Man, I don't know if Bill knows what he got himself into.
[Bill] We're adding hydraulic cylinders under the bed
of the '23 Polaris Ranger.
We're doing a dancing bed on a side-by-side?
[Bill] Gotta have that adjustability.
We gotta put rear steer on it, be really be doing donuts.
[Bill] John's filling it with a ton of subs.
Now we'll see if it fits.
[Bill] The '52 Wrecker is a ground-up build.
The next step on it is building a bed from nothing.
Oh, yeah.
Best part of the whole build, we had all this open space to work with
and unlimited options.
[Bill] It'll take a lot of work, but we're gonna get it figured out.
Dang! Golly.
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] Here we've decided to make a roof for the side-by-side
'cause there wasn't anything there,
so I'm definitely not gonna buy a roof.
This custom roof is just one more step on the '23 Polaris Ranger.
We got the top chopped 4-inches to get that roofline way down
and to make it way more streamlined.
I wanted a camper on it, but that's not something you can order,
so we made it ourselves.
I'ma have Jessie burn me out a perimeter
I can weld in this seam all the way around.
We'll actually sandwich some 3/8ths plexiglass
in between the two pieces of metal.
With that same file that Jessie drew
I had John cut me out some 3/8ths MDF
that represents the thickness of the plexiglass.
So I'ma sandwich these two together,
put it up in the roof of the side-by-side,
clamp it all together,
and I'll have my perfect fit in it where the plexiglass is all gonna be.
So everything'll be nice and straight, measured out, prefect distance.
When I sandwich all this together it's gonna look really, really cool.
Once we get the roof done, we can start mocking up that suspension.
And then, we're gonna move to that dancing bed.
You know, it's an old mini truck thing
where the bed moves back and forth all on hydraulics.
You know, what build wouldn't be complete with lights
and a whole lot of stereo system,
so it can be really, really loud.
So we got a nice little spot for our plexiglass to fit in now.
Yeah.
Man, we got our bottom lip, it'll be 100% water-tight.
We won't have any drips when you go through and splash a big mud puddle, so.
It's real cool. It's gonna look really, really clean.
And it's gonna be different, man.
Not too many side-by-sides have two sunroofs.
Making this thing standout is not easy.
There so many of these Rangers out at the mud park.
I mean, so gotta put everything we got on it.
We're gonna do ahead and put rear steer on it.
Grab your side on the other side.
So the rear steer's gonna allow the rear tires
to turn along with the front tires on a travel switch.
So if you wanted to cut a sharp circle,
you just hit that rear steer, turn your wheels together, be really be doing donuts.
My dad told me we're finally tearing this thing apart,
so I had to come down and help out, you know.
Maybe if I help out on the build he'll let me take it out.
[Jamie] We'll start taking off the exhaust,
take off the control arms, take off the spindle, take out the shafts,
I mean, we're gonna pull this thing completely apart.
That was the easy part, now trying to figure out where everything goes.
-Oh, that's the best part. -Yeah.
Okay, well, we got all our control arms right here.
Look at the difference, looks like we could snap this.
This right here, this is solid.
You could... I mean, you could run this on a truck.
The same thing with the rear, I mean, this is thin, square tubing.
And this thing can go through some hell.
Get rid of these weak, little links right here.
One less thing to break on the trail.
So we're need to go ahead and find all our bushings, get our bushings pressed in.
We got ball joints we gotta do.
-You got it this time? -[Keegan] Yep.
[chuckles] There.
Next, we're gonna go ahead and start putting them back on the Ranger.
All right, we still have to put air strut in.
We're taking the spring off the strut
and we're gonna replace it with this airbag.
That's gonna give us that up and down air suspension movement.
You can't adjust this spring, all it's gonna do is compress.
This right here, we can put air in it, make it expand, let air out.
That's gonna give you a lower and a higher ride height.
Cool.
We're gonna go ahead and just put the portals in without the CV axles.
'Cause we don't wanna keep on pushing in
and snapping off that seal right there
Let's just snug 'em up.
This our hydraulic ram right here.
And it's gonna push this rod out to the spindle, connect to the tie rod,
and that's gonna turn your wheels left and right together in sequence.
So this is a tie rod, this is basically gonna hold
tension on the wheel.
It's gonna bolt just like you see right here.
