If they don't fall, it means it's good.
[man laughs]
'23 GMC Denali.
A lotta people are afraid just to... to take apart a new truck.
You know, I wanted a dual wheel but couldn't find it.
The advantage of having a custom shop? We're gonna make one.
Our '52 wrecker's come a long, long way.
You know, I've never built a wrecker boom before.
I kinda want something that goes with that 1952 era
but still kinda looks hot rod-y.
Every time we add a piece to this truck it just keeps getting cooler and cooler.
[Bill] I wanna lift it. I wanna make it super tall.
Probably can't go through the drive-throughs anymore.
12 inch lift, you're not gonna be able to go through drive-throughs anyways.
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.
Our '52 wrecker, our show truck-tow truck,
you know has come a long, long way.
But we've come to the point of actually building a wrecker boom for the back.
To be honest, I've never...
I've never built anything like that before.
So I came over to a friend-of-mine's shop,
you know, see my boy, Ryan.
-What's up, man? -How you doin', Bill?
And see if I can kinda look around and get some inspiration
to build a really cool, unique boom that goes with this wrecker.
We're building a wrecker, a custom wrecker at the shop.
-Okay. -It's old school. It's a 1952 Chevy.
-Wow. -So we're turning it into a cool,
custom hot rod wrecker.
Badass.
The guys in the wrecker industry are a niche industry,
and they would love to see you do something pretty cool.
Yeah, man, it's gonna be real cool, man.
I got some ideas in my head,
but I need a custom wrecker boom for it.
And if I need a wrecker part, you the man.
Hey, you don't wanna buy one?
Man!
It'd probably save a lotta time
if I bought one from you to put on the truck,
but I think taking a modern boom
and trying to put it on the back of this wrecker isn't the way to go.
Oh, yeah, I agree.
I kinda want more of the custom look, you know.
Something that goes more with that 1952 era
but still kinda looks hot rod-y.
-Cool, cool. -So...
Do you have any booms or anything I can kinda look at
just to kinda see how it all operates?
You know, I never really paid attention to one before.
So, I kinda wanna see, like, the... the inner workings of it.
We got plenty of booms around here to look at.
-Get your ideas flowin'. -Mmm-hmm.
Why don't you make yourself at home, wander around,
and I'll catch up to you here in a little bit.
Cool, cool.
-Thank you. -All right, man.
[Bill] The boom sling and everything,
that's what makes a wrecker.
You know, gettin' that right is gonna be key to this whole build.
You know, gettin' the proportions right,
gettin' the style lookin' and matchin' the same style as the rest of the truck.
I've never built a wrecker boom before.
I've seen 'em driving down the road back and forth, you know, haulin' a car,
but I've never actually put my hands on one.
And there's all kinda stuff I wanna look at.
Sometimes when you're doin' a project,
you just gotta go out and see what else is available.
And lookin' at their ideas is gonna inspire new ideas
to build something really cool.
And that's exactly what happened today.
And my ideas are in there.
Going back to the shop we're gonna put those to use.
[drill whirring distantly]
[shop noises overlapping]
[whines]
[Carlos] So, that engine's coming in finally.
For which one?
For the blue truck that's out back.
-[Bill] Which blue one? -The one that doesn't have the engine.
-The down one, okay. -[chuckles]
So we got a lotta work going on but, uh,
I see that tow truck's comin' along pretty good.
I'm really confident in the place we're at now.
We're building, pretty much, everything from scratch.
And the only thing factory is the cab and front end.
We built a totally custom frame.
Built a totally custom bed.
And next step is building a boom for it.
You know, I've never built a wrecker boom before.
I think I got a good idea how to do it though.
I'mma lay it out on the table, make a template,
and then give that to Jessie to burn out.
And then we're gonna box it all in.
So, it has a nice shape to it coming off the bed
-going all the way back. -Mmm.
You know, design so it flows really well.
Not just two pipes sticking out of the back of the truck
like the old school wrecker's are.
-Yeah. -Can't have that.
Once all that is made and built,
you know, the next thing is the sling.
That's gonna be like a... a focal point,
of the whole rear of the truck.
'Cause, you know, you're gonna see that front and center.
So, gotta spend a little time coming up with something looks really, really cool.
Yeah, that'll make it look like the tow truck.
-Yeah. -And then it'll be done.
