1956 Corvette. They made these special for racin'.
[Shorty] What we're doing is bringing it back to its original specs.
So you're here to work, right?
I think I'm going into welding.
[Rick] With the special high-lift cam,
there's a number stamped on the back,
which is only in 111 of 'em.
This could be one of the most valuable Corvette's ever produced.
[Shorty] This is the moment of truth.
[Matt] This is my 1984 AM General.
What is this? A house or a car?
We really did a transformation.
My name is Javier, but most people call me Shorty.
I was born in Mexico.
And when I was four years old,
my parents moved to Texas in search of the American dream.
Now I'm livin' that dream
with my own custom shop and a team that builds
the coolest cars on the road.
[man] Oh, dang!
[man 2] My God!
[Shorty] We make dreams come true.
[all cheering]
What you gonna do?
I deleted everything on the back of the radiator.
I mean, you deleted the hell out of this thing, Short Dawg.
Today is a another big day. We got our next build comin' in
and it just happens to be a '56 Corvette.
Ooh, man, it's nippy.
[Joel] So what are we doing to it, washing it?
[Shorty] A lot more than that, Joel.
Good morning, Rick.
-Shorty, how are you? -Good. How are you doin'?
All right, man. Finally, good to meet you.
It's good to meet you as well. This is my buddy, Joel.
Nice to meet you.
My name is Rick Wilson
and I have a 1956 Chevrolet Corvette.
-This is my grandson, Sawyer. -[Sawyer] Sawyer.
-How you doing, grandson. -Good. How are you?
-I'm good. -What's goin' on, bubba. How you doin'?
-Sawyer. -How's it goin'?
-[Rick chuckling] Yeah. -[Joel] He broke my hand.
-My daughter, Jessica. -Hi. Jessica.
-Nice to meet you. -[Shorty] Jessica.
-I'm Sandra, Rick's wife. Nice to meet you. -Sandra.
Nice to meet you.
[Shorty] Well, let's take a look at it and see what we got.
I bought this car in 2004.
Concept of restoring it
and, uh, bringing it back original and everything.
Uh, so it's been in one of my warehouses
for 18 years now.
I was born in '56.
The era that I grew up to,
my high school years and everything,
Corvettes were great. So I always wanted to have a '56 Corvette.
[Shorty] You wanna open up the engine and let us look?
Well, nice. I mean, it's very unique.
It's a very, you know, uh, cool-looking engine.
I was also mentioning to Joel what you had told me about on the phone
that it could be a very rare and one of, like, 111.
That's correct.
So they built 111
and Corvette wanted to enter them into stock car races.
And so they had to actually sell the car to the public.
So they made these special modifications
to the car, high-lift cam
and the carburetors were a little bit different.
And there's only a certain way to tell.
There is a number associated with the block
that should be stamped on the backside of the engine.
And if it was, that means it's like a really rare...
Right. So Corvette made, I think there was 3,500 and something cars.
So 111 of 'em were made strictly for...
-For racing. -...for racing, type deal.
[Shorty] Very special to you,
so that makes it special for us as well.
You know, you were telling me a little bit of, uh,
you know, the story about your grandson.
Coming up two years,
Caleb was involved in a race car accident
and there was some issues that we feel like need to be told
for safety for others.
So once the car's completed,
our plans are to auction it to raise money
for a foundation for safety awareness
for race car drivers,
especially in the classification
that my grandson raced in.
We thought this would be a good way
to, uh, tell the story.
To bring more awareness and, you know,
-tell the story about it. -Right.
We were gonna take the car and rebuild it ourself.
-Mmm-hmm. -And when he turned 16,
I was gonna give it to him. But...
then after this happened with Caleb,
we've decided that we wanna redo the car.
So you're gonna have to answer to him on how this car is finished out.
We're gonna have to answer to Sawyer?
-That's right. He's gonna come-- -Well, maybe we can get him
out here to help.
He's gonna come out, look at it
-and go through it with you... -Okay.
-...and ask questions and... -[Joel] He's got a firm grip,
so I don't know if we wanna deal with him.
I know, man.
He's been-- He knows how to wrench.
-Nice. Well, it would be nice to have him over here. -He's a wrencher.
-You wanna cut it hard? -Yeah.
Rick brought his family out here.