You're gonna put a heim right here,
through bolt it, two misalignment spacers.
Once you put that on there, that's gonna complete our steering right there.
[Keegan] This is a huge improvement from what we had before.
We got new arms, we got new air struts,
and we got this rear steer system.
I think it's just gonna be insane.
I can't wait to take this thing behind my dad's back
when he ain't looking, take it out with my friends.
[Bill] While we're finishing up the suspension,
I'm gonna go with all black glossy paint on the Ranger.
Next, we wanna take the heat gun and heat up all the stickers.
If there's any stickers on 'em
we wanna get all the stickers off, just like that.
Painting metal you usually clean it, sand it.
Plastic, you scruff it to get the adhesion,
so you have something to adhere to.
And from there, it's the same steps as painting metal.
And once you follow those simple steps,
you have a properly prepped piece of plastic.
All right, first what we have is the adhesion promoter.
It actually helps the paint adhere to plastic.
Step two, sealant.
It gives you a nice, solid base to enhance the color.
All right, third step,
the color.
Same thing, just maybe two coats.
Flash time, five or 10 minutes, then we'll move on to clear.
You really want it to be thick.
You really want it to be real deep.
I mean, 'cause that's what gives you that reflection.
That gives you that pizzaz as they say in black.
If it takes an extra coat of clear then that's what we do.
If it's not shiny or glossy then it's really, you know, you didn't achieve your goal.
I mean, our main goal for this black is to make it, like, as glossy as possible.
All right, couple of hours to dry.
We'll see you on the next trip.
[Shorty] Hey, what's up, Bill?
-How you doing, man? -Doing good.
Man, I heard you have a little project you wanna do.
I do. I really appreciate you coming by.
Shorty, I've got much respect for you for many, many, many, many, many years.
So I got this crazy idea that I wanna do hydraulics on.
You know, in Houston when it comes to lowriders and hydraulics,
Shorty's the man.
You know, he's one of the only ones that I trust
when it comes to making this dancing bed.
You know, I've always liked the old '90s mini truck dancing beds,
I always wanted that.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, that's coming back.
You know, a lot of guys out there building little trucks all over again.
-[Bill] Yeah, man. -Well, what'd you got?
Wanna do it on a side-by-side, huh?
On the side-by-side, yeah, man.
You want something crazy here.
I've never seen that before.
-I think that would just be unbelievable. -It could be done.
You know, me and the guys, we use this to go off to the off-road park.
And I was gonna keep it stock,
you know, just so you don't have any problems with it, but I can't have that.
Since I'm building this side-by-side,
it's gonna represent the company,
I want something just unbelievable.
Something crazy that nobody's ever seen before.
And that's what I need your help with, man.
I know you are the king when it comes to something like that.
Yeah, I guess we can do a 4-stage on it.
Can do a tilt back with the double z-rack
and then one tilt to the front.
And that way it's really up there
and you'll be king of the park.
Wow, man, that sounds really, really, really cool, man.
That's what I'm looking for.
I'll get my sons out here, come check it out, take some measurements.
-Man, I'ma let you get to it. -All righty, sir. We'll get on it.
We're doing a dancing bed on a side-by-side?
-[Shorty] Yeah. -Ain't never seen that before. [chuckles]
-It's crazy. -[Shorty] You know Bill.
Bill's a little [speaking other language] , you know, so.
[Marco chuckles]
It's gonna be a little challenge being the bed so small.
It can be done, you know, we're gonna do it.
First things first, we gotta build the top frame for it,
the first rack, and go from there.
All right, let's make this dancing bed.
[Bill] Shorty and his sons are getting after that hydraulic bed
for the '23 Polaris Ranger.
But before they can get going, like on any job,
they need to start by prepping that existing frame.
[Nicholas] All right, now that we got the bed off
we got the original frame and we can take measurements for this.
And think first step's gonna be is I wanna move this mount further to the rear,
that way it has a better swinging,
that way it has a higher pitch on it.
Let's get this stretched out as far as it needs to be,
that way we can make the first top frame.
Go ahead and grab this, let's get going.
[Nicholas] We're gonna go ahead and cut this original hinge off
to extend this frame out.
Got that cut off, we can add on that 11.5-inches
of 2.5x1.5 square tubing.