No, not by a long shot.
Man, there is a lot of work still gotta be done.
Finishing up all the metal work on the bed itself.
You know, put the fenders on,
running boards, make sure they tie in.
And then it's off to powder coat.
So I still gotta order more parts?
-Definitely, definitely. -[laughs]
We're gonna start by making the layout for the boom
of the wrecker truck.
Hmm, hmm.
Man, I'm kinda likin' that.
So, I'mma play with a couple different ideas.
Get some different angles.
We don't have anything there, really anything to go by.
So, my plan is just to come up with something real cool lookin',
and not really try to stick with any vintage era, anything like that.
At the end of the day, what we want is just something
that'll look like a cool hot rod,
that just happens to be a wrecker.
And I'mma take this chipboard over here,
throw it on Jessie's table, let him get after it.
[Jessie] It's just like any other drawing to bring me,
but this one's just, like...
...a whole lot longer...
... and bigger this time.
So I'm gonna do the same thing as always.
I'm gonna draft up a big box around it,
and just get out my construction lines.
Get all my little curves that I have to get in here.
Put it in a computer and just cut it out.
[Bill] We're just gonna form it out of the three-sixteenths plate.
So everything's nice and strong and stays fairly straight
when we weld it and grind it.
Then we're gonna cap it all the way around.
And so it's gonna replicate, like, a rectangle tubbing,
but with some cool styling to it.
We got this last piece for ya.
Off and ready to go.
[Max] Come this way.
Back. [chuckles]
Now I got these two pieces together,
now you can see what's coming up to be just a one solid piece.
So now we're just gonna fill it in...
...with two and a half flat bar all the way down.
From here, I just gotta put in the flat bar
and kinda shape it as it goes.
Start tacking it, from there just gonna pull it in.
Think we got everything tacked in now on this side.
Gonna flip it over and do the same... exact same thing.
It'll be a complete, just one piece, solid.
[Bill] Thing to see now how everything is really starting to take shape.
Man, I love how it's looking.
The guys did a great job getting a head start for us.
You know, having it all welded together.
Sanded, you know.
All we had to do is cap the ends, which is awesome.
We can continue rolling.
You know, we got all the plates boxed in, welded, sanded.
You know, looks really good.
It's really gonna go with the flow of the whole truck.
So now what we're gonna do is connect it.
We're mount the wheel on the front where the cable actually spins through.
And on the back, we're gonna have the D.O.M. welded in place,
where it's gonna pivot.
Well buddy, it's up to you to make this look good.
You know, once that's all done,
we're gonna take it over to the truck,
weld it in place,
and then that's a wrap for the back of the truck.
We will start...
...with the square.
Went across this morning to take a peek at the wrecker and, uh...
...shouldn't have walked in.
Because when I walked in, I was volun-told
and walked out with a project.
Bill gave me a template to work with.
Bill wants me to make the sling out of aluminum.
So I'm just gonna take this template...
...work it into the computer, get it all drawn out,
and we'll let the machine do all the work.
Next step, we'll get a piece of MDF, put it in the router.
Run a test cut just to make sure everything's right,
everything's the way we want it.
See what it look like.
Price of aluminum we don't wanna screw it up.
Mark's good.
I like the way it's gonna cut.
So, let's get some aluminum in the machine.
Get it loaded up and start cuttin'.
Not bad.
Bill has the overall vision of these vehicles.
You know, when he adds these little bits of flair here and there
and does his thing.
But every now and then he gives me the opportunity to put my little piece on it.
You know, this all started flat, 2D,
really not even knowin' what he was after until I made the first prototype.
Then from there, ideas were endless.
We were able to actually really put some time and effort into this.
And make something that's really cool,
something that'll really stand out on the back of the truck.
[sizzling]
[Bill] Man, I love how this bed's coming together on the old wrecker here.
But, you know, like every wrecker
it's gonna need a light bar.
And you're gonna need something to hold the light bar.
So what I wanna do is create something,
that looks really cool and flowing up the front of the wrecker bed,
and kinda hugs the cab itself, you know, the kinda shape of the cab.
And kinda just all flows together,
looks really cool,
at a... at a distance away from the vehicle.
Got my chipboard, got my big ass scissors.
I want one column that comes up out of the bed,
up and kinda holds the light bar here.
So I'mma go with this width all the way down.
