[Carmen] This thing looks like
-the ultimate beach truck. -Yeah, man.
[Bill] We're turning this '22 F-350 into a Raptor.
[Jamie] We're going with the shorter bed,
so we're not gonna need this portion of frame.
-We're gonna have to shorten the wheel base. -[Jamie] Yeah.
Like wolf in sheep's clothing.
All right, we're lose.
[Bill] Adding the factory panoramic roof
is gonna put this build even more over the top.
We're gonna make a roof sandwich.
Ow!
And that there is why I have black thumbs.
[Sisco] Building this piece on the '64 Rolls
is the hardest part with all the curves and contours in it.
There's no manual to this,
you kinda just have to let the metal talk to you.
I love that.
-Wow, that thing look great. -I told you.
[Bill] 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.
What's happening, man?
How are you? Nice meeting you.
-Carmen. -How have you been?
Carmen, nice to meet you. Bill.
All the way from New Jersey, huh?
Man, that's a long drive,
you've been in the, the driver's seat for a while.
-Little over a day. -Yeah. [laughs]
That's a nice looking truck you got.
Thank you, I love it.
I just picked up a brand new F-350,
I've always loved these trucks.
I've been driving one-ton diesel since the 90s,
but I have an idea.
So I want you to turn this
into a F-350 one-ton diesel Raptor.
Man, I love it, I love projects like this.
I love cutting up brand new trucks.
I know.
-Lot of people think I'm nuts, but... -Oh, yeah.
...I want a diesel, power stroke Raptor.
[Bill] You can't buy one of those, can you?
-Cannot buy one of those. -Right?
Can't even special order one.
You know, the Ford Raptor is just a cool looking truck that,
you know, had a lot of design cues,
the wide fenders they, they come directly from Baja racing.
You know, the F-350 towing capacity,
diesel under the hood,
just that heavy-duty truck itself,
combined with the Raptor look,
you know, I'm gonna be a fan of that.
-Can you do it? -Come on, man. Come on.
You're in the right spot for that for sure.
My whole life, I've always had crazy, weird stuff.
My first car was a Ford Bronco
that I actually, me and buddies put a Mustang motor in it.
Through the years, I just kept coming up
with different ideas with different types of trucks,
and this is the next one I want to do.
I love it, I love it.
One of the first things we'd have do to it
is change the whole front end.
Brand new fenders on the front,
grill, bumper, hood, we're gonna do it.
-We gotta do it. -Do it right.
And, you know, the steps,
that's gotta go.
You gotta have retractable steps,
you don't even see that when you're coming down the road.
[Carmen] That'll give it an extra look.
-Yeah. Man, it's a good looking truck. -Thank you.
[Bill] But we can definitely make it cooler.
Okay, tell me how.
You know, one of the big things
that the F-350 has is that six foot bed,
and, you know, Raptor has that five and half foot bed.
You know, it doesn't sound like a lot,
but when you're driving down the road,
shortening that wheel base
totally changes the look of the truck.
When it's passing you by, you'll go,
"Oh, wow, man, there's something really different about that truck
versus all the other 350s on the road."
[Carmen] Exactly.
Is it gonna work?
Oh, absolutely. We're gonna make it work.
-You gonna make it work? -You know, it just doesn't work,
-you gotta make it work. -You gotta make it work, okay.
-And as long as it drives nice on the road. -Absolutely.
-Throw my family in it, take 'em to the beach. -Absolutely.
Drive on the beach.
-Absolutely. -Okay.
[Bill] You know, switch up suspension,
give you a little bit more travel.
We'll build a brand new parallel four link
with coilovers on the back to match that front.
You don't want it to just look good,
you want it to be able to go off road a little.
That's just gonna put it over the top.
You know, maybe in a bed cage in the back,
with two spares in the back, and just totally make it look,
-you know, that Baja style. -Just in case you get two flats.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. You're prepared.
You know, of course,
wheels and tires, big, wide fenders on the back also.
-I mean-- -Like a Raptor.
I want somebody to walk past my truck and be like,
"Did Ford make that?"
When customizing is done right,
that's exactly what happens.
-I wanna fool people. -Exactly.
Man, if you're ready to do it, I'm ready to do it.
I will leave you the keys and fly back.
-Let's make it happen. -Let's do it.
[Bill] You know, Carmen's F-350, as is,
is a lot of people's dream truck.
Runs good, got plenty of power.
He's just not happy enough with that.
I totally get Carmen's dilemma.