Okay, right now, what I'm gonna cut is gonna be the frame extension.
So this one's actually a 1.5x2.5-inches, it's gonna be a little bit taller,
but we're gonna drop that part down.
And it's a thicker wall, so it's gonna be able to handle the weight
of all the racks, and the bed, and the camper, and everything else.
Pretty good.
All right, got the two extensions cut.
Only thing is they're a little bit taller than the factor frame,
but that just gives it more strength.
That ain't going nowhere.
[Bill] To get that bed dancing around the way I want,
they need to build three frames to stack together,
so that'll give it the ability to front, back, and side to side.
Wanna go ahead and square 'em out
and go ahead and get 'em welded up.
All right, I got these brackets squared out
on the hinges, tack weld 'em.
There we go, we got two hinges made. Then it's the test time.
Make sure it's squared out and we'll go ahead and tack weld 'em.
There it goes.
Well, this is the first one. Everything looks good.
Now after this then we have the second stage
which is gonna flip to the right.
[Nicholas] So right now we're determining placement of the hinges.
-All the way to the edge? -No, put it over there.
[Nicholas] Now that we found the placement of the hinges on the second stage,
we're gonna take it back to the welding table.
Ready to go.
[Marco] So this is a lot stronger than what originally came on the vehicle.
[Nicholas] Pretty much no matter where it's at, driving off-road,
on road, car shows, whatever,
this thing can be dancing around and he ain't gonna have no problems with it.
-The jaw spacers are in. -[Nicholas] Now we have a dancing bed.
Oh, man, caught you working.
-Oh, hate when that happens. -[chuckles]
-Got plenty to do? -I got too much to do right now.
Well, man, you got a little more to do.
That's all right, bring it on.
We're really making some headway on the Wrecker.
I really like how it's coming out, man.
- I mean, we got that frame underneath the cab. -[Carlos] Mmm.
[Bill] Man, super strong.
We got all the cab mounts made, the cab's connected.
All the suspension's made, super heavy suspension.
It's super strong.
I know, I seen how it was all built
and the way that frame is, it just looks like a metal jungle gym.
It's just so beefy and I know it's gonna handle anything,
especially that engine that's in there.
[Bill] You know, that LT4, 640 horsepower,
it's gonna leave four nice, black marks behind it.
That's what he wanted, lots of power, that's what he got.
[Carlos] Mmm-hmm.
When you get out in that parking lot and do the first test drive.
Yeah, just a test.
[chuckles] Yeah. And we know what the "test drive" is.
[Bill] Well, the next step on it is just building the bed itself.
Building it from nothing.
You know, just getting back, clamping some flat bar together,
getting all the proportions looking good.
I mean, that's super critical on something like that.
And then, I wanna incorporate, you know, a light bar built onto the bed.
- You know, something that looks good. - Yeah.
You know, I just don't wanna go down to RPM and get a light bar for it.
I wanna build everything
to make it kinda fit and flow all together.
And for the last part, the coolest part,
is gonna be building the whole Wrecker boom.
[Carlos] Have you ever built anything like that before?
-No, never. -[chuckles]
-Hey, but that's... -The fun part.
-Yeah, yeah. -All right, man, get to it.
All right.
[Bill] We got our new frame underneath the old '52.
We got our rear end in, we got the four-link and everything established,
so that locates our wheel base.
It's gonna be low to the ground,
so I wanna put the fender super low.
And I wanna use an older style fender
on the outside of this Wrecker bed
so it looks kinda nostalgic, right.
So the next step is getting the shape of the bed.
We're gonna sit some flat bar up here
and kinda eyeball the shape,
just the overall height, the width.
I need a little slope on the back.
-[Ryan] Maybe like right here? -Yeah.
So we have some measurements to go by.
I know it doesn't look like much right now,
it just looks like a bunch of scrap metal in a pile.
But, you know, everything's established
with these quick little pieces of flat bar, angle tubing tacked into place
to give us a great shape to start with.
[Ryan] Yeah!
I'm gonna make a template around the side of this cab with some chipboard.
That way this 2x2 that we set in here has this perfect shape to it
to make all this actually flow into the cab,
make it look like it's supposed to be like that.
So to get that shape that we're looking for that we made on our template,
all I did was just roll this 2x2,
gave it a nice contour as close as I could get to the edge of this cab.