Put the winch up here, see what's up.
Might make it go into the winch mount or something.
But I can't cover too much, it won't cover that.
-It will protrude out. -Oh.
That's gonna have boxed in just the...
[Bill] Yeah, it'd be better looking.
-Right? -[Ryan] Totally, yeah.
Let me go draw it back there.
If it don't fall it means it's good.
[Ryan laughing]
I take it back. Oh, no.
Got something for you, bud.
Every car we do, I want the attention being drawn from a ways away.
Like you see it and you go, "Oh, man, I really need to go check it out."
That's always the point of when you're creating something like this.
But you don't want it to look totally brand new,
and totally two different trucks blended into one.
So we're creating a cool-looking wrecker bed that goes with the cab.
So this is just another aspect of the bed
that's gonna be created to go with the whole overall look.
I'mma gonna start tacking this here flat bar to them.
And, uh, you can... from there you're gonna see
the light bar start... starts taking its shape.
Jessie and Max did a great job cleaning these up,
welding up, doing everything that they did over there.
So we're gonna throw 'em in the truck right now,
and we'll build everything to the truck
instead of doing it on the table.
That way it's right on the money,
and it goes right in right after we get it coated.
All right, this one's level, and tacked,
and everything's good on this side.
Jump onto the other side and make it match.
So what we're tryin' to do here
is still have access out of these windows.
You know, be able to look behind you going down the road.
And also it's just, like, a cool factor,
being able to snake these in between and all that,
and keep the open look of the back windows and everything.
And so when we initially put it up there,
we noticed that it was kinda slanted back a little bit,
and we didn't really like the look of that.
So cut a quarter inch off the front of this,
we're gonna throw it back up there, check it one more time.
It should be good this time.
This is gonna be a really cool factor to the truck, you know,
with Bill's idea I think it's gonna look great.
And it's not something that you can just go purchase and buy.
And with all this goin' on, you still got that one, extra little touch, you know?
[laughing] It looks awesome.
It's gonna look sweet with all the lights cut in there,
and all lit up and goin', and...
And this is a really, really cool addition, I like that.
[Carlos] Ooh.
-This is that new one, huh? -Yup.
'23 GMC Denali.
You had it on order for awhile.
-I heard you barely got it in. -Yeah.
You know, it's kinda tradition around here to get a new shop truck once a year or so.
You know we're a custom shop, so the truck's definitely not gonna stay stock for long.
We gotta keep up with the latest and greatest,
and show people what they need.
Well, when I was walkin' up, I see you have that look in your eye.
Definitely gonna need your help on this one.
You know, it's a '23 model truck,
but I don't wanna leave it stock.
And when we're out driving around in it,
goin' to shows, pulling a big trailer with it,
you know, it represents the shop, right?
Of course, I wanna make it big in the front.
I wanna lift this one.
And I wanna lift it about 12 inches.
Whoo! Yeah.
The good thing about that is it's gonna be an easy find for me.
Back in my hometown, Bakersfield,
there's a lift kit company that specializes in those type of lifts.
I can reach out to them and... and, uh, bring some of California into Texas.
-All right, well, earn your keep around here, right? -[laughing] Yeah.
We'll see how good you are on that.
12 inch in the front, and, you know, I can't use a... a kit on the back.
We're gonna have to build a four link with big bags,
'cause I still wanna pull that big trailer we have.
-Yeah. -And, you know, be able to load it down.
I like the roof rack on the Baja truck.
-Mmm-hmm. -So, I wanna go ahead and put one on here also.
I know it's gonna suck
so I probably can't go through the drive-throughs anymore, but--
[chuckles] Yeah, with 12 inch lift
you're not gonna be able to go through to drive-throughs anyways so.
[Bill] But I want a lotta lighting on it too, man.
So get a bunch of lights coming,
under lights, roof rack lights.
You know we gotta see at night.
-You know, I'm gonna replace the bumper... -[Carlos] Mmm-hmm.
[Bill] ...with a new one, lighting on that.
Get rid of the little pontoon running boards, man.
Let's put retractable steps on it.
Lighting all underneath.
-And, you know, of course, the wheels. -Yeah.
I was gonna ask about that, we're goin' that big,
-you have to be doing some big with the wheels. -[Bill] Yeah.
26s for sure.
I want an all-black wheel.
