-Wow, now that is cool! -What?
[Bill] The 2022 Ford Lightning is one of our first electric,
but definitely isn't gonna be our last.
[Ryan] Everything under here is totally different.
There's no drive shaft or belly pan.
I wanna give it that street look.
[Jamie] We gotta bag this.
[Bill] We gotta have air suspension.
[Jamie] If it was easy, everybody would do it.
-[sighs] -Land ho!
[Bill] The customer wanted show and tow for this '52 wrecker.
[Ryan] We got a full chassis bumper to bumper now.
It should be able to handle anything they throw at it.
[Bill] Supercharged LT4.
[Carlos] It's 12 inches of lift.
[Bill] As fabricators, this is what you live for.
[man] That's awesome, bro!
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.
You know, it's pretty cool to...
to get to do what you love.
You know, when Ekstensive started customizing vehicles,
we kinda started out with trucks.
That was the basis of everything we did,
was mainly suspension.
Since then, you know, business has progressed many times over,
to building some iconic vehicles.
From a bagged motorcycle trailer,
to a crazy truck we transformed into a barbecue pit,
to a barbecue pit itself on a trailer.
To huge builds, like,
taking an old, rusty milk truck
and turning it into a fully painted
diesel powered showstopper...
...to building full-tube, custom buggy.
out of absolutely nothing.
Just an idea.
And turning it into something to have a lot of fun with.
It doesn't get cooler than that.
The diversity of the builds are just... gotten crazy.
Even today we're gonna have an electric truck dropped off.
Which is, you know, the latest and greatest of the car world.
And what everything is really evolving to, so.
It doesn't matter if it's combustion engine, electric.
You know, raised or lowered.
You know, whatever combination of that it is,
we're gonna find a way to take it apart, cut it up,
put it back together, create something cool,
no matter what type of vehicle it is.
Everybody at the shop is very talented
and they love what they do.
And whatever comes through the door...
...we're gonna make it cool.
What's happenin', man, good morning.
Good morning. How you doin', Bill?
Man, I'm doin' real well, man.
What you got here, man?
A new Lightning, huh?
[Michael] 2022 Ford Lightning, all electricity, no gasoline.
It's a cool truck, man, how long you had it?
-About a month. About a month. -That's cool, man.
You don't see too many of these on the road.
No, you don't, but you will be.
I'm sure, man. That's the way the... the world's going, right?
That's where the future's pointin'.
-So it runs pretty good? -Oh, it runs good.
No shift points, instant torque.
-Yeah, just fun to drive. -Oh, it's a blast.
-[Bill] They got some power, right? -[Michael] They do, they do.
[Bill] You know I had a Tesla for awhile, man.
It's pretty cool to not have to stop
-every couple of days. -It is nice.
I bought this truck 'cause it's the way of the future.
It's something I figure I can use for work,
and I figure this is the best truck to... to do that with.
I'd like to be able to do something...
...something a little cooler than what it is right now.
I know these electric vehicles, they have a certain look,
but I kinda wanna give it that street look.
So curious what you would do to it.
-So you wanna wake it up a little bit. -Most definitely.
We use it for the company and I want it to grab attention.
You know, gettin' the stance right and gettin' the right wheel and tire combo,
with that right profile tire that goes along with that stance,
-that'll make all the difference in the world. -I'm all for that.
One of the things we can really do to really wake it up is we gotta lower it.
I agree, 100%.
[Bill] Get rid of that wheel gap that's in there.
And not just lower it,
we'll figure out how to make it right comfortable too.
'Cause I know you spend a lot of time in it
going from job, to job, to job.
[Michael] I'm all about that.
So I heard the rear-ends totally different.
Different platform.
So what can we do? How can we do it?
I don't have firsthand knowledge of that,
but whatever it is, you know, we're gonna make it happen.
Now, what we have to do to make that happen, I'm not real sure,
but we're gonna figure that out.
There's gonna be a lot of eyes on this F-150.
You know, this being the first that I know of being lowered and actually functioning,
a lotta people are gonna be asking questions,
"How'd you do this? What do I need to do?"
You know, we're gonna have to make sure this thing is perfect.
Hey, another thing we can do too,
you know, you got that little...
What, does that hide the batteries?
[Michael] They were trying to make it look better.
It came with the running board.
They put a step there.
Step retracts too low.
I know you can probably make it look a lot nicer than what we did.
Man, I think making a custom, little rocker piece that fills in that gap,
it tucks a little closer to the body,
You know, that'll make it look even lower to the ground too, man.