That's it.
And then made a little relief cut in here.
The metal will naturally wanna try and banana curl, you know.
So added a little bit more pressure and guided it where I wanted it.
Then I can just come in with a piece of 10-guage and fill that in, weld it,
grind it smooth, and you'll never know.
See now how that transition is smooth, it's perfect to the side of the cab.
So we have that same gap all the way down, the whole way.
Put it up to the paint sticks, throw some tack on there, get some weld,
grind the weld off,
and it'll look like it's all one piece rolled all the way out.
Of course, this is made long right now.
Wherever it'll tie in will get cut down.
[Bill] You know, the '52 Wrecker is for sure what I call a ground-up build.
We built the custom frame, suspension, and making the entire bed from scratch.
Once we're done there will not be another one like it.
So now that Bill and I have the frame laid out
on what we want the bed to look like, what structure we want it to take.
I'm gonna take these pieces of pipe that I have cut,
I'll clamp it to this frame that we have made right here, connect the dots,
and then once I have some sort of frame structure
I can get rid of all this stuff
and we can stand back and look at what we got.
And add anything or do whatever we want from that point forward.
Might tear it apart, might keep it, we don't know yet.
Just like we did here, we gonna do it in pipe now,
so this lines up perfect with the back of the cab, the whole thing.
And then it keeps shooting out,
so we're gonna have to just roll it right here on this corner.
Pretty doggone good, I'll tell ya. Tell ya what.
Doing one side of anything is always super simple,
it's mirroring it that is the pain in the butt.
I'm gonna try and make myself some type of jig like that we got going on over there,
some type of framing to where I can kinda set this in
and get it tacked in just like I did on that side.
Let's see if this is the right height.
We're not so different you and I.
Now you can kinda see the direction that we're going.
We got the shape now and everything's, you know, looking good.
This is gonna look really cool.
We'll keep on adding some pieces to the puzzle.
All right, so we just finished up on our tubular frame here.
Main reason why we use the tubing is because we like that roll,
we like the radius of it.
So now that we've got our base done
now we can start getting into the fun part,
bending and rolling some sheet metal
and really start seeing this thing transform and take shape.
Gonna be pretty cool.
We're adding hydraulic cylinders under the bed of the '23 Polaris Ranger.
You know, once that's installed it's gonna lift and articulate
and that's what's gonna be our dancing bed.
Uh, the tough part about this,
part of it is making sure that the cylinders, everything is in line.
If you don't get everything aligned properly,
you know, you're gonna end up twisting your bed
or it not going up properly.
And it's gonna look kinda cockeyed
so you wanna make sure everything is just straight.
[Marco] On these cylinders normally on a lowrider,
you know, we'll probably push, you know, 5,000 maybe 8,000 PSI into the cylinder.
In a hopper you can push anywhere between
10,000 to 15,000 PSI into these cylinders.
So with this little tilt it's gonna handle it no problem.
Make it run, like, 1.5 across.
That way you'll have your legs to be able to attach this.
Twenty-five and 3/4.
All right, we got the material cut for stage two, cylinder three.
We're gonna go mock it up and weld it in place.
Challenge wise is making sure the cylinders mount
on each stage is in the right spot.
We got hydraulic hoses
that are gonna be mounted on the top sides of the cylinders.
They can pull, cause failure,
and then the hose comes down, the whole bed's coming.
So everything has to clear, if not it'll be a disaster.
Okay, so now we got all four stages,
cylinders in place, tack welded.
We're gonna give it a final test of all four stages.
[Shorty] Looks like pretty good. It's, uh, it's functional.
We'll just weld it in and start on the bed.
Looks like we got ourselves a bed dancer.
Let's finish it up. Get ready to pop some wheelies with this thing, huh?
We're gonna install the hydraulic pump and the dump valve assembly.
It's an eight valve system, so it uses four valves to open,
and four valves to release the pressure.
Basically, whenever you hit your switch
it's gonna send a signal to this terminal on the solenoid.
We have power coming in on one side,
so it's gonna open up,
it's gonna send power to this side of the relay,
which is gonna come to the motor,
motor spins, turns the gear inside,
pushes the oil out through this hose,
it's gonna run to the valve,
and then these valves are gonna control
which movement on which stage.