You know, needing that one-ton truck for work,
but loving that styling of a Raptor, that Baja look,
just wanting something that nobody else has
when you're driving down the road,
that's the name of the game.
You know, I can really understand why people like the Raptors,
that offroad look, but you're driving on road.
I mean, that's just, that's cool.
You know, anybody can buy an F-350,
you know, anybody can buy a Raptor,
but taking that idea of combining both of 'em,
of course, I'm in, let's make it happen.
[Ryan] Man, I wonder what we're doing to this one, dude.
Yeah, no rusted bolts,
-no breaks ground, nothing. -No.
-Come apart easy. -This thing is gonna be cool, man.
You know, this guy has got a pretty good idea.
He wants to turn his F-350 into a Raptor.
-Okay. -They don't make that package?
No, you can't order that.
-Really? -You can't order a heavy-duty Raptor.
-Hmm. -Only get a half ton.
So we're basically turning this heavy-duty truck
into a Baja truck.
That was, one of my favorite built was your Baja truck.
-Yeah, it was fun. -That was a fun truck.
Building that truck was so much fun.
-Right? -Definitely.
So that's what we're gonna do,
is just transform this into something Ford never made.
So what we need to do is start off,
of course, wheels and tires.
We want that Baja style look, right?
-So we're gonna have wide fenders in the front. - [Jamie] Yup.
[Bill] Wide bed sides in the back.
-You know, we're gonna give it a little bit of lift. - [Jamie] Yeah.
[Bill] You know, bumpers front and back.
-You know, a Baja style bumper... - [Ryan] Yeah.
-[Bill] ...isn't gonna be around for the F-350... - [Ryan] Of course.
[Bill] ...so we're gonna have to take
-Baja style bumpers for F-150... - [Jamie] Mmm-hmm.
[Bill] ...and then modify for this truck.
[Jamie] This is definitely gonna stand apart from all the 350s.
You know what else we need,
-he wanted dual tires in the bed. -Yeah.
That's like just signature Baja, right?
[Jamie] That's what you see, you know, that's what it is.
You know, you gotta have the spare tires.
Then, of course, lighting.
Whole front clip?
-[laughs] Whole ones out front. -Yeah, whole black clip.
Yeah.
-If we're turning it into Baja truck, -Yeah.
that's something you gotta have.
And, you know, one of the things that really stand out on this
is going from the six foot bed that's on here
to the Raptor style, which is five and half foot.
So in order to put that shorter bed on
-we're gonna have to shorten the wheel base. -Yeah.
There's a little bit of work here and there, but...
That's it.
-That's a lot of work, right? -[laughs]
[Bill] So what we'll do to shorten the wheel base,
we'll just built a four link on it with air suspension,
so we can manipulate the wheel base.
- [Ryan] Yeah. - [Jamie] Whenever we want it, yeah,
-So-- -And just cut the rear of the frame honed off and--
Yeah, we'll figure out bed mounts,
-whatever we've gotta do when the time comes. -Yeah.
You know, this is something he's not really gonna be taking off road a lot,
but we'll put some nice shocks on it,
in case he ever does wanna,
you know, jump the curb
and go down the side of the freeway and,
you know, hit some jumps along the way.
-This sounds so fire! -The way it sounds-- True.
So basically, we're keeping the cab,
-and then it's, like, it's a-- -Yeah.
-Cab, engine, and trans. -I love this.
-This is so cool, man. -It's great.
You know, all in all, I mean, I love projects like this.
Building something that nobody's seen before.
-People are gonna be trying to order these. -Do it, man. Ah.
Like, go to the dealer and say, "Hey, I want that."
"I've seen this one on the highway, I know y'all got 'em."
This is gonna be something we can get in,
put our signature on it,
and just roll out, and show the world
-how we build cool cars and trucks. -Mmm-hmm.
So, y'all ready to get it?
-Of course, man. -Yeah.
Let's do it.
[Bill] You know, this is a brand new truck,
so we're gonna be extra careful with this tear down.
First thing is, go ahead and start getting this bed off.
Before I do that, I might've to grind
all these bed bolts right here
'cause they got a lot of build up from the bed liner in there.
Now, disconnect all the electrical.
That's going to the bed floor to tail gate right here.
It should come right off.
Go ahead and pull it off easy, straight back.
[laughs]
Thank you.
Thank you, guys.
[Bill] So we ordered a half ton crew cab bed
that's way shorter than the 350 short bed.
