-Oh, my god. -Oh, my gosh!
[Bill] Its been all hands on deck...
Ta da, there you have it!
[Bill] ...on this truck and tanker.
[Ryan] There it goes!
Always like the excitement around here.
We're finally ready to start the tanker itself.
[Ryan] They did this was empty, right? [laughs]
-[Bill] This your Rolls, huh? -This is it.
I want you to tear everything out of this car, and make it perfect.
Man.
We got some work ahead of us.
A little more of a job than we anticipated, but ain't nothing
we can't handle.
[Carlos] Classic look, new style.
We got one other thing to show you.
Woah! Look at that!
it's down there, ain't it?
I'm Bill Carlton.
I built my first truck when I was 16.
And ever since, me and my guys have been out here creating with our hands.
Building the biggest, lowest, baddest custom trucks and cars in the game.
People don't come here for what they need...
...they come here for what they want.
This... is Texas Metal.
[Bill] Okay, we got lots to do on that tanker, man.
Got a lot more to go.
I wish John would come in so we could talk about it.
[door opens]
-You rang? -Man, you got a buzzer back there?
-A John buzzer? -I need one of them.
No, how did you know I have that?
[all laughing]
All right, what do we got to do?
Man, we got a lot of work done on the semi so far.
We got all the air suspension on there.
You know, the independent front suspension, big four-link in the back.
The control arms.
We got the shocks, we got all that handled.
We drop the engine in the truck.
We got the engine mounted.
We had to cut the firewall, make it fit,
rebuild the firewall.
-[John] Got the stacks on it? -It's all stacked up.
Nice, nice.
I saw it sitting in the shop the other day
-That thing's lookin' mean. -[Bill] Yeah.
You know, we finished the steering.
We got it off. We got it powder coated.
Painted engine.
But we still got a long way to go.
-All right, what do we got? -The console needs to be built,
so we're gonna need some material for that.
New carpet, headliner, seats.
Freshen it all up.
-Yeah. -Do our thing to it.
Let me know what materials you want the colors.
-I'll get that all ordered out. -[John] All right.
You know the front bumper, we got to get that all mocked up.
So we're gonna need some steel for that.
The truck's lookin' good, we still got a big, big job
out there on that tanker, right?
You know, the old air brakes, the old springs in it, definitely not gonna work.
We're gonna cut all that out.
Start with a brand new, 10,000 pound trailer axle with electric brakes on it.
So anybody can get in that truck,
and can drive it and not have to worry about...
-...sliding their truck sideways, right? -Right.
Brand new four-link.
Huge four-link, big bags, so it'll handle good, ride good,
-and, of course, be able to... get low. -Yeah.
[Carlos] We're gonna have a lot of airline coming for that.
Man, there's a ton of airline.
-That thing with big stacks laid out on the air, just-- -Big wheels.
-Everything about it. -Man.
They're gonna be blown away.
It's gonna represent their company, our company.
-It's gonna look good... -Yeah.
...riding in the parades.
You ready to get it? I'm ready.
[Carlos] I've been ready.
-I'm ready. -Let's do this.
-All right. -All right, man.
Come and get it. Oh, yeah.
What're we doin'... How many times are we doin' it? [laughs]
[Bill] I think this is the oldest tool in the shop.
It looked like this when I was a kid.
You know, after all the custom parts we made for this tanker,
we can't just be havin' that factory bumper.
This is the bumper that came on the tanker.
It just takes away from the whole design of the whole truck.
So I had Jessie burn me some plate, 12 inch by 7 foot.
And we're gonna roll it just a little bit
to give that nice curvature to the front of the truck.
Dang!
[Bill sighs]
[Jamie] Man, I think we're good with that.
What we'll do is transfer this onto a plate.
And that would be the bottom of it.
So that's gonna hold everything nice and straight.
Plasma?
[Bill] It takes a very steady hand.
You want me to show you a little trick?
-See that white connect? -[Jamie] Yeah.
Drag your hand now, it's super slick.
The piece we rolled is not perfectly consistent.
So we just cut one side,
flip the drop piece,
to replicate the other side.
That makes a perfect template.
Ta da! There you have it.
Here's our nice radius.
It's the same on both sides.
So now get everything ground down and cleaned up.
It's gonna be a nice, clean surface to weld to.
So you can see a piece I've just gone cutting and cleaning.
Add it to the piece that Bill and I rolled,
you can kinda start to see already,
it's starting to shape up like a front bumper.
That looks pretty good.
We're gonna make that work.
One of the last steps for the front bumper is capping the top.
I want it to fit the curvature of the body,
and around the grills, so it looks like it was made that way.
But right now, I'm just making the tip of it out of chipboard,
so we can transfer it over to our three-sixteenths thick metal.
All right, we have to finetune it
once it's metal, you know what I mean?
[Jamie] Before we cut our three-sixteenths top plate for the bumper,
we're gonna go ahead and make a template out of sheet metal.