-'cause I don't wanna have to polish. -[Carlos] Yeah.
And I got some ideas for the back.
[laughs] Of course you do.
[Bill] It's a 1 ton truck but a single wheel,
but I wanna make it into a dual.
I've been looking for an all-black dually for quite some time,
but there are just none out there.
So, the advantage of having a custom shop?
We're gonna make one.
And, you know, it's not gonna work with a bed.
-So, I'm gonna pull this bed off and put a CM bed on it. -[Carlos] Hmm.
[Bill] You know, a nice flatbed,
something that looks really cool.
And with the CM bed, man,
I... you know I don't like the tail lights that come in it.
That trailer-style light, you know, I wanna change that.
So I'm thinking pull these tail lights out,
-and put these tail lights in the CM bed. -What?
-Okay. -So I think this'll be pretty cool.
And... And give it that cool custom look too.
So I got a lotta work ahead of myself to make this, uh,
represent the company.
-And it's gonna be a challenge to get all the stuff and-- -Well...
Yeah, we want it quick too, man.
I want all this done before the plates come in.
-Oh, so you needed stuff like, yesterday. -[laughs] Right.
-Let's get it, man. -Well, I gotta get going then and get some stuff ordered.
-Let's make it happen. -[laughs]
We customize all sorts of things around here.
And when we get a new shop truck, we gotta customize it too.
We can't be rolling around with some stock truck.
A lot of people are afraid just to... to take apart a new truck.
You know, just getting a new car in,
blowing it totally apart, and just getting after it.
You know, it's good everybody at Ekstensive too, you know,
seeing what the manufacturers have surprised us with this year,
brand new, latest technology, latest model.
What's different from last year to this year?
It only makes for a stronger team around here.
It's cool to be able to work on the latest and greatest,
but it's also really cool to drive around in the latest and greatest.
[sizzling]
I see you got the truck in here.
I know it's time, you can't keep nothing stock for very long.
You know it wasn't going to be long for sure.
[laughs] No. That ain't your style.
Well, you gotta have something new, you know, it's 2023.
Start off the show season real soon, man.
We gotta have something new, fresh.
Always.
That's what we got, 2023 GMC Denali.
-Hell yeah. -Got a plan.
All right.
Man, I wanna lift it.
-[laughing] Okay. -I wanna make it super tall.
-About 12 inch lift on this. -[Jamie] Okay. That's pretty good.
[Bill] One of the first things we're gonna do
-is get rid of everything on the front. -[Jamie] Okay.
And Carlos found a cool kit in his hometown.
-We're gonna unbolt everything. -Okay.
And just install the kit in the front to save some time.
You know, this is gonna be cool.
You know, I wanted a dual wheel truck, but couldn't find one.
-[Jamie] Yeah. -Making it dually.
-[Jamie] All right. -[Bill] And I wanna put a flatbed on it.
So give it that totally different look.
[Jamie] I see where you're goin' with this.
I... I know already that we're just not gonna put
a stock bed on here and bolt it down.
All the bells and whistles, you know?
Well, it's one thing I wanna do is the headache rack that they come with,
I don't like the styling of it.
-So we're gonna change that up for sure. -Okay.
And on the rear, what we're gonna do
is just cut everything outta the back
and install big 4-Link on the back.
And, you know, these pontoons on here.
-Can't have that. Gotta have retractable steps. -[laughs] Yeah.
Nice.
Once we're all done with that, we're gonna powder coat everything.
Man, I can already see this already.
-Way up there, out there and bright. -Yeah.
Well, let me get Art, man.
And I'll get this thing started, uh, tearing it down.
-Yeah, man, let's do it. -All right.
All right, man, you know, this is our new shop truck.
It's nice. I'm excited.
-Yeah? -Let's do it.
[Jamie] First thing's first, let's go ahead and get this bumper off,
so we can get the bed off.
Get this out the way, so we can get everything
cleaned out from underneath it.
-[Art] Go give him a kissin'. -[Jamie laughs]
Okay, I think you should be able to pull it now.
Ready?
All the way to the back.
Art and I just got the bed off.
We're gonna go ahead and pull the spare tire now.
Once we get that down,
we'll go ahead and take those steps off,
we'll be able to rack the truck.
Once the trucks are racked, supported,
we'll be able to start pulling that front end apart.
Now we're gonna go ahead and pull the rear end.