All the mounting is totally different,
but it's gonna line up perfectly.
Watch your hands on the cab.
You got the back centered, Jamie?
Pretty good right there, huh?
You know, like any project,
you have an idea in your head, how it's gonna go, right?
I was thinking the bed was just gonna bolt in place,
and we're gonna chop the back of the frame off,
shorten the wheel base, but of course not.
The bed floor is totally different from each other,
so there's nothing that lines up,
so we're gonna have to make
our own specific bed mounts
here and here,
that's the first issue.
Once the back of the frame is chopped off,
we got the bed mounted,
then we can get down to business
and actually modify the bed sides.
I think we're on plan C already,
and ain't even got started.
You know, having that vision is critical
when you're turning a F-350 into a Raptor.
You know, we always try to figure out
what can go wrong before it happens.
Like this crew cab F-150 bed not fitting on this F-350.
You know, but like anything, we figure out the problem,
address it, get it handled, and get this bed on.
And this time we're gonna start by making new bed mounts.
So what we've got here,
we had Jessie burn us out some eighth inch plate.
What I'm gonna do is build a little channel
that the bed will sit flat on,
and then we can weld right to the frame itself.
Just gotta do a little notch-y.
All we have to do now is go from the top,
poke a whole right in it,
you got a perfect spot to bolt the bed to the frame.
And once we pull the bed off,
we can just round it,
shape it and make it look perfect.
It'll look like a, like it came that way from the factory.
[Jamie] I'mma go ahead and start drilling through the bed.
I'mma go ahead and put our bolts in there.
All right, here with the impact.
One more bump.
All right.
Once I get our bolts anchored in,
I'll go ahead and tack the braces on the bed,
so I'll know that's the placement of 'em.
All right.
So now that we got the bed off,
you can see the braces that Bill and I have made.
We'll go ahead and weld these out, and that's gonna be done.
You know, now we know where this bed is gonna sit,
we can tear off all that suspension.
So you know, obviously, we're going with the shorter bed,
so we're not gonna need this portion of the frame,
so what I'm gonna do is go ahead and chop this off,
we'll be able to put our bumper back.
This hanging off the backside of the truck is gonna be unproportional,
so shorter bed, shorter frame.
Made quick work of it.
All right, that'll do.
Chop it on the flow.
Thirteen and three quarters.
Right here.
All right.
So the next step is building our four link,
connecting the rear end to the frame itself,
so it all track straight...
...rides good, handles good.
We're gonna go with the parallel four link.
He still wants to be able to use this for work
and still wants it to look like a Baja truck,
and you still want it to ride good,
so with the four link we're gonna install big air bags
in place of the leaf springs,
you know, not to make it low, not to make it high,
just for ride quality and still be able to tow whatever he wants.
-This right here. -Uh-huh.
[Bill] See that seam right there,
is even with the outside of this four link.
Three-quarters, let's do it.
Cool, we got our last little part of our
suspension is the lower four link bar,
so we're just gonna tack it in place
on the axle itself,
and that's gonna locate where it's gonna be on the frame.
[Jamie] That looks good, man.
-[Bill] Definitely. -[Jamie] Nice, parallel, it's huge.
that definitely connects the rear end to the frame.
You know, it really kinda starting to look like a,
a short bed Raptor truck now.
It's a wolf in sheep's clothing.
[Bill] So our next step, we just weld all that out,
-let's get that done. -[Jamie] Mmm-hmm.
And then we'll go on to the, the bag mounts themselves.
Man, caught you working.
Well, you know, trying to get this order filled out.
Speaking on work, how is that Rolls-Royce going?
-You heard, right? -I heard and I've seen.
[Bill] Looks like somebody has been using it for target practice.
- [laughs] Right? - [Carlos] Yeah.
It looked good before sitting just out in the parking lot
and then took it in, got it stripped and--
-It's overwhelming for sure. -Yeah.
[Bill] Good thing we've got somebody like
Sisco and his son, Boston, come in and help out.
They're just cutting out patches on top of patches
-on top of patches. - [Carlos] Ah.
[Bill] They're thinking of start making a brand new rocker
from the front wheel well
all the way to back wheel well,
so they're gonna need some sheet metal.
Not the regular 20 gauge, but the galvanneal.
-The good stuff. -Yeah.
-We're gonna hand build a hand-built car. -Yeah.
I think all of us is gonna be busy on this one.
Absolutely.
Speaking of work, I gotta get back to it.