So first thing's first, we're gonna mount the pump.
So we've already made our bracket.
This is what the pump's gonna mount up to,
and we welded it straight to the frame of the truck.
All right, so we got the pump mounted in.
We're gonna go ahead and mount the manifold in place,
We'll mount it on the first stage.
[Marcos] So this manifold is gonna send up fluid
to each individual stage.
So they're labeled cylinder one, two, three, four.
And that's gonna correspond to which stage.
So this'll be stage one,
stage two, stage three, and stage four.
So whenever we run our hoses,
we have to make sure our wire's made up
to which dump is actually opening at the same time.
[Nicholas] Okay, so the manifold's in place.
Next thing we're gonna do is go ahead and start running the hoses.
What's up, pooch? I don't need no kisses.
So on the first stage, means it's two cylinders.
We actually have a single hose that's gonna T-off.
Means it's only a single port.
That way it can control both cylinders off of one side of the manifold.
Move on to stage three.
Now stage four.
[Marcos] So right now it may look like there's a lot of extra hose in here,
but once the stages start opening up,
you have to leave room for the movement of the stages
'cause the cylinders are actually gonna move
further away from the valve, so you need that extra slack.
Then it also doesn't touch the engine
and melt through the casing on the hose.
'Cause the hoses here, if they sit there
and rub, rub, rub, rub,
you end up putting a hole in it,
pouring oil everywhere,
and you have a big old mess.
[Marcos] Oh, I'm gonna run the hose from the, uh,
the pressure off the pump so we can start
running it up towards the valve clinoid.
We're gonna go ahead and do the little test.
See how it flows.
Hoses are all connected, they all fit properly,
we're good to go, ready to mount the bed,
put some fluid in the pump,
start dancing this bed.
[Bill] Shorty and his sons are doing an excellent job
on the dancing bed for that '23 Ranger.
You know, only thing left to do
is tack it all up and give it a test.
Okay, the bed is on, everything else is in place,
and we're gonna attach a bracket
from the bed to the top rack.
That way the bed stays moving with this rack on top.
And after that, it's gonna be time to test it.
These are temporary brackets.
But the tabs that we tacked onto the stage here
are gonna be drilled and tapped,
and we'll be able to bolt them in.
That way they're able to be removeable.
From here we're gonna run the final wires,
put oil on the pump, and test it out, see what we have.
Right amount of oil.
Next we're gonna connect
our wires that are running to our valves in the back
to our switch cord, and then we also have our switch power.
That's gonna get connected, and the only other thing is
our power from our battery to our clinoid,
and we'll be ready to test.
So now that these are wired in,
this is gonna be, uh, your first stage,
second stage, third stage, fourth stage,
and then up is, you know, raising,
and then down is dumping it.
Moment of truth!
Look at that.
-Yeah, nice. -We got ourselves a bed dancer.
All right, mission complete.
Man, I don't know if Bill knows what he got himself into.
Now it's time to take it back apart
and get everything powder coated.
[Marcos] We gotta hide the switch box
from the guys in the shop.
[all laughing]
[Bill] Even just having the frame built
for that '52 wrecker bed,
it's looking really, really cool.
Now Ryan's gonna make it look even cooler
with a lot of fab work and a lot of sheet metal.
So now with the whole frame built,
now we can start the sheet metal process.
The best part of the whole build,
getting to design the whole look of it.
So from here on out, it's just a bunch of bending
and cutting and trimming,
and, you know, giving this thing some character.
Go ahead, jog it.
[Bill] It's cool, you know. Each angle you put on it,
it totally changes the look of this wrecker bed.
We need to bend this a little bit more.
So it goes...
You're creating the attitude of the truck.
You're creating the photos it's gonna be taking
a couple months from now, a couple years from now.
You're creating those cool little lines
that people are gonna talk about
and get the buzz about.
So it's kinda cool, each time we put a piece of metal in place
you're creating a cool truck.
And it's gonna be a memorable truck.
We're gonna do some trim trim.
You know what I mean, we're gonna
work our asses off all day
either way, we might as well get to create
- and make some cool stuff and really be... -[Ryan] Yeah
[Bill] ...extra rewarded when you get done with stuff like this.
[Ryan] I'm gonna remember it too.