It's more rigid,
it's gonna give us a better placement
for exact marks we need to cut.
So we can get corner to corner, and get it tight on those fenders.
-[Bill sighs] -A little more, huh?
[Bill] It's gotta go this way a little bit.
It's a lot easier to modify the 20 gauge
other than modifying the three-sixteenths.
We made a perfect template out of the 20 gauge,
so now I'm gonna trace it out on the three-sixteenths.
So we only have to do that one time.
About to do a little test fit, which we already did with the templates.
We know it's gonna fit, so we know it's gonna look good.
So we're about to tack this piece in.
Splitting the body perfectly.
We got that perfect quarter-inch gap all the way around.
Our next step is chop the sides.
Cap them in.
Do the final welding, sanding.
Ready to paint.
[Jamie] Good job, buddy.
Gold star of the week.
[chuckles]
Come on a little bit, right there.
[Bill] Ooh!
It ain't quite as heavy as a 40 foot,
but it's got some weight to it.
You know, while we're finishing the cab,
we're finally ready to start the biggest part of this project...
...the tanker itself.
Man, trying to get this big old thing in there,
for some reason, somebody thought it was a good idea
to put a lip right outside that door.
We're getting it in that shop one way or another.
[Ryan] We're gonna watch it roll over.
[Bill] I hear ya! [laughs]
All right, gotta make sure I don't buckle this.
-It's buckling the stand. -[Ryan] Wanna scoot it?
[Ryan] What if we put it on a dolly?
[Bill laughing]
-[Ryan] Push it my way too. -[Bill] I am.
[Ryan] All right, hold up!
Make sure you got an eye on this thing.
If it starts going, get out of the way.
[Bill] Yeah, just let her fall.
Here we go.
[Ryan] It's gotta stay straight now.
Hey! Hey, hold up.
[Bill] How about... How... How far we got?
[Ryan] Man, we got 6 inches until it hits that blue box on top of the roof.
[Bill] Is it in the hole?
[Ryan] All right, you need to go back just a little bit.
-Here you go. -Yeah, that's it.
[Ryan] Scary?
[Bill] Yeah, I'm nervous around it.
[man] You got it, you're good.
-[Ryan] Come my way. -[Bill] Good. Fix it, come down and around.
Nothing behind me?
Might have a little slide going on.
-[Ryan] It may take 'em. -[Bill] There it goes!
Hands off the rail!
[Ryan] Coming. Right there, that's it.
Man, if it don't remind you of the barbecue pit truck.
[Ryan] It does.
[Bill] That was a close one.
Always like the excitement around here.
[Ryan whistles] It's not bad.
You know, before we can make the air suspension on this '51 tanker trailer
with this heavy-duty four-link setup,
I asked Ryan to tear out all the old suspension first.
And we just got the rear-end cut out of the trailer.
We're gonna lift it up.
Roll the rear-end outta here.
Thank you, sir.
I'm gonna get all these brackets off the frame.
Ah, yes, it came right off.
And just get ready to start building my hangers
and doing some suspension work.
Hey, they did say this was empty, right?
[laughs]
Man, that's gotta be forced off.
That sucks.
They put a lot of weld on that.
I found a split where the frame cracked.
And that's why they have all these scab plates here.
So I'm just gonna take it completely out
and start fresh.
The scab plate is just used to join two pieces of metal together.
So we decided to cut it out, put brand new rails in there.
By doing that, it ensures 100% certainty
that this thing is gonna be perfectly sound whenever it gets on the road.
So I'm usin' these plates
to just keep this frame rail straight with this rail.
That way when I weld it and grind it, it just looks like one solid piece.
Got my rails tacked in.
And now I'm just gonna go cut my crossmembers, stud them in there,
put a little weld on 'em,
and go grab that axle out there.
So those old rusty rails are out of the picture.
It looked like crap and it's not really in our best judgement
to let something like that leave.
When it comes to doing patchwork,
it's way better to take the time and do it right.
And ensure ourselves that it's not gonna come back
and we're not gonna be replacing or fixing
something that we've already had our hands on in the past.
[dog howling]
-[Ryan] You tell 'em. -[dog barks]
[sizzling]
We're ready to build the air suspension
on this '53 tanker trailer.
Starting with the heavy duty links.
All right, so we got our four-link brackets made up.
We'll get some good, hard measurements.
And get some tabs tacked on to the rear end.
As of right now, it looks pretty good.
We're at four and a half.
By mocking out the link, I'll be able to replicate the ones for the other side.
Now that we got it to this point,
All we gotta do is add some tacks,
and then we'll transfer it to the truck.
Throw that there for right now.
Gettin' jiggy with it.
I like to put this washer on the inside there
before I put my Heim on.
That way, after it ever gets painted or powder-coated,
it still fits in there without having to wedge it in there
and chip all your powder coat off.
I don't remember where I learned that at.
It's where I need it to be.
Gonna pass.