-And you definitely won't need a step. -No, we won't.
-But do me a favor, man, show me underneath the hood. -Let's take a look.
[beeps]
[Bill] Oh, man, wow.
Man, that takes some getting used to.
-I know, where the motor at, the radiator. -[laughs] Right?
I mean, the whole grill and everything comes over it.
Man, that should look like... that should be, like, a hot tub in there.
Maybe we need to do that too?
[chuckles]
No, that's real cool, man.
That's... That's just... It's wild.
Getting an electric truck in, and getting to tear it apart,
getting to really see the inner workings of it,
how it works, learning from it,
that's part of the fun of doing what we do.
You know, I'm anxious to get it on the lift,
and... and to see what we gotta do to make this happen.
Well, I'm excited to see what you can do to it.
Yeah, man, I'm ready if you're ready.
-Let's make it happen. -Let's do it.
[Bill] It's definitely uncharted territory
when you're looking underneath the vehicle
and you don't know what all those components are.
You're like, "Man, what is that?
I've never seen that before."
There's a lotta that going on up underneath the new electric Ford truck.
I'm excited about getting underneath it,
tearing it apart, integrating our suspension,
into the inner workings of this electric truck.
There's no manual on how to do what we're about to do to this.
There's no "Call someone who's done this before."
That's gonna be us.
You know, this is a first of a first, once again.
So we're gonna figure it out.
We're gonna get up underneath it.
We're gonna tear it apart.
We're gonna see how it works.
I'm sure it's gonna have its challenges,
but I'm ready to get goin' on it.
Ready to make a cool truck.
[Jamie] There's gonna be a lot of firsts on this build.
So this is gonna be our first teardown for our new shop hand, Art.
Let's see what he's got on this.
[Art] This is gonna be a first for me.
Definitely more wiring than what I'm used to seeing back here.
[chuckles] Right?
Normally, all this is open.
There's no drive shaft, no belly pan.
I don't even know where the batteries are on this thing.
I'm assuming up there.
I don't know what I was expecting,
but it definitely wasn't all this.
What do you got in store for us on this one?
[Bill] Customer's driving around town,
goes from job to job,
and he wants something really, just, people look at.
So what we're gonna do is we're gonna lower its butt.
So we gotta make it adjustable.
We gotta... We gotta bag that.
-[Jamie] That is extensive. - [Bill] We gotta have air suspension.
[Jamie] Has anybody done air suspension on one of these trucks yet?
None that I know of.
-So this'll be a first for sure. -First. Nice.
[Bill] We're gonna pull out these pullovers.
-Put an air strut in place of it. -[Art] Sounds easy enough.
-Let's just hope it is. -Oh, man, don't say that.
-[laughs] Don't ever say that. -Don't jinx it.
The shocks and springs are shocks and springs.
So, I mean, we got that down.
But where to hook up all the components,
the most efficient way to run the lines,
there's a lot to figure out.
You know, once we get all the suspension done,
we're gonna take off the step that are there,
'cause you definitely don't need it once it's lowered.
So we need to replace it with a nice filler in between the two wheels.
Something that flows from the cab all the way down about four inches.
[Jamie] We gotta give this thing a little attitude.
'Cause it just... it looks like a stock truck.
[Art] It's gonna be real cool.
-[Bill] Last thing, of course, is wheels and tires. -[Jamie] Man, I'm excited.
When is the electrician gettin' here?
-Right? [laughs] -[laughs]
It's gonna be cool, man. This ain't the first time taking your wheels off, is it?
-No, sir. -All right, let's get to it.
[both laugh]
[Art] All right, time to get after it.
[whistles]
Definitely seeing a little bit more light under here than what I'm used to.
Yeah, we're missing a motor.
You can see daylight all the way across here.
All the suspension, the components,
suspend on the control arm...
The spring, I mean...
This... This is what I'm used to right here.
But that daylight, man, I just can't stop looking through there.
[grunts]
We'll go ahead and get this strut out.
Go ahead and remove that,
both sides, then we'll go ahead and move onto the rear.
We do everything same same, 18 mil on the top.
-[Art] All right. -[Jamie] Make sure your nuts off.
I mean, the suspension I'm not intimidated at all.
I mean, we've done suspension on everything here.
The electrical and the routing has me a little nervous.
'Cause this is all foreign to me,
the way the belly pans are.
This electric battery' insane.
So I'm definitely gonna be cautious
when I going to hook everything up in my routing.