Then we'll have the clean slate we were talking about.
[dog toy squeaking]
Let me tilt it down here, too.
All right.
One of the big parts of making the boom
for the '52 Wrecker is getting that placement right.
[Bill] Yeah!
[Ryan] I'm just gonna set that right there
-so you kind of just keep a hand on it. -Yeah.
-[Ryan] So let me go grab that other one real quick. -Okay.
[Bill] Let's stand it up.
[straining] Up a little bit... right there.
Good.
Reow!
Both of 'em need to be spread out.
Push the whole thing that way a little bit.
Yeah, we'll drop a plumb bob here in a minute,
but just for now.
-[Ryan] It's perfect. -[Bill] Pack it.
Definitely need to go up a little bit.
[Ryan] Okay.
[Bill] It look like a damn Wrecker.
This is where all the hard work really starts to pay off.
You know, all the hard work in the bed,
all the hard work in the frame,
finally coming together and being able to put the boom into place,
you can really tell what it's gonna be.
It's gonna be just a cool, sleek, hot rod Wrecker.
[Ryan] All right, so we've come up with another cool design
to go with this boom.
We want another wheel to where we can hide our winch line
through the center of the boom,
and you don't see it from the side
just kind of hang on down in thin air,
so we want to put it in here like that,
we'll have a through bolt going through,
and this'll all be boxed.
That way whenever you look at it from the bottom or the top,
all you see is the floating wheel on the inside,
and the bolt will be internal.
We'll box this all in, get this welded up.
Get it cleaned up and grinded, and then we'll fit it up to the boom.
-Yeah. -[Ryan] Right there?
-Yeah, that looks good. -[Ryan] All right.
Until you make something like the boom
on a '52 Wrecker, you don't really know what it takes.
There's a whole lot of unique parts and pieces
that go into making something like this.
[Ryan] Uh...
Ryan's making one more.
Custom braces to hold that boom
exactly where it's supposed to be.
Right now we're gonna make some turnbuckles.
We're gonna a roll a pipe in here, get that same arch
as our light bar rack here,
and put two Heims on the end
we'll have a turnbuckle system so this can actually go up or down.
But first thing here, we're gonna roll some pipe
now that we got our arch, and, uh, and we'll take it from there.
Here, uh, let me see that bad boy.
We'll find some dom!
Fancy pants auto Ram.
[Ryan] All right, right there.
-50? -[Ryan] Yeah, 50's fine.
Put them at the same time.
-All right, we'll take that one back there to the sander. -[Dustin] Okay.
Let her rest like that.
And then hold it, kind of, at an angle.
Hey, make sure it's gonna keep on rolling the whole time, all right?
[Dustin] Okay.
I think I'll roll this.
Whenever you're running this, just go a little at a time.
We'll roll it right to our template that we have made here,
then we can cut off the ends.
26 minus 8.
18.
[Ryan] So they need to be 18 inches long.
It looks pretty great.
All right, now we got our pieces cut,
throw some bones in it and some Heims.
We got our bars stacked up.
Let's go try 'em out and see how they fit.
Come on.
There we go.
All right, so now that Dustin and I got the bars made,
you can kind of see the direction that we want to go with.
You can see the little...
...slight arch in it.
We'll get this bolted in, these will go on the floor here
for a throughbolt.
Our boom will be done after then.
[Dustin] We got our boom braces done.
They're looking really nice.
Both sets of tabs installed.
So not only do the boom braces look great, but they're also functional.
So you can adjust it up and down.
Every time we add a piece to this truck,
it just keeps getting cooler and cooler.
[Bill] You know, as busy as we are,
we're down a shop truck.
So we gotta balance making this '23 Denali
as cool as possible, but getting it back to work
as soon as possible.
So to save some time, Carlos really came through today
and sourced a front lift kit.
[Arthur] As you can see, we've got the suspension parts
under the truck taken out.
This is part of the new lift kit
that will give the truck up to a foot of lift.
All right, first things first.
This is gonna be the first piece we install.
Two bolts, one on each end.
I line up my bolt holes...
...passing my bolt through.
Now that I got my first piece put in,
I'm gonna start with the second one.
We'll be able to continue on the assembly
of the new front end.
[Jamie] Hey, need some help, man?
[Arthur] Yeah, I could use a little help here.
Where you at right now?