-Good job, Ryan. -I've been stuck on it
-for too long. -What I'm trying to say is,
-man, you do an okay job. -[laughs]
It's pretty okay.
-[laughs] -It's pretty okay.
All right, so now that we got the shape
of what we're gonna go with,
what we're gonna start with is this first panel here.
We'll get it buttoned up and tek screwed in.
And then we'll get to the cool part,
cutting it all out, putting the fenders on
and really seeing exactly what this is gonna look like.
This is great being able to create stuff like this
and just kinda going off a general idea
and seeing what you're capable of doing.
We've all been doing this for a long time,
but, you know, there's always curveballs,
and there's always something new every single day,
and there's always something new to learn.
And, you know, this is just exciting to me,
you know, being able to use my brain a little bit.
[singing] Tracing you.
I'm just trying to get the seam lined up right here...
...so that the transition from here to here
is aligned all the way down,
and there's not any wavy spots or anything.
So keeping this straight is the only thing I got to worry about.
Everything else will just fall in place after that.
Running the straight edge all the way down,
and when it meets, put a tek all the way down
till you get all the way to the bottom.
And we know right here is the top of our running board,
so all I gotta do is just make sure
that line continues all the way through.
Might need to come back and tweak,
so we'll just leave these few teks on here for right now
just in case we gotta pop it off,
we're not grinding everything out.
But, uh, it's looking good, feel good about it.
So move on down and, uh, work on the next piece.
All right, I got this last piece fit up real nice.
Gonna tek this in,
it's mucho bueno there.
Then we'll move around to the back.
Oh, yeah.
One more.
Mmm-hmm.
Get a fender on this thing, it'll look even cooler.
You want to see it with the fender on?
Already have some measurements of where the wheel is,
I'll make some lines.
Get the plasma over here, cut this out.
There she goes.
And then we can take our fender, mock it up,
and get it where it needs to be.
Now that the fender's on, you can actually see,
you know, what we've been seeing the whole time.
Now it's really starting to take shape and,
man, it looks super cool, it looks really nice,
especially with this running board that we're gonna build in here.
I wish it was coming home with me.
You know, it's a big project, so we're gonna be
bending and shaping a whole lot of metal
on this '52 wrecker bed.
There's nothing quick or easy about it,
Ryan's gotta make everything by hand.
All right, so now that we got all the sheet metal work done
with the outside of the bed, we're gonna move inside now.
Came up with this little template if you will,
something that we kind of made up.
We want to see if it'll look good or not.
So we know it fits this right here,
but as you can see, the bed tapers and slopes down.
So I can just measure to the bottom of it,
and we got 8 3/8ths and...
...6 3/4ths.
I'll go bend me a piece real quick.
We'll see what it looks like.
So I'll take a piece of sheet metal,
and I'll break it and put this roll in it,
put that bend in it.
So then that will give us the shape
of what the inside of the bed will look like,
and then we can go from this point out.
19...
19 inches.
You're starting with one piece
and trying to make that flow through your entire build.
You know, there's a lot of times we do this stuff,
and it might look right, but it might be off
1/8th inch down at the bottom, and you gotta start over.
So a lot of these pieces are just trial and error,
even though, you know, we got a kinda
certain direction that we want to go with.
So, you know, bending all this stuff
and, you know, standing back and looking at it.
This is one of those times in the build
that takes forever, but...
...you know, in the end, it's worth it.
You know, put a little bit of extra time,
and we're gonna have 4,000 bends
in the bed of this truck.
So, you know, just doing this over and over and over
and trying to stick with that one shape
and that one look is, you know,
really important at this point.
So, you know, if it don't look right, start over.
So now that we got this third piece in place right here,
now you can see what one complete side of the bed
will look like on the inner structure here.
So we can continue on with the front,
we're gonna keep at it.
All right, we got our driver-side fender well in,
tacked up, leveled and everything.
So we got the straight edge going across.
We can start at the fun part
and start piecing the whole floor together,
doing sheet metal work
and getting rid of the seeing the frame,
and you can actually see the whole bed here in a minute.
So we'll get this tacked in...
...and move on to the floor.
All right, so we got both of our fenders in.
They're both square,
level true to the bed and everything.
So now we can start with our sheet metal floor
and seeing what design we want to go with.
We have all this open space to work with,
and, you know, unlimited options.