♪ Hey ♪
[distant laughter]
[Jamie] Somebody told me there was breakfast in here.
Whoo!
Please, you hungry?
I'm gonna give you the last bite, buddy.
Watch your, uh, brake lines.
Everything under here is totally different.
Even finding a spot for the jack stands.
A little tricky.
All these plates...
...covers, I can see why they need it though.
Especially with the electric motor right above here.
It's interesting to see
the CV joints comin' out of the motors.
Rather than having a drive shaft
or an axle that you usually see in the rear of a truck,
now we have a... an electric motor.
[Jamie] We got all the suspension out now.
Now we gotta go ahead and get these amp steps out,
and this... I don't know what you wanna call this,
but, um, this ugly piece of metal
that's just cake decorated on the side of this truck.
[Art] Sounds like a plan.
[Jamie] Let's do it, man.
Gotta hold your tongue right sometimes, you know?
How you lookin' over there, Art?
[Art] Just workin' on this one bolt.
Then I gonna disconnect the motors.
[Jamie] All right, everything at once.
Man, what do you think? How was your first tear-down, huh?
Not bad for the first one.
A little tight but got it done.
[Jamie] Right, put everything back on.
Get to see how this thing is gonna look.
All right, man, let's get started.
[Art] Hell yeah.
[sizzling]
Change is inevitable for every business.
You know, the 2022 Ford Lightning is one of our first electric,
but definitely isn't gonna be our last.
Gonna create some challenges for sure,
but that's just a part of what makes this business so exciting.
[Jamie] Man, look what we got here.
We got nice air struts right here.
These things are beautiful
That's pretty cool.
Air bag that already has a strut connected to it.
[Jamie] Yeah, man, it's got a nice pivot on top,
the airbag and the strut, everything, you know.
This is really replacing the spring right here.
So, we'll be able to adjust this with air pressure.
Also, it's got an adjustment right here,
so we can actually bring it closer together
to get that lower stance, you know, get that right look for the truck.
They even got us the misalignment spacers for the bottom.
I can't wait to put it on a truck and see how it performs.
You know, first thing I'm looking at is position of our air line.
Since we're doing our air management in the front of the truck,
trunk, whatever you want to call it.
I'mma go ahead and turn our leader hose
so we'll have a nice, clean routing area for our air management.
Going to the factory.
Then I can go ahead and put my spindle back on my control arm,
and tighten everything done.
[ratchet sound]
[Jamie] Everything looks good, so we'll start moving onto the back.
You know, I just noticed this truck has independent rear suspension.
You know, it's got its own lower control arm on the rear.
That's pretty cool, especially for adjustability on the air management.
Gonna be able to, you know, tweak this thing however way you want it to.
I can't tell you how many times I thought about, like,
"If I lose a nut or bolt in here it might short something out." [laughs]
[Art] I've worked on a lot of trucks,
this is the first one that had two electric engines.
One mounted in the front, one mounted in the rear.
Used to seeing a familiar suspension system
but not today, today it's a little different.
We have two CV joints coming out of each side of the electric motor...
...and some pretty beefy control arms as well.
[Jamie] So once we're done through bolting it...
...that's it, the air struts are mounted.
Yeah, so got those, uh, wheels and tires for that '64 here
and I think we also be needing that BedWood kit pretty soon too.
-Nice, nice. -So, yeah.
-[Carlos] So... -So you need something to do?
I always have something to do.
But, uh, what I was gonna ask you about was that...
that tow truck out there.
Man, we're in a real good spot.
You know, we built the whole frame on the table.
Rear suspension's all done.
And we just slid the frame up underneath the cab, man.
That's always a nice little milestone,
then you can really start seeing it come together.
The frame's built super, super strong.
[Carlos] Yeah. I... I seen it.
It's almost like a show truck, demolition derby at the same time.
-Oh, somebody would lose. -[Carlos laughs] Yeah!
So what's next? What do you need me to get for you?
The next thing on the record is we're gonna build
the front of the frame all out of 2x4.
We're rebuilding all the suspension,
so we need heims and bushings,
spindles, you know, all that.
You know, one of the major things I need your help with is engine and trans.
Something with a lot of power.
So LT4 Supercharged will be real cool in that truck.
-He wanted something quick -Well, he got the frame for it.
Well, we shouldn't have any issues getting one of them engines in quick.
-Don't jinx it. -We'll see what we can do.
-[laughs] -You ready?
I been ready.
-Let's do it, man. -Let's go.
A little too on.