[beeping]
-Freddie! -Bill.
-Pleasure meetin' ya. -Hey, nice to meet you.
This your Rolls, huh?
This is it, 1964 Rolls-Royce.
Man, it's a beautiful car, I mean that body style is just iconic.
I mean, when you see that coming round the corner,
you know, "Hey, that's a Rolls."
So why a '64 Rolls?
Well, I owned a 64 Rolls-Royce before,
had to sell it to keep my business going.
And I always promised myself when I made it,
I'm gonna buy another '64.
And there's only one guy I wanted to do the job, and that's you.
Man, I appreciate that.
You know, you can see a couple of issues with it.
You know, is that what you're coming in for, just paint?
Ground up restoration.
I want you to tear everything out of this car and make it perfect.
[Bill] So Fred, you want us to take this handmade car
and even make it a little more handmade.
-It'll be Bill handmade car. -[chuckling] All right.
I know you can make this drive...
...and run like a new Rolls.
[Bill] We built a lot of vehicles over the years.
but this is the first time we've ever built a Rolls.
You know, these things were classy and fast for the times,
with a 6 liter V8 giving it 220 horsepower.
Any Rolls is a hand built car.
But when it comes to totally tearing it apart
we're gonna have to handmake a lot of parts to make this project work.
You know, one of the first things we gotta do then
is just rip out this old suspension.
Got to have you riding on air to have it comfortable,
-you know, like a new one. -Yeah, yes.
It's not gonna sit all the way down on the ground,
it would just take away from this iconic body style.
You know, the wheels and tires, you have to pick the right one for this car.
I'm leavin' all of that up to you.
[Bill] You know, I see a couple things concerning, you know, body work
popping up on a couple spots.
Probably need to blast it and really see what we're working with.
There's no question that you're gonna have to do body work on it.
You know, just looking at this car, it's a 1964,
and it's definitely showing its age.
You know, the body work's popping up.
You can tell it's gonna need a lot of metal work.
What are you thinkin' as far as paint colors?
[Fred] I like that new Porsche blue where the silver is.
-So you want it two-tone? -I want it two-tone.
[Fred] The two-tone's important on this car,
because Rolls-Royce always was two-tone back in those days.
They made a few all white ones,
but the two-tone made the body style stand out.
[Bill] What you got in the hood?
What you workin' with under there?
Well, I think it's still the stock '64 Rolls motor.
[Bill] Oh, man, it's a little rough under here.
-Afraid you got a boat? -[Fred] No.
Well, you got a boat anchor.
[both laugh]
You know, putting a bit rumbling engine in here
definitely isn't the way to go.
It would take away from this iconic car.
I'm gonna leave the motor up to you, Bill.
-All right. -You put what you think is best for me
to be a nice, cruisin' automobile.
[Bill] Out with the old and definitely in with some new.
Interior on something like this is really important.
So what you got goin' on in here?
Man, right-hand drive, huh?
[Fred] Got to switch that over immediately
-to lefthand drive. -[Bill] Yeah.
It looks like the dash is, you know, mirrored.
So I don't think it'd be much trouble to be able to do that.
[Fred] You know, what's iconic about a Rolls is the woodwork in it.
And you see the seatback, wood trays,
that was the thing to have.
It looks like the wood's in good shape,
but as far as, like, the rest of it.
I don't think there's no saving this, right?
I agree with you.
[Bill] You know the interior is, like, half of this job.
It's a big car with a lot of interior.
And a lot of details are gonna have to go in this.
I mean, you always compare to a Rolls interior,
this is actually a Rolls interior.
[Fred] And a Rolls is a Rolls is a Rolls.
[Bill laughing] Yeah.
Everything else in here? 100% brand new.
You know, new seats, carpet, door panels.
Get rid of the rag top.
Maybe even put in a new starry light headliner in...
-Oh, that's-- -...like on the new Rolls.
That'd be great.
[Bill] Basically have that new Rolls feel in this '64.
[Fred] It's why I'm here.
I've built a lot of cars in my life, I want this one to be the masterpiece.
Man, we'll definitely get you hooked up with that.
Can't wait to sit in the backseat of this car,
and have somebody cruise me along.
[laughs] There you go!
Well, let's go make it official.
Okay, buddy.
[Bill] You know, I can totally relate to having to sell
a vehicle to make payroll or buy that next part of your business.
You know, whatever the case may be.
I've been in that same boat.
But Fred's new Rolls, he ain't gettin' rid of that.
He made it.
Of course, I say this quite a bit,
but it's a big challenge.
We don't know what's underneath all that paint and body work that's there.
We're gonna take it apart and blast it,
surprise, we'll see what comes in.
But one of the biggest challenges is in the interior.
Makin' this car look like, and feel like,
and smell like a brand new Rolls,
that's coming with it on that.
You know, Rolls has always been setting the standards
for the rest of the car industry.
You know it's always been one off, one at a time,
hand built parts and pieces.