-Get it shipped out. -I'mma do it.
[Bill] Sisco is done making the rear part of the rockers,
now he's gonna make the front part of the rockers.
[Sisco] So now we're gonna start building our channels,
just gonna mimic the old rocker panels on here.
This will mimic the panel we cut off earlier.
So I'll put new holes in this,
we'll plug weld it right to the original panel,
and it'll look like factory at that point.
So the next step, now that I've got this
bent to the right angle and it's the right length,
I'm gonna go with the bead roller,
I'm gonna do a little finisher edge in this thing.
I got a nice little rolled edge,
finishes off that panel a lot nicer.
Rolls up over the top instead of just being a sharp point sticking out.
These are ready weld on.
I'm super excited to be here
and work with my son, Boston, on this.
He's been super excited ever since the day I told him about it.
I had to pull him out of school,
so that was interesting to tell all the teachers, you know,
and they didn't give him any homework and nothing to do,
they said, "I'm glad he's going, it's cool,
so that's always a great experience."
All right, it's cool, so we got the mount welded on,
now it's part of the car, ain't going nowhere.
[Sisco] So our new rocker will slide right over the top of that,
it'll come down and hook right to the bottom of our,
you know, rocker that we built.
I'm gonna go ahead and start making the pattern
for this center bar here.
It'd be kind of weird shape,
gonna be flat,
it's gonna go back and be rounded all at the same time.
Didn't get it close, though,
so I'm gonna hit it with a sander and finish it off.
I corner welded it on the outside,
and you always wanna do that anytime you can
get the outside corner of something welded,
'cause on the, if you weld the inside corner,
you'll get a lot of built-up.
You want it to look crisp and clean.
It's hard to get that inside edge ground down
with a grinder to look smooth.
So we got everything welded in place,
and our door gaps are pretty far off,
so I'm gonna pry this over gently,
I'mma need you to grab the welder and tack this real quick.
Ready?
Okay.
Now...
...the gap should be doable.
That's doable.
Now we can trim that up to get a nice, even gap
that's gonna be the same around the whole door
for both these panels all the way down.
[Bill] You know, when you're rebuilding
a 60 year old vehicle like the Rolls-Royce,
you know, the big thing is just bringing it back, making it stronger
for the next 60 years or even 100.
So right now, Sisco is rebuilding the rockers
even better than they were from the factory.
I'm gonna start building the outside skin of this rocker
to make it look like a finished car again.
Let's go try it on the car.
I think we're pretty darn close.
It's hard to get it all the way in,
so I have to trim this rocker off here.
Before I can put these rockers on,
I've gotta have these doors in a proper space.
Every door gap is touching, touching, touching, touching.
So I've gotta wrap my mind around
why it could be like that,
what could've caused it, and how I can fix it?
So what I'm trying to do is get these body lines to line up.
That's the belt line of the car,
that's the center,
so if I get a decent body line
line up all through there...
If these doors aren't straight,
the my rockers will be in the wrong spot.
And that's a straight line,
that is not. [chuckles]
So our quarter inch shorter door here
compared to our longer door,
so this one is turning lower,
and this one is turning higher.
So there's no way around it,
we're gonna have to either add some to this door
or take some off of this door
once I put my new rocker in place.
Messing with the eyes, it's an illusion.
These cars are all coach-built,
they're all built by hand,
usually by a couple of guys a long time back in the day.
So I'm gonna put my new rocker in place straight,
with the body line straight and gap at the top,
and then we'll have to adjust these doors gaps on the bottom
with cutting and adding material
to get them so they line up good with the car.
All right.
Now we've got it clamped in, fits good.
I'm gonna do this exact thing three more times.
[Bill] You know, a few years back,
I built my own Baja truck out of an old wrecked F-150,
and I've had a lot of fun with it.
Turning this '22 F-350 into a Raptor,
you know, that means giving him that Baja look,
but still being able to let him tow whatever he wants.
I got my measurements of the,
where the bags needs to sit on the axle.
Then I'm gonna tack some spacers together,
so the bag is simulated at rod height.
But I know the lower bag mount is perfectly centered
under the upper bag mount.
Everything is where it needs to be.
All I need to do is make
mounts from the lower bag mounts to axle
and from the upper bag mount up to the frame.
Oh, man, this is just the way to go,
I mean, the getting rid of the leaf springs.
You can put whatever weight you want on it
and it's gonna the squat the truck,
you just air the ride up a little bit,
and you're riding up the same rod height,
and still riding on air.