Here, give me that shoulder one in there.
Got everything done with the cab, mounting it to the chassis.
Everything's square and straight.
So now it's on to the front crossmember
and building a whole front section of this truck.
The best way to do it is how we've been doing it for years.
Build the whole crossmember out,
make sure all that is true.
Get up in here and pull 1,000 measurements.
3 and three-sixteenths.
This is right where it needs to be. It's on the money.
So I got some chipboard, make some templates.
And make some rails from here to here,
and then from here to the front bumper.
Connect all of it.
And that way it's one full complete chassis.
That should fit.
Now that it's already lined out, all we do is just cut on a line.
Make sure it fits first.
[whispers] Let's go try it.
Oh, yeah.
And then take one piece of flat bar.
Get a little closer to that counter.
Tag it there and we only got one side to weld and grind.
Instead of creating it, all four pieces,
and then welding it all four sides.
You know, little tricks of the trade.
So like, if Wayne Gretzky was a welder,
he would be as good as me.
I'm, like, Wayne Gretzky good.
[whistling]
All right, so I got the rails in, they're tacked in.
Looks really good.
Way cleaner and way faster than piecing it all together.
Now we're going to continue the puzzle.
Finish the front end and get some weld on this.
So in order to do that, we made a little chipboard template.
We're gonna get up underneath this fender here.
We're gonna make a few cuts
so we can connect the 2x3 down
into the front crossmember.
Transfer our chipboard line,
and then we'll get into some suspension.
Land ho!
[chuckles]
What I just did is called a bevel.
The reason that we put this little bevel on it,
is so you can get a little bit more penetration in your weld.
They say if you just put two pieces of metal together,
and you weld on top of it, you're not really...
unless you're burning real hot,
you're not really gonna get much penetration inside that metal.
Any stress or any force or anything,
then it'll just crack and break.
They put a little bevel in there,
you get a little bit more strength.
Oh, brother.
Where art though?
Ooh, we're... we're good there.
Good there, bud.
See what happens when you measure 1,400 times.
Nice.
[sizzling]
[Bill] We got the parallel 4 link bars in place, on the '52 tow truck frame.
So Ryan's adding tube work underneath the frame,
just to make it like a truss and super strong.
[Ryan] Boom shaka laka.
So now I'm gonna go over there and clean those pipes.
And then bring them back.
[squeals] It's hot.
It's hot.
So I can mark this.
Yeah, like that.
Shoot.
Think that's gonna work, man.
Just needs some weld and a few tabs here and there,
but for the most part, we got a full chassis bumper to bumper now.
This'll be able to handle anything they throw at it.
Tow anything, drive anywhere,
haul anything, whatever they want.
It's gonna be a good truck.
All right, you got it right there.
[Bill] The customer wanted show and tow for this wrecker,
so we're goin' with the Supercharged LT4 6.2.
It's definitely gonna be the right mix of power and reliability.
Man, this truck is gonna be fun to drive.
All right. Down.
Hold up. Hold it up.
It's hittin' the back, back there.
All right, I gotta do a little bit more trimming.
[buzzing]
-It's goin' this time. -Sure.
For sure.
Back down.
There you go.
[Bill] Voila.
[Ryan] That was a lot easier than I thought it was gonna be.
-Yeah, you don't ever get to say that, right? -[chuckles] I know, right?
[Bill] Man, Supercharged LT4.
This is exactly what this old truck needed.
640 horsepower. [imitates tire squeal]
-Four black marks. -[Ryan] Yeah, dude.
[Bill] It's nice and compact too,
that's what this run-in needed, right?
Yeah, buddy, it's clean. All right.
I'll do some motor mounts and transmission mount.
-Yeah, man. -Keep it rolling.
-Do it to it. -Cool.
We set up thousands of air management systems on many other vehicles,
but this whole setup on this new Lightning
is unlike anything we worked with before.
You know, as fabricators, this is what you live for.
[beeping]
Wow. You know, I'm totally used to a motor being here.
But, since there's not,
we're gonna go ahead and put our air management up here.
New tank. Get my compressors on,
get my 3P on, then we're set.
This definitely different. It's gonna be cool.
Get some Teflon real quick,
and go ahead and start wrapping these.
You know, it doesn't change our air management.
It's still point A to point B.
You have your compressors, your manifolds.
Even though there is no motor right there,
everything's actually all still the same.
Everything looks good.
3P mounted. Compressors.
Now let's go ahead and mount this inside the trunk.
Pilot hole, seventh-sixteenths.