It's made with pride, and, just, made with that passion.
And that's exactly what we're gonna do here.
Hand make every part and piece with pride also.
[Carlos] What're you waitin' for tonight, fancy mustard or what?
Right? Looking to see if I see anything good in here.
Looks pretty rough.
Man.
We got some work ahead of us.
He wants to be sittin' in here and feel like a 2022.
Classic look, new style.
[Bill] We're gonna touch on every point of this car.
-We got a little bit of wood in the interior. -[Carlos] Yeah.
[Bill] Everything else, you're gonna get.
-I got some parts to look up. -[Bill laughs] Yeah.
A lot of parts to be looking up.
I mean seats, door panels, dash...
...carpet, headliner.
We're gonna weld up the ragtop.
Everything.
And we're gonna add the new technology in it too?
[Bill] Absolutely.
Anything that's cool, we wanna put in here.
It's right-hand drive,
just because that's the car he found,
but he does want it left-hand drive.
Well, if I own this car, I wouldn't be driving.
I'd be sitting right here.
-Right? [laughs] -Dude. [laughs]
This is where I'd be sittin' back,
enjoying a nice cocktail being driven around.
Well, he wants to look at the guy drivin' on the lefthand side.
[laughs]
[Bill] You know, findin' the right wheels and tires.
[Carlos] The vintage but the newer?
[Bill] Absolutely.
This isn't just something you call up the local parts house
and tell 'em to deliver it.
So I'm gonna have to try to get some contacts over the seas
-to see what we can find on that. -[clicks tongue]
I got faith in you.
So does my mom.
As far as the suspension goes, are we air-riding down to the ground?
What're you gonna do to this?
[Bill] No, we're not trying to get it all the way on the ground
or anything like that.
It will have some adjustability,
but the main thing is ride quality.
-You want it to ride on a silver cloud, right? - [Carlos] Yeah.
And as far as the paint goes, are you doing a two-tone
or are you gonna stay single?
[Bill] Man, I think we're gonna have to do two-tone on this.
I mean, this body style, it's made for two-tone.
[Carlos] They actually have hand paint-striping now
from the factory.
Do we need to find somebody to maybe come in and take care of that for us?
[Bill] Yeah, for sure.
We really want the best of the best in here.
You know, under the hood,
we don't really want something really loud and obnoxious.
So we're stayin' away from the superchargers?
[Bill] Not for this project.
He ain't tryin' to burn the tires off.
He wants somethin' quiet, but still has a lot of power.
Yeah, we're gonna need a lot of power for this big boat.
Most definitely.
We're about to see how good the new parts guy is on this one.
Well...
I wasn't born when this was made, so...
We're definitely gonna have to see what's out there.
So I'll get with John.
We'll put a game-plan together,
I'll find what I can find,
and we'll go from there.
Sounds good man, I'm ready to get at it.
Let's do it.
I'll call your driver.
[sizzling]
[Bill] No matter how classy this Rolls once was,
most of that class was from long ago.
So we need to tear it all down before we can build it back up again.
You know, from my experience the more handmade a vehicle is
the way more work it is to tear it down.
[John] Hmm.
Guess what?
I am gonna touch everything, so... [chuckles wryly]
Guess first thing is we're gonna find how this seat comes out.
We wanna get all of this outta here
to preserve what we can.
They're hand built so, who knows how the hands built 'em.
Stuck over here.
There's a bolt right there and I can't get to it.
I ain't even got the first piece off this dang thing yet.
I was excited but now I hate it.
Guess what? The trunk smells just as bad as the inside of the car.
[laughs]
Still no room for activities.
All the trim of the car is made of wood.
And it's neat to look back and see all the effort that went into these things.
This window trim is one solid piece of wood.
This is probably one of the most impressive pieces
that I've seen in the car so far.
We may need that for later purposes.
Don't let there be anything alive in here and we'll be good.
Kid gloves still need to be used somewhat.
You don't want to just go tearing into it and tear everything apart.
I wanna make sure I get this thing nice and safe.
So they can get to cuttin' on it.
[Ryan] All right, so John pulled all of the interior
out of this car.
I've been summoned to separate it,
tear it down the rest of the way.
So that's what we're gonna do.
Dude, this is gonna take a year.
Man, technology's come a long way.
That emergency system is just, like, insane.
It yanks on there, puts tension on this.
And then it pulls that this way.
And that arm goes that way, and that arm goes that way.
I'm serious.
I'm not makin' that up.
Pretty cool standin' underneath these old cars...
...and seein' how far we've come.
Still cool that we're gonna do away with it completely
and never look at it ever again.
Cool, but start fresh.
Clean slate and make our own stuff,
and see if maybe we might be able to engineer something as cool as this.
This big ol' grill.
The emblem.
You see all that, you just know you're in the money.
Well, not this one.
I mean, 'cause this one's pretty janky,
but we're gonna make it nice again.
Look at that.
Been on there for 97 years.