It's definitely got that nice aggressive look to it.
Slick, kinda flows everything.
This is gonna look good once it's finished out.
I kinda wanna replicate some little shock hoop, kinda Baja style,
so we'll connect it back to the frame,
so everything is gonna be one piece and it look really cool,
so when you're looking in that big old inner well,
you'll see some nice tube work in it.
It's just gonna give it that Baja style.
Man, the tubular upper bag mount looks
really, really good, nice and strong.
Inch and half, schedule 80.
This is not going anywhere.
You know, couple of things left is,
I'm gonna take our bag spacers out.
Bottom the rear end all the way out.
And then we're gonna build our shock mounts.
We got an upper shock mount made,
so all we're gonna do is place our tabs on the rear end itself.
Shock mounts are done.
You know, we ain't doing all this
just to ride around the streets in New Jersey.
It's definitely made to,
to do whatever punishments he's gonna put it through,
this is gonna take it.
Last part of the suspension is the Panhard bars itself.
You know, we don't have any leaf springs any more
to keep the rear end from going side to side,
so that's exactly what a Panhard bar does.
It's a hard mount from the frame itself over to the axel.
And that keeps everything in place.
I like the way everything turned out. I mean, we got the bed mounted,
frame cut off, four link done, chuck mount, bag mount, super short wheel base.
It's a Raptor. [laughing]
Yeah. No doubt.
Hey, good morning, Carmen. What's happening?
Morning, Bill, how are you?
Man, doing good, doing good.
I heard you wanted to have a little talk this morning.
It was more of an ask than a talk about. Hopefully you can make some magic.
I wasn't able to have the, a sunroof in the truck.
-Right. -And my kid has a platinum series one.
And he has a sunroof.
It's super easy to put a sunroof in it. We can cut a hole
and just drop a, a roof in it for you no problem.
Yeah, but I wanted real Ford panoramic sunroof. From Ford.
Oh, you want the factory roof installed in your truck?
-Factory, yeah. -Man, that's...
Where you push the button and it works just like factory.
You know, that's a little more involved than just cutting a hole
and dropping a sunroof in, for sure.
I want what I want.
-[laughing] -So what can you do?
Hey, you want what you want, right? It's labor intensive for sure,
but one way or another, man, we're gonna make it happen for you.
Cool. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Yeah, man. Anything else?
Is there anything else you want me to say?
[laughing]
-I appreciate it. -Yeah, man.
I'll talk to you later.
Man. You got some work to do, buddy.
Mmm-hmm.
You know, adding the panoramic roof to this '22 F350 Raptor
is gonna put this build even more over the top.
You know, the thing about adding a roof like this,
if you don't do it right, you're gonna add a whole lotta headaches later.
So I'm gonna bring in the expert to get it done right that first time.
Once we get the old roof off, then we'll find out what we need to cut
on the inner structure to put this panoramic roof on.
So these are all the bolts that hold both sides of the roof.
This is what keeps the roof dry and gives it its structural integrity.
The hardest part really of this whole roof is saving this piece right here,
is where I just took out all the bolts at, because this overlaps everything.
-[Bill] Yeah. -Just slide it right off.
That's gonna expose the whole seam where the roof lays overtop.
I'm all into custom stuff. Collision work pays the bills.
Custom's where the fun's at.
Since we got all the heads of the rivets grinded out,
we're gonna just take a chisel and a hammer and start popping 'em all loose.
Everything's loose. So we're ready for the torch now.
We got a main front cab brace that runs right along this section,
and it's all glued, so we're gonna heat it up a little bit and make it release.
[Jamie] I think we're all loose.
[Ricky] You got it?
[Ricky] Roof's off.
All right, we got our new roof skin with the panoramic hole cutout in it.
We're gonna prep all of our edges now.
We're gonna get the whole perimeter sanded down, put the glue on the roof.
We're gonna make a roof sandwich.
We're gonna lay our panel bond down on all of our prep surfaces.
Now we have 90 minutes to get this all glued and the roof set on here
before this stuff starts to cure.
Yep, so pretty much, we just wanna drop it down.
Then we can maneuver it around a little bit once it's down.
Went from a solid roof to a hole in the roof.
So all we're gonna do is start reversing the process.
We're gonna bolt down both sides,
and then we'll start riveting, uh, the front and the back.
And then we'll be done.
All right. Now, all the bolts are in, we need to drill six holes and set six rivets.