Right now, I already took out the front differential.
-Uh-huh. -Now I'm gonna mount these drop brackets in place.
Okay.
So I'm just figuring out exactly how they're gonna get configured,
and where the bolts are going in.
Once we have the drop brackets in place,
we'll be able to mount the differential back.
To the other side, real quick.
[Arthur] The whole purpose of these things
is to make up for the new distance that's gonna be
added on underneath the suspension of the truck.
[Jamie] All right, man. What do you think? First shot?
[Arthur] Sure.
[grunting]
There. Might as well party.
-[Jamie] You got one in? -[Arthur] Yes, sir.
This bolt's in.
Okay, so we got our differential,
and now you can see the distance,
how much we've stretched this differential from the frame.
You can see about a foot right here.
Well, that's our drop down.
That's actually gonna lift the truck up higher,
bringing this down.
So the next step is, we'll go ahead and put our connectors in
for our supports right there.
Once we do that, they're gonna be on control arms.
Okay, so it's gonna dip down
for right here.
Okay, uh, let's go ahead and hang it on.
All right, so we got that drop down,
then we're gonna go ahead and do control arms.
[Arthur] We are ready to hang the spindle.
That's upper spindles...
We got our hub.
It's easier to hang the bottom than pick it up,
and set the top in.
[grunting] Right... there.
[Jamie whistling]
What's up, dude?
Yes, yes.
-Yeah, my baby. -[barking]
Okay, so we got our drop downs on,
we got our upper control arm, our lower control arm,
our spindle, our hub.
You know, we were way up there before,
now we're down here.
I mean, this right here you can just kind of see
how much more we've lifted the truck
from just looking at this spindle right here.
Okay, so this is looking good.
Our next step is to get rid of the torsion keys
and we're gonna put our strut bars in.
And once we do that...
...you'll start seeing everything tying together on the frame.
You know, when it comes to custom,
nothing is ever easy.
Here you go. I don't want it.
[Bill] Even when we're not building the parts,
like on the front suspension on the '23 Denali,
it still takes a ton of tweaking to get it right.
We got everything else done in the front.
So now all we need to do is drop this torsion bar bracket down.
All right, let's set this down for now.
We have a mount right here.
This is gonna let us bring it down
right parallel with the lower control arm.
Get our torsion bar in, everything will be nice and parallel,
will line up perfectly.
Look at that. Right in.
Basically your torsion bar
takes place of your coil spring,
'cause this is a 4-wheel drive.
There's no place for the axle to go,
so it's a CV joint.
So you can't put a spring in between that CV joint,
so you use torsion bars.
I got my...
...torsion keys in here now.
This is gonna preload the lower control arm,
so like it won't fold up into itself.
Basically a bolt runs through here,
puts tension on this torsion key,
and it twists...
...the control arm up or down.
Cool.
Okay, so we got our new shock with our reservoir, spacer,
we're gonna bolt it up to our upper shock mount,
and then we'll bolt it up to our lower control arm.
Good.
I'm real happy with this setup.
Everything's supported, tied in together.
You know, we got ten to 12 inches of lift.
Now we're gonna blow it apart, and send it to pirate cove.
-Cool. -[Arthur] Let's get that shock out real quick.
[Bill] We're off to a good start on the Denali,
but we still have a lot more to come.
[Jamie] I think... hammer.
Knock it through.
[Bill] Custom rear suspension, the lift, bed fabrication...
Will it stand?
But since I couldn't get a stock dually, we're gonna make it work.
This isn't the first shop truck we customized,
and it won't be the last.
Here you go.
Just throw that up there.
-Now get a clamp to clamp it up there. -[Jamie] All right.
[Bill] Today's the kind of day that gets me excited.
We finished all the custom parts for the '52 Wrecker boom.
It's actually dangling in the middle of the hitch.
Now we can mock it up.
John milled out some cool little pieces for our Wrecker sling.
I gave him a little template.
He made it absolutely perfect to it.
This is gonna be the top part of the Wrecker sling,
we're gonna hook to the cable itself.
Let it kind of dangle back here.
-You got it? -[Jamie] Yup.
Pull it. All right.
Well, we got a lower piece here that connects
to the bed itself,
so I'm just kind of let this top piece kind of dangle.
-Set it right here. -Okay.