Now that we have the body off the frame,
we're gonna send it out to media blast.
Now it's time to find out exactly how much work we got in front of us.
[saw whirring]
At the same time, Ryan's finishing up the suspension
on the '51 tanker,
John's gonna get going on the interior.
All right, it's time to build a center console.
We've gotta have room for our shifter.
We'll make a boot for that.
We've got a air ride control for the truck,
couple cup holders,
'cause gotta have some place to put your drink when you're riding around.
So what I did is I just put a stop in here
so I can set this in the truck,
and I won't have to worry about these things popping up.
And it'll keep the same height
so that when the console is done,
these will still fit in there.
Basically just gonna take these things,
carry them over to the truck,
start placing it around,
figure out how we're gonna get it all put together.
So, just making me a template of the floor here.
Once I get the template of the floor,
I start laying out the pieces for the console.
Once I got those laid out,
I'll have a profile for the side of the console,
and I can start with that profile and build from there.
Now that I got my chipboard template all lined out where it needs to be,
transfer it over to a piece of quarter-inch,
turn this into a router template.
We'll take that router template, make a couple pieces,
and we'll have most of a console.
To the router!
That's that.
All right.
Then I'm gonna glue them together.
Nail them up.
Now we're doing that one.
All right, we got all of our pieces in place.
Do a little bit of mud work on this, it'll almost be ready to wrap.
The center console for the tanker is all done and ready to go.
So next step, get it wrapped, get it in the truck,
and kick it out the door.
Now that we have the four-link on the tanker,
Jessie's gonna burn out some plates
so Ryan can get going on the lower bag brackets.
[Ryan] Tack that here onto this lower bag plate.
We'll tack the other one the same way.
On a project like this,
obviously, everything is gonna be a one-off part.
This isn't anything that we can just go grab off the shelf.
This is basically, like, the coolest part of the job,
is getting to just build something from nothing,
seeing everything come to life and seeing everything work.
It's just like a little puzzle
or like a big puzzle, actually.
So, I'm taking this square right here and just kinda running it down
and just making sure everything lines up right.
This one's kind of free-floated right now.
I can move it around as I like.
My spacing is never gonna change.
This one looks good.
I got it pretty much exactly where I wanted it.
I'll tack this one in, and our bag brackets will be done.
[whistling]
You know, back in the day, this tanker was made for hauling heavy loads.
But now, it's really just for show.
Either way, this truck is still a heavy piece of equipment.
With all this weight, we're gonna use a lot bigger airbag
than we normally use.
So right now, Ryan's finishing up
the heavy-duty upper bag mount.
And so, we're about to make our upper bag brackets now.
We'll use these two two-by-threes to brace the top of it,
keep it very strong.
And we'll take our D plates,
we'll get them here, we'll center them.
We'll figure out our measurement
and light it up and then chop off our end.
That way, everything flows with the bottom.
So after we get done with that too,
I can make me a plate,
just give it some character, do something here,
or figure something out.
That band is cooked down.
So, you can see we've got our upper bag bracket tree made up here.
We're gonna get it welded, tack it up into the trailer,
and weld it all the rest of the way up.
You know, this could have been anything.
This could have been very simple,
or this could have been way more over the top.
But this is the best part of fabricating,
is I get to use my imagination
and just come up with something what I would want in my own vehicle.
[Bill] Man, that looks cool.
The '64 Rolls is back from media blast,
and just as I suspected,
it's bad.
It's real, real bad.
Because I had a feeling it was gonna be this bad,
I called in a old friend,
a fabricator with skills to rebuild a Rolls-Royce,
my buddy, Brandon Sisco.
-Hey, Bill. -Man, Sisco. How you doing, man?
-Good, good. -My son, Boston.
Nice to meet you, man. Nice to meet you.
-And that's the helper you were telling me about? -[Brandon] Yeah.
That's why I decided to bring him with me.
-You got him qualified? -He's certified.
He's been doing this since he was, like, five years old, so...
-[Bill] All right, all right. -He's good.
[Bill] You like sheet metal work?
-[Boston] Yep. -[Bill] Well, good.
'Cause there's a lot to do on here, right?
Yeah, it looks like it's been sitting to pasture for a long time.
[Bill] You know, this car was bought out of Beverly Hills.
So you were thinking, you know,
we were gonna get a pristine Rolls-Royce
and just modify it, do what we need to do.
But no, we just got in the middle of a big mess right now.
-[Brandon] It's more like Beverly Hillbillies. -Right. [laughs]
You know, one good thing, we're not worried
about factory body mounts under here,
'cause even those are damaged.
So, we're gonna build a full chassis for this,
so it doesn't necessarily have to go back with replicating
the factory body mounts or anything.
So I need your guys' help on this.
Little more of a job than we anticipated,
but ain't nothing we can't handle.
I think that's every job we take in.
[chuckles] Every one overly exaggerated, under-anticipated.
But I know you guys can handle it, man.