Those are for the tank?
[Jamie] This is what's gonna secure our air management.
We get one nut on it?
Then we'll get started on the other side,
then we'll start trying to get these buggers down.
[grunts]
Hopefully, in sticking this cross rim,
I ain't gonna get electrocuted.
I know there's a battery right here.
[chuckles]
Wow! This is gonna be so much fun,
'cause we can't really put a rachet in there and tighten it up.
If it was easy everybody would do it.
[sighs]
[bleep]
With everything, there's always issues, there's always answers.
[Bill] You know, doing something you haven't done before is never easy.
And, sure, I've definitely been frustrated myself a few times.
And in this case, we need to tie that tank in
so it definitely won't move around.
And because there's a ton of electronics in the way, we can't reach the nut.
So we're gonna improvise and weld a nut of the end of a piece of flat bar
so we can reach on in there.
[Jamie] Now I'll be able to stick this in the fender well,
thread down our bolt, that's gonna hold and secure our air management.
All right, ready? All right.
Pop it.
Full speed.
All right.
Good deal.
'Kay, so here's our mounting brackets.
We've got everything fastened from underneath, nice and solid,
so we're gonna go ahead and put our air management on it now.
The next this is go ahead and start getting to where we can put our air lines
that come out of the back of this manifold through the truck,
make our runs throughout each one of our air struts.
But in order to do that I need to put bulkheads in these corners,
so I'm gonna go ahead and drill for the bulkheads.
Once I do that, I'm gonna go ahead and fasten the bulkheads too.
-Get that done, then we can start running airline. -[Art] Okay.
-Now for the fun part. -Running the lines?
Trying to figure out how I wanna do 'em.
If I wanna get, like, stupid crazy with it
or if I wanna keep it simple and clean.
[Art] I think simple and clean 'cause it already looks simple and clean.
[Jamie] I wanna put a little extra on it.
-Do a big lightning bolt with air lines. -There ya go, lightning bolt.
-Man, you done stole the show. -[chuckles]
Here we go, it's always good to start with a straight piece of line.
All I gotta do is make everything nice and even, symmetrical.
I'll bend this one 45.
So I'm looking at this trying to run the lines.
I wanna make sure this is parallel,
this is straight up and down with this.
This is gonna be parallel with these bars on the tank.
Now I want it to look clean, I don't want it to look sloppy.
And if there's any kind of...
Anything wrong with it you'll definitely notice it, so.
Just always trying to do the best job, you know. quality is a challenge.
-[Carlos] You can go up and over like a moustache. -Moustache.
The last line's in. Everything looks good, it's nice and symmetrical.
So now, we can go ahead and move on to the air struts.
Jamie's installing the air system on the 2022 Ford Lightning.
You know, our next challenge is wiring it all up.
[Jamie] Everything's done up top.
Now go ahead and start running lines to my air struts.
First thing is go ahead and mount my airline,
get everything plumbed and ran,
once I do that I'll go ahead and jump to the back.
Basically all I'm doing is transferring the air
from the compressors in the tank
we put my bulkheads right here, and right on top of my air strut.
My first run's gonna be a 90 on the bulkhead
straight across to the pullover.
So it's just getting the measurements from 90L to over to 90N
and getting those proper to make everything look like it should.
Check for burs.
You get any kind of bur on this end,
that's why we're so careful when we do it here,
and just sand these ends make sure no burs get in the fittings.
'Cause you got a little bur, it'll tear the O-ring and the fitting,
you'll have a leak, you'll be chasing it down.
There's a bunch of different ways to run lines.
You know, you can do DOC, you can do copper, aluminum.
So many bends I'm gonna make with this,
I wanna make it easy to bend, so I'm gonna go ahead and run aluminum.
Instead of just running, like, flexible line and zip tying it everywhere.
We're gonna run it the right way. Hard line it, fasten it, not gonna leak.
Okay. So that about does it, got the rear done.
Got the front done. All the lines are ran.
Everything's running right to the bulkheads, to the front,
to all our compressors, to our manifold, to our tank.
So last step I have to do is hook up to controller to the air management.
So I already have the line ran through the firewall,
so I just need to pull that trough, route it.
Once I route it, I can plug it in, heat shrink it,
then start our air management.
Now that we got our controller set up,
this'll do each corner individually if you want or all together.
It's a real easy system to learn.
So when this guy gets to where he's going,
he can either be up, down, or in between.
And that's it.
Part of waking up this brand-new Ford Lightning is changing up that exterior.