Three down each back of the cab corner.
A normal rivet, you would have to drill a hole, like the three that I just put in.
With this, it actually punches the hole and everything all in one shot.
Man, you got it, huh?
Yeah, we're done. It went really easy.
[Bill] So this is to factory specs?
Yes. It, it has all the glue, all the rivets, just like they did from the factory.
That's exactly what we needed, man. i appreciate that. It looks real good.
-[Bill] Now, it's ready for paint. -Yeah, it is.
[Bill] Shoot, no body work, no nothing, just...
[Ricky] No, no body work. The only thing you need to do
is run a little bead of seam sealer right down this little piece, then squirt it.
Man, yeah. I appreciate you helping us out, man.
-Hey, you're very welcome. -Looks good.
Thank you.
Yo, we've got the bed mounted. Now, it's time for those new bedsides.
We have the factory F150 bed, a super short 5.5-foot bed.
So we're gonna cut basically the perimeter all the way around,
remove the factory bedside, and replace it with the fiberglass.
See, the factory bedside and you see the mean, mean, wide look.
It's gonna look, it's gonna look good. It's gonna look tough.
We're, we're not gonna use this, so my concern is not with this piece,
it's with that inner frame.
I just wanna hold that structural integrity of the bedside,
cut as least I can, leave as much there, and I can trim it back as I need to.
Let's see.
[Bill] Man, it looks good, man.
-I'm ready to see... -It looks good.
-I'm ready to see it on the truck. -Yeah, right?
[Bill] Well, shoot, let's spin it around, throw it on the truck, see what it looks like.
[Jamie] That's it.
[Jamie] Okay, so now we got our bedsides on,
now, we gotta connect this void right here,
so what I'm basically gonna do is make a pillar for all the way under here.
But before I start, I gotta go ahead and cut this excess off right here
so I can stretch my filler all the way over in the bedside.
So when you're duplicating each side, it just makes a lot more sense
to do everything in pairs.
What I like to do is when I do it on one side, I'll do the other side,
and when I start to put it together, I'll do the same thing.
Finish one piece, just do the other piece.
Okay, so now you can see I got my fender well in, everything's tech screwed in.
Um, I really like the way this came out. I mean,
I got all up against my fiberglass. That's golden to me.
With the front rockers done on that '64 Rolls,
Sisco's gonna move onto that toughest part to rebuild, that dogleg.
It's got a couple of compound curves.
It curves out ways and in ways at the same time,
so there's gonna be a transition
of this round flare coming in like this and disappearing,
but also, transitioning into a reverse curve of this rocker.
A lotta stuff we were doing in 16 and 18 gauge for the rockers.
But for this complicated piece,
got a lot of bends and turns, I'm gonna switch up to 20 gauge.
It's a little thinner, a little easier to work with.
But since it's so small and it's gonna be so curvy, it'll still be strong.
So now, what we're gonna use is our planishing hammer.
And it's giving it that curve of the shape of the top dye or the bottom dye right here.
Sounds pretty violent, but it's not that bad.
[laughing] Wow, that actually worked out really well.
[laughing]
So now I can go ahead and mark this door edge where I want it to be at now.
There's the first part of our dogleg completed.
So now, these Clecos will hold this in place,
in replacement of a screw or a sheet metal screw or something like that.
Doesn't leave any burrs.
So when you go to take 'em off, run your hand over it, you don't slice your hands up.
But they'll hold this in place now, while I can go ahead and fabricate this last piece.
So I think I'm gonna start with a piece of metal, shaped about like this.
So, this is a perfect example of when you're doing custom work,
there's no manual to this,
there's no IKEA instructions telling you to put part A in slot B.
It's just try it, make it work, if it doesn't fit, try it again.
You always gotta cut it big, work your way small,
and get you a bunch of little pieces cutting off every single time.
Ow!
And that there is why I have black thumbs.
[laughing]
So we're pretty close right there.
I built the radius into this panel now instead of building it into this.
So now I can trim this edge.
And butt it right up against that.
And my panel will have a nice, rounded edge.
You know, sometimes I'm building these little pieces like this,
you kinda just have to let the metal talk to you.
Let it tell you where it wants to be.
You can kinda force it, but sometimes, you,
you'll be fighting something for an eighth of an inch.
And 99% of the time,
that eighth of an inch isn't gonna matter on which panel you put it on.
This whole rocker panel is just looking really good right now. I like it.