We'll figure out what we want to do and keep on rolling.
This wrecker build's been one of the biggest we've had
over the last few years.
But other than the cab,
we've had to build everything by hand.
Just like the bed, we've made really good progress,
but we can't finish it until the boom's made.
But that's something we've never done before,
like pretty much everything else on this job.
It'll take a lot of work, but we're gonna get it figured out.
And then we can finally look to getting this truck
back on the road.
You know, I had a mini-truck way back in the '90s.
I want to bring some of that style
into the brand new Ranger.
You know, what better throwback than a dancing bed?
A custom camper and of course,
a big stereo system.
And right now, John's out there filling it
with a ton of subs.
[John] Every woofer has specifications
that you have to follow to get the optimal sound,
get everything to work right.
And I've got some great measurements inside here
that'll make it easy to get the airspace I need.
It's this is the problem.
This.
So for this box, we're gonna be using expanded PVC.
We're doing a full marine system
inside of this side-by-side.
That way, we won't have to worry about any of the elements.
Off to the races.
Let me know when you're done.
We really want to go with something that's good
and structurally sound.
You know, this thing being 12, 14 feet in the air,
plus with Bill on the controls 'cause...
...he's never easy on things.
So we gotta be able to make sure
that it can withstand all of that and then some
because I guarantee you if it can break,
Bill will find a way to break it every time.
What I'm gonna do is just rough fit this thing together
to see if I can get it in that opening.
If not, then we can take it apart,
cut it in half, do whatever we need to do,
piece it back together,
get it back in the camper shell.
Why are you fighting me?
Man, why are you fighting me? I'm trying to do you good.
Perfect.
Now we'll see if it fits.
Oh. Come on, baby. Looks so close.
I don't give up.
Really happy if fit, so the next step
is I gotta build the back half of the box.
That's gonna create enough airspace
that the subwoofers need.
We're putting two windows
in here to be able to see inside the box.
We'll get it cut in, and that'll give us a window
into the subwoofer's world.
So I've already taken and I've drawn out
the window that I want
to mimic the headlights on the Ranger.
Get it into my carving program for my router.
And save.
Pretty thankful that I finally embraced the technology,
it's really helped out to make things
a lot easier to deal with.
Back in the day, this would've just been
all hand done on the router, duplicating parts and pieces.
Machine does it, we can make the pieces bigger,
we can make them smaller.
Man, this thing, it just spits it out over and over,
and I can go do something else,
which usually means I'm gonna go sand something.
It's just a win-win all the way around.
You know, as I start to design this,
I've gotta make the inside of the box look good.
We gotta dress that up,
just really make a whole presentation
out of what's gonna be here.
So work a little bit of that into this whole scenario
and get it kinda built out, and we'll start
body working it and molding it all together,
make something cool.
[Shorty] Hydraulics have been around for
quite a long while now,
early '40s or '50s actually.
It all started with surplus aircraft equipment.
It was hydraulic pumps off of the aircraft,
a lot of stuff was off the landing gear.
And now, I mean, it's everywhere.
We're a family oriented business,
and the boys here, I mean, they grew up
at the shop pretty much,
and they're all pretty talented on what they do.
Marc, he's, uh, one of the one's
that runs the CNC now.
It's great, you know, you get to wake up
and do what you love, and it's kind of cliche,
but, you know, that's my best friend, so... [laughs]
[Shorty] Nick, he does a lot of the welding and the fabs.
It's easier, you know, working with your brother
than somebody else.
We can depend on each other to get it done right.
I've been into lowriding for, like, ever, man,
since I was like 13, 14 years old.
It's fun, you know,
if anybody ever gets a chance to ride in one, try it.
Before you know it, man, grandma and grandpa
We got all the parts and pieces back from the powder coating
for the '23 Polaris Ranger.
Okay, so Wally just brought all our powder coat back,
everything turned out great.
So mean and Art are gonna put our heims in,
bushings, ball joints,
and get this thing together and get it out to the park.
You know, it's no secret, I'm partial to black and gold these days.
It's definitely gonna bring some attention at the mud park.
You know, painted all glossy black,
gold wheels, gold suspension.
That's gonna do it.
You know, we've put a lot of work
into transforming this side-by-side
into something that nobody's ever seen before.