I know I got the right team on the job.
-All right, man. See ya. -[Bill] All right, man.
Let's see what you got.
Looks like some of the pasture's still in it.
All right, so we got that piece off now,
and just like I thought,
there's a third layer we didn't see before.
Instead of having two pieces to repair, we have three pieces.
I've come to realize that rush repair is just an ongoing process
until you get down to the good metal.
And sometimes that good metal isn't there,
so you have to replace the whole part.
Well, this side looks even worse than that side.
[chuckles] You can actually count the layers like tree rings in here
of all the repairs.
As each layer would rotten through,
they would just layer another piece over it.
Nobody ever cut off the bad spot.
Hey, come over here. Check this out.
Those were original drain holes.
If you push this back, you can see that's an original drain plug
that got covered over with somebody's repair.
-Nobody ever cleaned it. -[Boston chuckles]
[Boston] Let's keep going.
Back in the day, these cars were hand-built
by some of the best craftsmen in the business.
They'd be rolling in their grave now
if they saw how people were repairing their dream work.
I'm literally pulling these panels off
with my fingers.
So whoever did the last repair on this,
he used pop for this,
no welds, no, no nothing underneath.
It's a very, uh, low-budget way of attaching a panel.
I think we're both down to the original metal.
Yeah.
So now, where the phalanges are off of these main braces...
-See where the edge of the phalange is? -Yeah.
Cut straight through,
and then cut up to the floor,
-about a half-inch down from the floor. -All right.
[Brandon] It's embarrassing to a fabricator
to see somebody go back over your work
and just kinda cobble it up like this.
All right, now I need a minute to evaluate what's next.
[chuckles] Now that I can see everything.
All the layers have been taken off,
so I can see where to start at the good metal
which, there's very little left still, but there is some.
We've got some reference points
of where the new rocker needs to be
at the back of these flat phalanges here that we left.
So I take some measurements on those,
make a couple patterns,
and then, uh, keep this from happening again
to the next guy that comes down the line
30 or 40 years from now to repair my work.
He won't laugh at me like I do these guys.
You know, the '64 Rolls-Royce is definitely what I call "a ground-up build."
And right now, we're at the basement.
Sisco and his boy, Boston, are gonna add back
all that integrity into those rockers.
You know, it's a lot of work,
and you probably won't notice it when it's done,
but we can't do anything until it's done.
[Brandon] Yeah, look at it. Lined right up.
So we got the new rocker panels fitted to the car.
They fit the floorboards. They fit the inner floor bracing.
We're pretty happy how they fit right now,
so we're gonna go ahead and get them into place, finish welding them up,
and move on to the outside rockers.
So, working with my son is great.
He's been out with me in the shop since he was two, three years old,
'cause I never told my boys, any of them,
to not play with any of my tools.
I would show them how to turn it on,
show them how to use it,
show them the proper safety.
I didn't even start doing what I do until I was 15,
so he's got about a 15-year head start on me.
So I can't wait to see what it's gonna be like the next 15 years.
Oh, yeah, lot better.
100 times better.
We got the main braces welded to the new panel.
It's pretty solid, but it's not welded to the floor yet.
So we're going to hammer down the floor
to match the new flat panel we just welded in.
So as I tap it down,
he's gonna go ahead and throw a couple of welds on there.
And I'll move down, and I'll just keep hammering it down until he gets it flush
all the way across the bottom of the floor.
So now that we got this panel in,
pretty happy with how much it strengthened up the bottom of the car
and how straight it looks now
and how it fits real nice and tight.
Door sill plates are savable.
But we need to replace all of this outside rocker piece.
So we have to cut all these spot welds out
and get this old, rusty chunk off of here.
So, using the air chisel to take those spot welds off
causes a lot of waviness in the metal.
You can't really hammer and dolly it with all the welds in the way,
so I knocked those off with a grinder real quick.
Then I'll go through with my hammer and dolly and straighten up this edge
to the proper shape that it needs to be at
for the new panel to bolt to it.
Got some pretty big rust repair to do
in this front corner.
I don't even have a word to describe how bad some of this stuff looks.
So I think I'm gonna go ahead and cut this chunk out of here too
and just fabricate a new front piece,
as well as a new back piece for this corner right here.
That is all bungled, so that's another person
that prepared right over the top
of someone's else's body color with steel.
It's like a ham sandwich. It's really weird.
So, I will be also cutting this corner off now
and making a new panel here along with this.
Let's dig into this center pillar and see what it's like.
So working on a project like this,
you really can be overwhelmed by the entire project at once.
You really have to focus on the structural part of it first,
get yourself a good base to start with.
[Bill] You know, when I was first getting into this business,
I never thought we'd be building a custom Rolls-Royce.
But here we are in the early building foundation stages.
You know, there's many, many more stages to go
and many stages after those stages.
This build's gonna be one of those to remember.
But as one begins, another one is almost on the road.
Ryan's finishing up those last bits on that '51 tanker.