You can tell that it's very special
and Caleb is always with them in their heart.
And you can see the pain when they talk about him.
We just would like to keep his memory alive and...
he loved Dad's Corvettes.
He was a really fine young man.
Unfortunately, the good Lord has other plans for us.
But this one here, you know,
Rick's got a special thing in mind that he wants to do with it,
so then it becomes kind of our challenge.
Therefore, that kind of makes it special to us as well.
Uh, yeah, that's right, man. Yeah, that's correct, Joel.
-Really? -Yes. These are correct too.
Where's, uh-- where's everybody else?
Uh, Primo!
Jose.
Hey, what's going on?
Hey, man, I mean, that's a pretty badass ride, right?
-[Jose] Yeah, I like it. -[Primo] Yeah. It's clean.
I mean, who doesn't like Corvette's, right?
-Yeah. -Especially this one. What year is this?
'56, man.
-I like it. -Man, nice.
That's clean.
[Shorty] This is potentially a rare car.
There may only be 111 total.
I think maybe it needs to be lowered a little bit.
-Lowered? -Yeah.
The Corvette club's gonna come get you, man,
if you put air ride on this.
[Jose] So what are we doing to it, Shorty?
Well, everything, to a certain level.
You're gonna like it 'cause it's pretty small in there.
-Yeah. -It's probably the smallest one
you're gonna do this year for us.
You know, we do need a convertible top.
The interior is gonna change completely.
We are gonna change the color on it.
We're gonna really get under there and detail it.
We'll pull the motor. We'll paint it.
Get all the carburetors rebuilt.
You know, just get it running in tip-top condition.
One of the most meaningful and special things about the car
is why they wanna do it. Right, Joel?
Rick's grandson passed away in a terrible accident racing.
This issue's with safety and stuff.
So what they wanna take this car
and auction it off and use the money
to put towards a foundation for safety.
So I think it's pretty special.
It's gonna remember him.
[Shorty] You know, they're just torn up about what happened.
But yet, they wanna make a difference.
Corvettes are really special.
First of all, they're made out of fiberglass
and then they have a very unique body.
This one has the potential to be one of a rare breeds of Corvettes.
So, at some point, we're gonna have a Corvette specialist come out
and check it out.
It's a small car, so they cramped a lot of the parts
in the doors and under the dash.
What we're doing to this car is bringing it back to its original specs.
We're redoing all of the components on the frame,
freshening up the motor,
addressing the issues with the fiberglass,
and, of course, body work and paint.
I'm gonna see if I can fit in here.
-[Shorty] Easy, man. -It's small.
Let me see.
I don't have no grease, man, to get you out of there
if you get stuck.
Oh, man!
Boy, did you eat some tacos before you came over here?
[Shorty] Oh, man, I could-- I could run through there, man.
[Joel] Shorty can dance in there.
All right, why don't we all get in there?
-PG, there's no way we're all getting in there. -Come on, let's get in there.
-I'll get in there. Come on. -There's no way, bro.
Let's all get in here.
Then...
Man, y'all crazy.
-[grunts] -[all laughing]
Hey, Dawg, we got room for you. Come on.
[Shorty] Oh, my God, man.
Some parts are like really fun to work on.
And then some parts are really not fun to work on.
But, overall, very cool car.
We're gonna see what the Corvette specialist says about this car.
And I think that's gonna determine colors.
We're gonna find out what the right color was,
what the internals on the motor,
'cause that's what's gonna make it special.
[Joel] What's first, Short Dawg?
[Shorty] I mean, there's not much we can take off the car,
except for the two doors and the trunk and the hood.
[Joel] Make sure y'all bag it. Please make sure you bag it.
First things first, we're gonna take all the trim off,
take all the chrome off.
You know, whatever pieces we can save
that don't need to be chrome, we'll leave 'em.
But other than that, most of it is gonna be going to Victor
so he can get that re-chromed
and get that stainless shining really good.
All this burlap is kind of gone, rotten.
We're gonna have to get all that cleaned up,
the springs and all that,
and re-foam it back up.
[Joel] Rick's Corvette looks pretty good to be that old.
I just hope there's no hidden surprises in this thing.
Look at all this. It's all brittle.
You know this car's been sittin'.
For now, we're just gonna take off all the simple stuff
that you can get to right away.
This thing, look how old this thing is.