The next thing we're gonna do is build the inner rocker cap here.
Then we can call this rocker done.
You know, building this piece on the '64 Rolls is the hardest part,
with all the curves and contours in it.
You know, it takes years to build up your craft
and have nobody notice what's been done.
[Sisco] So the skill level involved in building some of this stuff is learned by, uh,
making a lot of mistakes.
I've messed up a lot more things than, um, most people have even built.
A lot of self-schooling. There's been some training here and there.
I've taken a couple classes to learn a lot of the finite stuff.
But for the most part, it's just trial and error. And a lot of error.
So you do things enough times, you learn little tricks here and there
to help you on the next one.
But you'll never, never finish learning.
When you're working on a job that requires as much work as a '64 Rolls,
you just try to avoid getting lost in all the things you have left to do.
You just have to chip away one job at a time, day by day,
and just appreciate those little milestones.
Today, it's just finishing up that little dogleg.
Then, we're gonna be moving onto that frame, suspension, engine, body, and interior.
And then all those little wins come one unforgettable masterpiece.
[Sisco] All right. Looks good. Looks real good.
Really happy how this turned out.
We got structural on the inside.
No more Swiss cheese.
We're turning this '22 F350 into a Raptor.
We don't wanna go too overboard, but we still want that F350 rugged look.
It's really been bugging me on this. I mean, the bedsides were for an F150,
the super small lights, I mean, everybody sees these.
What this truck needs is the F350 taillights.
I mean, we gotta have that big super duty look with the Raptor fit.
Chop it up!
[Bill] So we're gonna modify this to accept the big, heavy duty taillights.
[Bill] This right there.
Pretty much gonna try and save the design right here, right?
Yeah, we're gonna take this, and scoot it down.
We're trying to minimize as much cutting as possible,
so we're just gonna take sections outta this, and save parts and pieces,
and try to make it fit around the 350 taillight.
I'm fascinated how we're gonna put those new lights in here,
'cause nobody really has done that.
And I mean, we always have to upgrade around here.
Bigger truck, bigger taillights,
they're gonna look great, and we're gonna make it work.
Hell, yeah.
We'll do fiberglass work over it, and then the final body work.
[Jamie] To give this truck a meaner, more of a Baja look,
we're gonna install a new front bumper.
So, I'm gonna go ahead and take off the old bumper brackets
and make some new ones for this bumper.
-Ohh! -Gonna do your plan.
That's a sharp bib.
Man, it fits good, it looks good.
Yeah. But we got a problem.
What's up?
We got these big, wide front fenders on it.
-Yeah. -And this just isn't gonna work.
We need to bring this out,
-make this look like it's not an afterthought, right? -Mmm-hmm.
[Bill] So let's get the bumper off. Let's split this right here.
[Jamie] Okay.
[Bill] And then we got a nice spot to build off of.
That's gonna be weird, too.
That's where he's going. It's the same width right here as this.
[Bill] You get the bumper all the way out here on the edge,
so it doesn't look like it's top of three different trucks, right?
We wanna make it look like it's one cohesive unit.
After a little modification, got everything slicked right on out.
Bumper's stretched a little bit.
Look. Perfect.
-Oh, my knuckles just popped. -Ready to switch off?
Yes.
I love working with Boston. I had a shop on my property when he was born,
and my wife would bring him out to the shop, he would hang out with me,
pick up every tool that was on the ground,
to the point where he was welding at five years old,
he could use my brakes, he could use the tuning bender.
He built a bicycle at seven years old.
Like he does here, if I need to hold something, have him weld it.
He was my third hand all the time, even as a little kid.
He literally just turned 15 this last weekend.
He comes home from school, he'll go out in the back porch,
work on his own truck until dark.
And he's hanging lights so he can keep working into the night, you know?
He's like, Dad, I got all my wheel wells cut out,
or I got my frame taken off, or I got my suspension, or I took the dash out.
And I'm just like, [laughing] that was a running car earlier and you got it all torn apart.
And he's like, yeah, but I'm gonna customize it.
I wanna build a new dash, I wanna build a roll cage in it.
And I'm just like, [laughing] okay. That's awesome. Like, I can't wait.
That's me at 15 years old. Except he's got ten years' experience before me.
Gonna be pretty amazing to see what he can build and what he can become the next ten years.
[Bill] Just saying, you're gonna turn a new F350 into a Raptor,
it's a good first step in a build.
But making it look like it came from the factory like that is a whole 'nother thing.
