the fasters came loose with just a little bit of persuasion.

Now, the filler panel goes behind the bumper arms,

of course, followed by the bumper that mounts onto the front of the bumper arms. heck they even copper plated, the carriage bolts that hold it in place and we're just mocking this stuff up. So we're not worried too much about a proper fit and finish. We just want to see what it looked like.

Now, this shiny and polished copper grill may look a little over the top for our 49 Chevy with the

finna paint job,

but park this thing outside for a few months and it'll transform and look like the statue of Liberty or an old copper roof.

Then it'll blend in a little bit more closely with the overall character of this old pickup.

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

Hey guys, check out our refurbished and upgraded 235 in line six. It's going back in project class six. This is fresh from the guys at horsepower and has been upgraded including dual exhaust and dual carburetors. But we're also getting away from that sloppy three on the tree standard shift that came in the truck and move into an automatic.

So we decided to go with the 700 R four we picked up from monster transmission. Now, not only is this unit more than capable of handling the power output from that 235. More importantly, it's gonna work closely with the narrow torque range and power band of that old engine and the truck won't seem like such a dog when we drive it.

We also picked up their bracket kit TV, cable trans

mount, even a lock up kit as well as one of their torque converters that's pretty close to a stock range, but here's the real issue. How do you make a modern transmission, connect with an antique engine?

Here's how

we're gonna use this adapter kit that we got from Benson's transmission adapters. This is their speed gems two kit that features a steel adapter plate that has both the bolt pattern for the seven

100 R four and turbo 350 transmissions as well as the 235 block pattern.

It ships with a bolt kit,

their own design flex plate and a stagger bolt starter. Now, what this system allows us to do is to utilize the benefits of a modern 700 R four automatic overdrive and still retain the cool factor of an in line six vintage engine. So

thanks Benson.

Now, before too long, we're gonna need to pick out a set of tires for our diesel tow rig project super duly. And if you find yourself in the same situation,

you might want to take a look at the Mickey Thompson Baha A TZ radios.

They feature a fairly tight shred pattern which should give you a quiet and smooth ride on the highway while still providing a decent amount of traction during the occasional off road excursion.

You should also get plenty of miles out of these things.

These 2 35 85 sixteens are load range E tires, meaning they're designed and built to carry lots of weight and they're perfect for towing.

They're also available in the raised white letter

or the black sidewalk.

Hey guys, check out our new retractable combination electric cord and air hose reel that we picked up from Power Tool box.net.

But the cool thing about it is how easy it is to plumb into our existing garage pack. Piping.

Removal of the original fitting is easy, simply loosen up the connection, push the blue pipe towards the fitting, then pull it away from it to remove it.

Installation of the new fitting is just as easy, make sure the arrows are lined up. The connection is snug and install the pipe.

And if you're adding on to your existing garage pack system, you can pick up these extra parts at Power toolbox.net.

Our Advent air filter finishes up the system.

Then we'll add an air fitting to the end of our air hose.

Plug it into the quick connect.

Now, if you need to add a drop to an existing span of tubing, they offer a fixture that clamps under the line.

Insert the drill bit, drill out the hole you need,

then you can add your drop, it clamps right on the line. It's got an O

ring seal.

You got a couple of options. You can add another filter, airline, whatever you need.

Hey guys, thanks for watching trucks. If you got any questions about any of the stuff you've seen on today's show, go to Power Block tv.com.