We're gonna get it all together
then we're ready to hit that mud park.
Man, I'm ready to go, man.
-I'm ready to go. -I'm ready to go.
-It's pretty cool? -[Bill] Yeah, man.
It's been quite a transformation,
I can't wait for you to see it.
Last time you've seen it was doing the rear steer, right?
Yeah, still all put together,
that's the first thing we were doing
was tackling that.
If I know my dad, this thing is gonna be crazy.
This thing is gonna be sick.
There's definitely not another one like this
around anywhere.
I didn't expect anything less.
[laughs] Check it out, here it comes.
Dang! Golly!
How'd I know it was gonna be gold?
-How did I know? -[Bill] You already knew?
-[laughs] -Good job, daddio.
You know, Keegan's seen a ton of cars
in and out of the shop.
Nothing really surprises him anymore.
He's seen so many custom vehicles.
But he was just blown away.
-Man. -It don't look like the same one, huh?
-[laughing] -Not at all.
-[John] What you think? -Man, it's awesome.
-[Jamie] Very nice, huh? -Y'all did a very good job.
From what it looked like a few weeks ago
to what it looks like now, it is a world of difference.
It is insane.
Getting it into the shop, you know,
one of the first things we did is cut the roof down.
It just looked too tall and out of proportion
-for what it was. -[Keegan] I get what you mean, I get what you mean.
And then Bill had the idea of just putting them sunroofs in there,
and that was just a bonus right there.
[Keegan] You wouldn't know it had four inches
- cut off the top of it. - [Jamie] Yeah.
It just looks sporty.
[Bill] What do you think about those lights?
[Keegan] I... It could turn night time into day time.
[Bill] I mean, this thing has more lights
than most trucks around.
You know, of course it has the long-travel suspension
with air on it.
-[Bill] Gotta have that adjustability, right? -You have to, you have to.
-Exactly, it's what we do. -Can't do it any other way.
[Bill] Big 26-by-12s of course, you know, it looks like
they've been dipped in solid gold.
Fits the theme at this point.
-Right? -[both laugh]
And the gold wheels, you can see it coming from a mile away,
and it makes this whole thing just come together.
[Bill] I mean, of course we gotta have black and gold, right?
And, you know, not just black,
we had to take all the body off,
smooth out all the texture,
and then spray it a glossy black.
Yeah, it looks so much better.
Looks like you're ready to go to a car show.
[laughing] Yeah.
Car show? I thought I was going to a mud park.
Well, but you gotta look good doing that too.
Yeah.
[Keegan] And I can see the subs from back here,
I'm sure those are crazy loud too.
Right? My buddy here...
-Did a little work to it. -And it come all with it.
Cramming 4 12s in that thing was not an easy task.
So if you're gonna do it, go all out.
I've got 2,000 watts on the subs,
another 1,600 on the doors.
[Keegan] I can't wait to hear it.
[Bill] You know, one thing we had to do
is improve that interior.
You know, smoothing out the dash,
re-covering the seats
and embroidering the logo in it.
There's a lot of stuff on here
that's never even been done before.
Of course we had to build that custom camper
[Keegan] It looks like it came with it.
[Bill] I mean, that's specifically made to that vehicle.
-[Keegan] Dang. -And we got a little throwback to the mini-truck days,
so check this out.
-Let's do it. -This is what you come to work for.
Dang!
[Bill] Just making cool projects...
Oh, my gosh, man.
[Bill] ...making them come to life
and seeing it all come together at the end.
Days like this is what we're here for.
That is crazy.
Man, talk about grabbing attention.
When my dad started hitting those switches,
and the bed started moving back and forth,
up and down, left and right,
I mean, this thing's gonna be the center of attention.
We've done some ridiculous things around here,
but this tops it.
You know, now it's time to load this side-by-side
up on the wrecker, go out to the offroad park
and test it out.
Man, it is real, real cool to have an idea in your head
and having a bunch of tools laid out,
and using those tools and using your hands,
having people come to help, all coming together
to make this project complete, real cool.
And to be able to show Keegan something like this,
that's a good dad day.
[both exclaiming]
I can't thank my guys enough.
Shorty coming in and helping out
with this project, killing it.
Man, that's a cool, cool day
to see everything come together.
Man, I just can't thank everyone enough.
[laughs]