Everything nice that we've done is being just taken away
by all this crap that's left on here.
We're not gonna let it leave like that,
So come up with a real simple plan, fast, easy.
Take some one-by-one
and run it down this whole section here.
And then we can take some sheet metal and bend it,
get a nice contour,
and then we can rivet it in up here as well.
And you'll never see any of this ever again.
You'll just see two smooth, nice panels coming down,
and it will just hide all this stuff here.
Here comes the javelin.
[softly] Yeah!
So I put this one-by-one up in there
just so I can see where it's gonna be.
I made some marks so I can come in, grind it up
so I got a nice, clean surface to weld to.
So we just got our metal rolled.
You can see we got our contour that we want to work with.
We'll use our template.
We'll transfer all of our lines that we've made on the small template here
to the bigger sheet.
Once we have the brakes in it,
we can throw it up underneath the trailer
and see what we got.
All right, 45.
You know, doing this sometimes,
you know, it does take a little bit longer.
It does take a little bit more effort.
You know, but at the end of the day,
when you step back and look at the finished product,
it's always better to go the extra mile
and take pride in your work.
Thank you, sir.
Now that we got all our pieces made,
all we gotta do now is trim them to fit the trailer.
So on the passenger side of the trailer,
there's a bunch of hook-ups and other kind of stuff over there.
So we're gonna trim around all that stuff
to where we can slide these things in there
and have the nicest, cleanest look as possible.
All right, so we got our panels in place.
We wanna make something that covers this void right here,
keep air from wanting to go in there,
make these things wanna shake.
We'll just take our chipboard,
throw it on up in there,
and also kinda clean up all this back here
that we don't want anybody to see.
Yeah, that looks better.
I'm just gonna transfer it to some metal,
and bingo bango.
I got an extra pair of hands.
Using a straightedge makes it much easier.
They have, like, the straightest lineup you possibly can get
and really no cleanup.
It's a no-brainer.
All right, now that I got it transferred, cut out,
everything looks good,
we'll take it over there and throw it up there.
If it fits, it shifts.
Like a glove, love it.
[Brandon] I never do anything the same twice,
so I'm just always learning.
That's the original undercoating
on the original panel.
I started off building model cars, actually.
And I never built the model car that came in the box.
We would get three or four kits,
and I would just mix and match them all together.
All right, we're good.
Got into high school, got to thinking about starting to drive and things like that.
My dad said, "If you want something to drive when you turn 16,
you're gonna start to look now
and get something and build it yourself."
At the time, I had never even changed a spark plug or nothing.
I was just, [laughs] just doing model cars.
So I had big dreams of this big, big, giant step-side Chevy truck.
The way I bought that was I got a lamb, a sheep,
and I raised it, and I sold it at the fair
and made a pretty good penny on it.
My dad said that some family members had a '76 Chevy step-side
that needed a lot of work for 600 bucks.
And I started working on it at 15 years old.
I'm 47 now.
I'm really pushing myself to become the best at everything I can.
All right, so everything's done with the trailer.
It's all painted, powder-coated and everything.
It's time for assembly.
Start off with our airbags.
I've learned how to work by myself over the years.
Oh.
That's why you always grab two nuts.
Whoa, whoa, no.
So now that the bags and the tank and everything
is starting to come together, it's all mounted.
But this will go into the tank and it will give me a supply out to my valves.
It's a little water separator to keep the water
out of your bags and everything.
And then you got your pressure switch on the other side
which tells compressors when to turn off and turn on.
And this will go to my pack A, which is also getting mounted on here,
along with our battery and breaker
and everything else.
Yeah.
So now we got compressors in tank,
we got bags,
I can mount my valves now.
And then once we get our valves mounted,
then we can run some air lines.
Man, it's been all hands on deck on this truck and tanker.
But we're almost there.
Air lines, new frame covers, the stacks...
You know, getting this 12-valve Cummins running,
and we're ready to give this one back.
[thunder rumbles]
-Hey, Bill, how's it going? -How y'all doing?
Good to see you, man.
Bill called us and said our truck is ready.
We're so stoked about it.
We brought Lynn Wallis down, the owner of the company.
She trusted us to bring the truck down
and put, you know, Bill and his team's spin on it.
-My butt's riding on the line. -[both laugh]
You know, a while back, Larry and Matt came down
and dropped a truck off to us.
The plan was to make it fit in with your fleet.
-[Larry] Absolutely. -This is his special one, though,
'cause we're gonna take it out into the communities where we operate
and take it in parades.
The other trucks are working trucks.
They haul our fuel.
-[Bill] Right. -But this one's gonna be a showcase.
I know you're gonna like what we did.
So you guys ready to check it out?
-We're ready. Let's go. -Yes, sir. Absolutely.
-Oh my gosh! -Oh my gosh!
-Oh, wow. Look at that! -[Matt] It is so awesome.
-[Lynn] Unbelievable. -[Larry] Oh, wow.