You know, the customer wants to change the look a little bit
and also advertise his business.
Bill gave us a shout, he had a customer came in with a wrapped vehicle,
had a partial wrap on it and some reflective graphics.
He came to us, so we can up with a great concept
to fully wrap the truck with a color flip shift gloss white
called Gloss White Fireworks.
Then we're gonna have some 3D underlays,
and then reflective overlays so at night the lights, photographs, pictures,
any light source will really make it light up.
And then we're gonna have some black gloss accents as well.
So we'll have three layer wrap that we're doing.
So what we're gonna do now is peel off the reflective.
The thing about reflective, the film comes off real easy,
but all reflective removal leaves a ton of glue.
The best thing to get this stuff off is any citrus based adhesive remover.
It works super-fast, it's citrus based it can't hurt paint.
Spray it on, you wait 30 seconds,
you take a little plastic razor blade and it'll scrape all the goop off.
Wrap is only gonna look as good as the surface it's going on.
So you're surface prep, your edges, you interior, trim
all of this just needs to be super clean.
So when you're doing your install your edges will hold,
you won't have any failure, or lift.
Don't ever, ever use a metal razor blade on your paint, period.
I don't care who you are.
And some guys'll argue with me on this, "Oh, if you're good at it."
Well, generally, civilians aren't good at it.
So we do this for a living and I won't put razor blade on a paint.
This is the base coat
of what the car's gonna go, this is called White Fireworks.
So it's a flip-flop chameleon white sparkle.
High-high-gloss, high-luster.
Whenever you're measuring panels that you're gonna do accent panels on,
or whatever wrap, make sure you have a bit of extra.
So always wanna leave a few inches extra so you can't fall short.
It's like a haircut, you can't put it back.
Man, I love this color, it's so cool.
I can't wait to see it in the bright sunlight.
So what we're doing now is, uh, we're...
The customer opted to have smoked taillights,
so we're putting dark smoke film on his headlights and taillights.
When it's on, light still shines through it.
To do it correctly we remove the taillights
so we can get our edges and everything tucked and wrapped around.
And that way you don't see any extra red light filtering,
but we take the taillights and headlights out in order to do so.
And then the last thing that has to fit is this
It's all in the details.
So it's the little fine extras
that really make the wrap special and solely his.
So it's a one-off that nobody else has done.
We're building an independent front suspension on the '52 tow truck.
With the frame done and the engine mounted,
Ryan's getting going on those lower control arms.
Really, really good-looking wheel,
I like the way this kinda looks.
Especially with our center cap on there.
So we put our lower ball joint on a spindle
and connect the ball joint to our bushing over here.
and we'll just use some scrap right now and get a little mockup.
And then, we'll transfer that to the table and build the actual control arm.
Hasn't moved.
I like doing it this way because I'm more of, like, a visual person.
So this way I can cycle my wheel,
I can put it exactly where I want it
and not have to run off 400 measurements.
I can actually put it right here and actually test it.
That'll be my ride height right there.
And I know 100% whatever I do right here it's just gonna match
and everything's gonna be the same on the other side.
This is the best way to get it done.
Right now, all I'm doing is just making a jig
for my control arm that I'm gonna build.
Cut a couple tabs,
tack these tabs to the table.
See, this is the exact angle that I need for my ball joint.
And this is the length that I need from center of ball joint
to my mounting point on my crossmember,
so I can make something that has that same angle.
We don't need this anymore.
We got our new ball joint cut
and I can build my control arm however I want it.
That's how you make a one-off jig.
Damn, that fits really good. I'm so excited.
I haven't made nice control arms like this in a while.
That should fit perfect.
And that folks is one control arm.
Jessie burned out our plates for our lower control arms on our '52 Wrecker.
Once Ryan gets it all welded up and attaches the airbags...
Appreciate it.
-They good? -Fist bump.
...the truck could be able to ride really low.
[Ryan] All right, we got our plate in.
With it being laid out you can see the control arm is super straight right here.
With it straight like that the bag is gonna wanna pull and it's gonna get in a bind,
it's not gonna allow us to get the lift
that we need to be able to turn it.
So I'm gonna take this cup right here
and that will give us that little bit of extra, and it'll look good too.
We'll take this to the table and weld this up,
then find the center on the control arm,
drill my hole all the way straight through, weld it up, we're good to go.
All right, so now that we've got our upper bag bracket where we need it,
we can continue on with making our gussets.
It would look pretty cool if this was all one piece,
so I'll make a little cardboard sketch.