[Bill] Let the bottom piece kind of hang out
where it's gonna look the best at,
figure out our length of our sling.
It needs to come down a little bit.
Right there.
We're at a really, really good spot on this build.
It's all finally coming together,
all that hard work, all that cutting, welding,
grinding, grinding, and grinding and grinding.
It's finally starting to pay off.
Got everything mocked up on the truck itself.
Made sure everything looks cool,
looks good in proportion to the bed itself,
so it wouldn't have this rubber matting all water jetted out,
so it's gonna fit in here perfectly.
-Well... -Yeah.
What you think?
[Arthur] Man, it looks good, good, good.
Ready to haul a car.
Cool, man, well let's get it on the truck.
Let's go.
[Bill] Never built a Wrecker bed before,
never built a Wrecker boom before,
never built a Wrecker sling before,
but seeing it all together, man,
-it looks... -[Ryan] Yeah.
[Bill] It looks cool, cool.
And pretty much all the metalwork is done back here.
Only thing left to do, man, is...
...pull it all apart.
[Bill] Well, we can go ahead and pull the bed off.
-[Arthur] All right, you're clear. -[Bill] Grind, weld...
And we still got a little bit more
fab work on the cab itself.
Parts off to glass, parts off for paint,
powder coat the chassis.
-Keep it rolling. -[Ryan] Yeah.
[Bill] The handmade bed back from powder coat.
The guys in the body shop are gonna get it
all body worked and ready for paint.
All right, we just got this Wrecker bed back from powder coat.
We about to get started on the body work.
We got a lot of welds we gotta cover,
and it gon' take a while, but we here.
The reason we had this bed powder coated first
is because the powder coat actually,
it lasts a lot longer than the solvent step.
We use... use, like, the primers
and sealers and stuff.
It basically gave us a real hard armor to start with,
and Bill wants this to last, like, forever,
so straight from powder coat, straight to body work,
and then we get to primer.
And we'll get to the color in a minute.
[Dustin] So what got me into fabricating
was actually welding school.
I didn't even honestly like welding at first.
The only reason I did it was to get out of school early in high school.
I got out at 11 o'clock three days a week,
and that was great for me.
I... I didn't like it all the way through school,
and then I actually got a job.
We were really small time shop,
there was a lot of farmers and oil field work around.
Went into a lot of good stuff, we built a lot of cool cars and trucks,
you know, bagged a few vehicles, lifted some trucks.
Uh, learned how to fabricate there, you know,
really grew my skills and my interest in vehicles
and building parts for them as well.
So working here, man, it's awesome.
I learned a lot from Bill, Jamie and Ryan,
and all the guys out here, they've been teaching me a ton.
It's almost like high school football
compared to, uh, the pros.
You know, now that I'm here, I just want to keep getting better,
raising the bar, just keep learning, keep building,
keep cranking out these awesome cars.
In five years, hopefully I can be
You know, when I think back to all the handmade things
we've done on this '52 Wrecker,
frame, suspension, bed, and now the boom and sling,
we're talking hours and hours and hours of work.
Now, I couldn't be more proud of what we made as fabricators.
Because it's a show truck tow truck,
we're gonna go with a really dynamic color
that'll show off all that metalwork.
So I landed on a really cool-looking indigo blue.
I got the cab in the booth,
so we can get that first coat on.
All right, we got a first coat of sealant on.
We're gonna give it a few minutes,
let it tack off, and then I'll come back with my second coat.
Well, you can actually see if you've missed any spots,
'cause there's gonna be real, like, light spots.
That's why we using this dark concealer
over the light gray primer,
so we can actually see if there's anything left out.
We can easily get it.
That completes the second coat.
What I got here is that beautiful indigo blue.
See, there's a lot of pearl in that.
It's a lot of metallic.
It's gonna look beautiful in the sunlight.
Pretty much look like we're covered for the first coat.
We're gonna go ahead and get started with this second coat.
We are in our last stage
of this beautiful blue paint job,
which is the clear coat.
It gives you that gloss that you're looking for,
and I'm actually gonna put three coats on this.
Cab is one of the only pieces that we kept off the old Wrecker,
and you know, bring it up to date,
modifying the firewall, getting rid of all the old on it,
and spraying that new blue,
it looks really good where it's at.
[horn honking]
You know, I see a old cab over rolling up in the parking lot,
and what do you know?