[Lynn] Look at the wheels.
-[Larry] That's awesome. -[Lynn] The stacks, Larry?
-[Bill] What do you think, Larry? -[Lynn] Oh, it's gorgeous.
-I'm dumbfounded, man. I'm speechless. -[Matt laughs]
-Can we get in it? -[all laughing]
Lynn's reaction was priceless.
She loved it, which was a good relief for us.
Her family's gonna be shocked when they actually all see it together.
-[Lynn] It's gorgeous. -You guys knocked it out of the park.
-Beautiful. -I think they're liking it.
-Oh, I know. -[Lynn] The colors...
[Bill] One of the first things you see when you're walking to it is the front bumper.
We had to get rid of that old channel that was on there.
Bill had a great idea about making it contour to the fenders and the grill,
-stretching it out. -Yeah, it looks like it was meant to be there.
-[Bill] It just sets the attitude for the truck. -[Lynn] Absolutely.
[Bill] Another thing that we did right off the bat
was just rip out all the old suspension.
We built independent front suspension, new rear end,
-new forward link rear suspension... -[Matt] Wow.
...with airbags all the way around.
It's definitely adjustable to ride,
turn this thing easy.
And you have the hydraulic brakes now too,
so anybody can hit the brake pedal and glide to a stop.
I think I heard you just say I'm gonna be able to drive it and feel safe?
-[Bill] That's it. -Awesome.
-And I know Larry's gonna be really excited about this. -[Larry chuckles]
-The big reveal, Larry. -What?
-Oh, gorgeous. -[Larry chuckles]
[Matt] Look at that, Larry.
-[Bill] Turbocharged 12-valve cones. -[Larry] Yeah.
Automatic transmission.
-No more flathead in there. -[Larry chuckles] No.
-How much horsepower did it have? -150 horse.
-[Lynn] And this? -500 horsepower, something like that.
We had to rebuild the firewall around that big old engine
and then went with a red paint on the cones.
I see we've got AC lines going there too, buddy.
-Yeah, we got you hooked up with that too, for sure. -[Lynn laughs]
Of course, we had to add you some big old stacks out the back, too.
I noticed them right when I walked in, the stovetops.
-It ought to fit right in in the yard now, right? -[Lynn] Absolutely.
We might have to put this thing to work.
-[all laughing] -One other thing.
We gotta have you riding good on the inside, too.
-[Larry chuckles] Oh! -[Lynn] Whoa, gorgeous.
I'm styling now, buddy.
-[Jamie] Tilt steering... -[Bill] Yeah, man, and power steering too.
-[Larry] A normal steering wheel! -[all laughing]
-New gauges? -[Bill] Everything's 100% new in it.
New column, new shifters,
sprayed it in body color.
It just looks amazing.
Yeah, we've done a ton of work to this thing.
We didn't just stop at the truck.
We had to come on with it with the trailer, too.
As you're walking by,
you see the new paneling that we have all underneath here.
It's had its share of fixes from here and there.
What we did is cladded the whole bottom side
so you don't see any of that.
-It looks so good. -It looks amazing.
[Bill] Yo, it had a big axel with a big spring pack
and air brakes on it.
We ripped all that out
a put a 10,000-pound trailer axle with electric brakes.
-[both laughing] -So you can drive it like a normal truck and trailer.
You know, of course, we had to put some new wheels and tires on it to look cool.
-[Jamie] And not only that. -A big, 4-link rear suspension
with the big airbags.
-So it's not gonna beat you to death. -[Larry laughs] Yeah.
-[Lynn] Beautiful. -[Matt] It looks so good.
Your team did a wonderful job.
The LED lighting on the trailer,
everything looks great.
We got one other thing to show you.
-What is it? -What's that? [both laughing]
-[Bill] Wanna hit it? -[Jamie] All right.
[Bill] You're gonna like this one.
[engine starts]
-Oh, wow. -Oh!
Listen to that.
[all] Oh!
-[Matt laughs] -[Lynn] Oh my gosh.
-[Larry] Look at that! -[Lynn] Look at that, Larry.
-[Larry chuckles] Oh! -[Bill] All the way down, man.
You know, it's a first for us.
We've never bagged a tanker truck and trailer before, right?
-I don't think I've ever seen that before. -Oh my gosh.
[Bill] From her late husband starting the company to where it is now,
and from seeing the truck where it was to where it is now,
I can really tell Lynn was excited about this.
[Lynn] Every time we showcase it,
we're gonna think of you all
and this amazing transformation.
Such a big build like this, it takes everyone in the shop.
I can't thank my team enough.
-We're gonna get back to it. -Thanks, Bill, so much.
[Matt] Wow, look at that.
[Lynn] So cool.
[Larry] A big thank you to the Ekstensive crew.
They did an awesome job.
[Matt] Yeah, we can't thank them enough.
It was above and beyond what we expected,
and we have a job still.
-That's good. -[both laughing]