The suspension is back from powder.
Just looking at this thing, it's starting to come together, you know?
I'm starting to see the picture that Bill has of the 350 Raptor now.
[Bill] We body worked and color matched all the parts that we installed on the bed.
And added the tire rack.
[Jamie] No scratchy scratchy.
[Jamie] Once we put this rack in, it's really gonna give it that Baja look and Baja feel,
and when we throw those pair of tires in there, it's definitely gonna set it off.
I love that.
All those final details added up.
Now it's time to give it back.
-Carmen, what's happening? -How are you?
-How you doing, man? -Good, good, good.
I know meeting an East Coast Italian out here in an empty field
might be a little sketchy.
Might be sketchy for you.
[both laughing]
I'll be fine. [laughing]
Well, I got something for you, man.
I'm dying to see it.
-Let's see it. -Let's see it.
Jamie!
Wow, that thing looks great!
-I told you! [laughing] -It's, it's freaking cool.
You gotta like that.
Love it. I love the stance, I love the way it looks.
It doesn't even look street legal.
[laughing]
It's everything I was hoping for, with the wide stance, the lift that's on it.
I am more than happy.
-Like it? -Love it. Love it.
I didn't think it was gonna look like that.
-This is something we're proud of, huh? -Definitely, man.
[Bill] Long gone is that work truck, right?
-Yeah. -We got it in the shop, got it all tore apart.
We got the old running boards off, we got the retractable steps.
We got new front suspension.
-[Carmen] Wow. -[Jamie] You're not gonna feel
-like you're driving a brick anymore. -This thing looks like
the ultimate beach truck right now.
-[all laughing] -Yeah, man.
[Bill] We had to get rid of the factory fenders
and put that wide Baja style on the front.
Capped it off with the front bumper, and we had to stretch that and make it wider, too,
to come out to those big, wide fenders.
[Carmen] That's amazing.
[Bill] Yeah, and when it's coming at you, man, it just looks mean.
-Looks tough. -And you threw us for a loop on this, too.
You couldn't get this truck with that big panoramic roof that you wanted.
-I got a panoramic sunroof now? -Yeah, man.
We got you hooked up. [laughing]
You're the man. You're the man.
[Bill] And to finish it off, man, we had to get the wheels and tires right.
It blows my mind. It looks right. It looks...
-Yeah, man. [laughing] -...the way it should look.
Exactly. And those are 40s on there, too, man. That is just not a 37.
That would look just puny on a truck like this.
These wheels and tires just totally fit this truck and make it 100% complete.
If you like all that, we've got some more for ya in the back.
Let's check it out.
Wow. Super Duty Raptor.
I tell you what, that was a great call going from the short bed to a shorter bed
but it doesn't just bolt on, here, for sure.
We had to shorten the wheelbase over a foot.
And when you do that, everything had to be changed.
We had to build a heavy-duty four-link port to center that axle
where it needed to be on that new bed.
Had to build new shock mounts, air bag mounts.
I mean, everything underneath the truck, we had to redo.
Amazing.
But I tell you what, after seeing the truck,
that wheelbase looks absolutely perfect on the truck.
It's leaving me speechless a little bit.
[all laughing]
Like, I'm looking at everything,
and it's like, I can't believe, like you even said, F350 Raptor.
That's so cool.
What really blows my mind is,
he got the super duty taillights to fit in a Raptor style bed.
And it looks like Ford did it.
Getting that 5.5 foot bed, putting those fiberglass fenders on it,
making it that same width as the back,
it looks like something you would go buy.
-It looks factory. -Right?
It looks factory.
Yeah, it looks like Ford should make those, right?
They should.
Carmen keeps saying it just belongs.
And I love hearing that.
Everything is tied together. Nothing really sticks out like a sore thumb.
That to me is the perfect customization.
Of course, we had to put that chase rack in the back, so Jamie got down with that.
[Jamie] It just was missing that, you know?
It's got every Raptor feel to it.
-Looks cool. -You know, it had to have this.
-Needed it. Needed it. Needed it. -Yeah! You gotta,
that just finishes it off.
I've said it many, many times, but this isn't a one-man band.
I mean, it takes everybody in the shop to do what they do.
And one more time, of course, we made dreams into actual reality.
I love it. It's what I wanted. And it worked.
I can't wait to take this home, show the naysayers.
-Yeah. -Show, shove it in their face
and show them what you guys were able to do.
[all laughing]
-Thank you. -Enjoy it.