Who pops out?
Brian and Ryan paid me a little visit today.
[Bill] What's up, fellas?
Man, that's a good looking truck.
Thank you very much.
-[Bill] What is this? -'52 Ford, cab over engine.
-[Bill] '52 Ford, huh? -[Brian] '52 Ford, yup.
Got a little diesel engine in it,
automatic transmission, air conditioning,
power steering and brakes.
[Bill] Yeah!
[Brian] Full hydraulic rollback bed on it,
pretty cool load truck!
It needs to be a little lower, but it's cool.
-Yeah, there you go. -[all chuckling]
So Bill's been building this '52 Chevy tow truck show truck,
and I brought my dad by, he's real eager to see it.
I'm interested in building the tow trucks.
We've been building them for a long time.
I'd like to see what Bill's coming up with.
You wanna see it?
-[Brian] You bet. -[Bill] All right, mate. Come on and check it out!
-Oh, look at this! -Look at that.
-[Ryan] That is something. -[Brian] That is really nice.
Beautiful.
[Ryan] You know, it's been a long road to get this thing together,
and starting to visualize it and see all the parts together now,
so far what we see is super cool.
[Bill] Pretty much all that we used on this
is the cab and front end,
and built everything else.
[Ryan] It's absolutely amazing, man.
-I don't know how you keep coming up with this. -[Brian] Beautiful.
Man, it's a ton of work just to get it to here for sure.
[Ryan] I really like that firewall and how clean that is.
-[Bill] Mmm-hmm. -[Ryan] What you've done to the dash!
You're keeping it in that... that same era,
but modernizing it.
[Bill] Yeah, man, this thing is really gonna be
something cool when it's going down the road.
Oh, yeah. It's gonna be over the top, man.
-Yeah. -Is that the original bed?
Every piece of that is all handmade.
There's nothing original on that whatsoever.
Started building a frame on top of the frame that we built,
and just kind of cladded it with sheet metal,
and just kind of step back, look at it,
see how it kind of,
come about, you know what I mean?
Just adding a piece here, getting back,
look at it, add another piece, and just start building like that.
[Ryan] It flows really good.
I like how you kept it in that same era,
but bringing it more modern hot roddy.
I mean, this thing is really nice.
It's beautiful.
You know, I stopped by your shop a while back,
and got some inspiration for a boom, right?
-Yes, sir. -Let me show you what I came up with.
-Oh, cool. -[Brian] Wow.
Isn't that something?
That is gorgeous!
It looks like something you find out of a Hot Wheels package
but for grown folk.
The boom looks like a boomerang.
-That's what it looks like. -Yeah, man.
I couldn't just go with, like, just some old-school pipe or something like that,
or even anything modern.
It's a lot of work, but I think that's the best way to do it
to make this whole project come together.
I'm proud of it, every guy at the shop is proud of it,
I mean, we busted our butts on it to get it to this point.
There's still a ton of work, you know,
once we get the frame back from the powder coater,
the fuel lines, brake lines, air lines,
all the electrical, all the new interior.
We're still going uphill on this one for sure.
We have to take this around to the tow shows!
-This thing is gonna be beautiful! -Yeah, man. I can't wait.
I can't wait to get it all complete.
I can't wait for that day the test drive comes.
I know the customer's gonna be super, super happy about this,
and I can't wait to give it to him.
I can't wait to get this done.
So man, was that ol' John Cena's Bugatti over there?
-[Bill] Yeah, man. -[Ryan] Ain't many of them out there, man.
-[Bill] No, man, no. -[Ryan] It's gonna be a tough one.
Yeah, the old Bugatti's a real hard find, hard to see.
This is gonna be a real job to make this one come out.
It's been taking a little while to kind of get a plan
of what we're building.
You know, I just don't want to throw a bunch of parts at it,
"Here's your car," you know?
I wanna give him something really, really cool,
really unique, and you know, something he can be proud of.
I finally have a plan for the Bugatti,
and a bay is opening up,
and just like the Wrecker, it's gonna be a lot of work.
Once that car is done and complete,
that's just one more project like this
that's just gonna keep us on top,
and just get people talking about it one more time.
Yeah, let us know when it's all done.
We'll come back and check it out.
Yeah, man. Brian can buy us lunch.
Man, we'd appreciate that.
We can do that.
Coming out of your check, but...