So this gusset will give strength to our upper bag mount,
and then also a little bit of style to the front-end of this thing.
Hey, I wanted to change it up a little bit,
just on two of 'em, on the front two.
-Just add it? Make it, like, one whole piece? -Yeah.
[Jessie] So I made this beautiful upper control arm brackets for Ryan,
but now he wants 'em custom custom.
Making it one piece will definitely make it look a whole lot better.
Since I already have these laid out in the computer,
I'm just gonna add this on, combine it together.
Two pieces have become one, so now I'm gonna walk these over to Ryan.
[Ryan] This is perfect.
Appreciate it. In with the new.
You see how it compliments the work that's all been done up here.
Instead of two pieces welded together just take an extra 10 minutes,
it looks way better,
it's gonna be a lot stronger.
And this was a great idea because those are the only kind I have.
All right, so my shock can only go that far right there.
So the last step of the suspension
here on the front is installing the shock.
Make sure it's compressed.
There.
Looks good to me. I love it.
With the suspension and the frame work all done on the Wrecker,
the foundation is set.
Now the fabrication can really fly.
Handmaking the bed, the boom, the sling, the interior,
and getting that LT4 just right.
That is perfect.
This is one of those builds that nobody's ever gonna forget.
This is 12 inches of lift, that's a lot.
Because we're making new rocker fillers underneath the 2022 Ford Lightning,
we need to start forming that brand-new 18 gauge sheet metal.
After doing all this, and the air ride,
and getting it real low, taking the runner boards off
you have all this stuff just hanging down and it doesn't look good.
So Bill's come up with this little template
for a rocker that he wants designed.
We'll take this to the table, throw out some marks on some sheet metal,
and we'll bend four of 'em, and then we'll cut 'em wherever we need to cut 'em.
So now that we have everything laid out and cut,
we can run over to our brake.
Oh. All right.
Our template here, every point that has a bend
we have a mark on this sheet metal,
so we can transfer what we have here onto our bigger piece.
All right, we got this one done,
let's go check it out on the truck and see what it looks like.
See if we need to make any changes or anything.
-Look at the way she roll. -It's gonna hit that.
Now that I know the bends are where we need it,
I'm gonna make three more that are exactly like this.
And then we'll start trimming, and cutting,
and doing everything that we need to do to make 'em fit on the truck perfect.
Bend is kinda high right there.
Tack that together first.
Hey, ya gotta pull it up further, it's not in the studs.
There's one nut in the front punch.
All right, so now I've got it tacked together,
and you can see exactly what it's gonna look like on the truck.
I'm gonna cap the end here and I'll use it to screw into the plastic.
All right, so we got it up there.
The last step now is to make some brackets to the frame,
so it doesn't sit there and do that when you're going down the road.
We're completely done with the driver's side now.
Looks really good, I like it. Proud of it.
We'll get that knocked out, move to the other side,
duplicate everything that we do over here on this side,
send it to the body guys, they'll do what they gotta do,
We've known Bill for a long time
- and we've built several vehicles with him, the buggy. -[Clay] Yeah.
I'm building this, you know, full tube-chassis buggy.
[Tommy] 15,000 horse power, it's gonna be a rocket.
You're gonna let me drive it, right? [chuckles]
You know, '37 International.
[Clay] This thing'll fire up today no problem.
Turbo's finished, fuel lines are ran,
all that's left now is just to make it look pretty.
-The COE. -Yeah. Oh, yeah.
You do what you do, man. Let's get this thing running.
-[Tommy] Let's get 'er done. -All right, man. Appreciate it.
-Hell, yeah! Man, that thing sounds awesome, dude. -[Tommy] Good job.
-Some good, fun builds. -Yeah. He's always pushing the envelope.
And I want something that just...
It will get it.
And which pushes us too.
You know, it's really cool that, you know,
I have my family, my sons, doing work with me.
And he feeds off of us on some things and we feed off of him.
Just build some killer rides
-and hopefully make a lot of people happy. -Yes.
You know, like, if we're struggling, you know, he'll step in and vice versa.
And that's what family does, we help each other.
Sometimes you think, "Oh, the wrap might save some time."
But doing it right to make sure it's gonna stay on, it takes some time.
So Patrick's gonna prime the rockers
on that '22 Ford Lightning before we can wrap 'em.
Probably gonna spray, like, two coats on and give it about 30 minutes to dry,
get 'em over to Bill.
All right, here we go.
All right, we're got it completely covered.
Give it 30 - 45 minutes to dry.
On to the next step.
[Bill] The vast majority of work we do are custom builds.
We go where the customer wants us to go.
So when a customer brings in that first 2022 Ford Lightning,
of course we're gonna get after it.
And if this is the new direction we're gonna be ready for it.
I can't wait to give this one back.
Man, ol' truck's looking good.
Man, it definitely is. It's a head turner now.
-We definitely learned some things on this one. -Mmm-hmm.
But that's gonna come in handy.
Our first electric and it definitely ain't gonna be our last.
Nah, man, this is the future right here.
Uh-oh.
-That Tommy? -[Bill] Yep.
-What's up, guys? -[Jamie] What's up, Tommy?
-What'd y'all got there? -You're already working on one of these?
[Tommy] Wow, I love these things, man.
[Clay] That's awesome. That looks awesome.
-[Tommy] I'm telling you. -Hey, there ain't no diesel in this one.
[all laughing]
But they make torque like a diesel does, man. I'm talking lots of it.
Torque moves mass and, you know, we love that.
-Yeah, we love moving mass. -Yes, we do.
Customer came in with it not too long ago and he had his logos on it,
-but he wanted something to really wake it up. -[Clay] Yeah.
[Bill] When he's driving around he wants people to look at, pay attention,
and, you know, advertise his business.
It definitely caught my eye when I pulled up.
[Bill] Well, he wanted a cool truck too, so it kinda works both ways.
You know, you have a cool truck and you get to write it off I guess.
-[all laughing] -Exactly.
One of the first things we had to do
is change that lettering that was on there.
The customer got with WrapStars, they come up with this design.
And they just come over and installed it here.
Oh, wow.
The wrap's like this silver reflective beautiful color.
[Tommy] Did you notice, like, when the light hits it it changes?
-Yeah. -It just like illuminates, so it really pops.
[Bill] You know, one of the other things we did,
you look on the bottom of the doors right there,
it had a retractable step underneath here and we lowered it,
-so definitely don't need the power steps anymore. -[Clay] No.
[Bill] Once we took all that off there was a big void.
-It didn't look right. -[Clay] Right.
[Bill] So we filled the void with that little rocker filler there.
-[Tommy] It looks awesome. -[Clay] Yeah, super clean.
When I was taking these steps off it was completely alien
to me underneath this truck.
-[all laughing] -It was odd.
-[Tommy] Oh, yeah. -It's definitely not a normal F150 under there.
[Tommy] But what you did, it fits it like it's a factory piece.
-[Clay] Yeah. -[Tommy] It does, it looks awesome.
If you like that, well, you know what we're known for, right?
I do and so what did you do to it?
-Check this out. -[Clay] Oh, lord.
-Wow. Man, that is cool. -What? You bagged this thing?
-Uh-uh. -That is cool.
-Well, he wanted it lowered, so. -You just went all the way?
-Might as well, right? -Yeah, I guess so.
[Bill] Far as I know, this is the first bagged Lightning ever.
-Yeah. -[Clay] I've never seen one, that's cool.
-[Tommy] Nope. -[Jamie] We did air struts on this one.
Air struts on the front and the rear.
-[Bill] Also, it rides good, too. -[Jamie] Yeah.
It's kinda odd putting the compressor and tanks
-where always we see the motor in here. -[Clay] Yep.
Dad, it must be crazy for you from steam engine, to coal, to everything, you know.
I bet this--
-I'm old, but I ain't that old. -[chuckles]
It's got those VIAIR compressors.
Man, they pump up 200PSI super quick to the 7 gallon tank.
So you just push a button and it's right up to ride height.
So how low will it go?
-Check it out. -[Jamie] All right.
-[chuckling] Ohh. -[Tommy] That's awesome, bro.
[Clay] Yeah, I'd say you got it pretty dang low for him.
It's really cool to be leading the way.
A new electric Ford Lightning never been on the ground like this.
We got big 24s on it,
it just look perfect proportion to the truck itself.
The wheels and tires just fit the wheel openings and the truck perfectly.
-Yeah, it is. -Y'all just did an awesome job.
[Bill] The team came together.
Once again, thank you to every guy in the shop, sweeping, welding, grinding,
couldn't do it without you guys and I can't wait till the owner sees this one.
[Clay] That's the coolest business card you can get, right there.
-[all laughing] -[Bill] Right.
-That's sweet. -What y'all up to today? What y'all need.
-Man, you know me, I need something. -Come on.