And it's not even tarnished or nothing.
[Shorty] It's almost like a work of art, Joel.
-Look at it. -Damn, they don't make it like they used to, Shorty.
Nope. They sure don't.
[Joel] If you're gonna pick a car to auction off,
I think this is the car.
What's up, fellas?
-What's up, Short Dawg? -What's up, Short Dawg?
Well, I brought a friend with me.
This is Caleb.
His Grandpa, his mom,
they wanted him to be a part of this build.
-Yeah. -He'll point me in the right direction?
He'll point you in the right direction, man.
-All right. Cool. -We'll put him right here.
Every time you get stuck, just come talk to him.
-Hey, man. If he's the supervisor... -[Joe] Yes, sir.
...let's back him up a little bit so he don't fall.
-All right. -That way, he can tell us...
-Tell us what, uh, he wants-- what he wants done. -Yeah.
[Shorty] I'm glad I have Joe here
because he's a really good body man.
-[Joel] This thing's light. -It don't weigh nothin'.
And as far as fiberglass goes,
he has some really good skills.
[Joe] The overall condition of the car,
it does have some stress cracks,
which is typical on a car that old.
In my hands, it's fixable.
I can fix anything that's fiberglass.
[Shorty] Take off the bumper wrench
and everything else.
This piece of trim has a hole
and that's where exhaust comes out from.
This is actually part of the quarter panel
made from cast.
Man, this is insane, man.
These Corvettes don't have a lot of room.
[Joe] No, sir.
-They really hide everything on these cars. -Man.
[Shorty] This is some cool stuff,
-you know, what they did. -Yeah.
How they did it. This is cool stuff, man.
Try-- try right there. Bring it in.
You know, getting this radiator out of this '56
is becoming a mission.
I think King Kong jumped on it a couple of times
before they closed the hood
'cause, I mean, it's literally squashed in here.
-Look at that, man. -[Shorty] Trying to put that back in there.
It's almost like they took it out of one that was wrecked or something, man.
Look at that. Look at all the damage it has.
I'm gonna start taking all the chrome, all the trimming off,
and get everything ready. Bag and tag.
Get it all ready for Victor to come and pick up
to get re-chromed, plated or polished.
I'm gonna start from the front and work my way back.
But I'm gonna remove all the chrome.
Hey.
[speaking foreign language]
We're working on the '56 Corvette that Rick dropped off.
The motor might be extremely rare.
But we won't know that until we tear the motor down.
In the meantime, I have my buddy Todd comin' over
to refurbish the carburetors.
Did you wanna try and get this thing started
before you start messin' with--
taking off the carburetors, on no?
Well, we know the carburetors are gonna need work anyway.
So it doesn't matter.
If anything, you got two nice carburetors done.
-[chuckles] You know? -Yeah, even if it don't run.
-[Todd chuckling] Yeah. -Let's go to work, man.
Let's go to work.
Most cars have a single four-barrel.
You accelerate, and you see it's running off this back carburetor.
And then like when you floor it,
then the other carburetor will kick in.
It'll get a little more power, a little more air,
a little more fuel in the combustion chamber
and it makes more horsepower.
Today, I'm going to pull the carburetors off,
look at 'em and see what kind of shape they're in.
And then I'll clean 'em out, put new kits in 'em,
and they'll be ready to go.
There we go.
One carburetor.
Okay.
-Hold it like as if it was a million bucks. -Wow.
Shorty!
Matt is one of my friends that likes to come by the shop
and help us out with whatever we have goin' on.
He asked me for some help on one of his projects.
I can't wait for him to bring it out here
and see what he has in store for us.
-What's going on, Matt? -What's up, man?
-How you doin', man? -How you doin'?
[Shorty] So this is your little truck, huh?
[Matt] Yes, sir. This is my 1984 AM General.
-These were made for the post office. -Nice.
Man, that's kind of cool how... like a shorty.
-It is. It is. -You know?
This would fit me good, man.
-[Matt laughs] Yes, sir. -Wow.
Recently, I have started to intern under Shorty
and I think I was just drawn to the fact
that he's an artist, you know.
And that's actually what I do full-time. I'm an artist.
But I also collect vintage trucks
and my wife and I run businesses out of them.
And so I wanted to make these my new canvas.
So between, uh, me and my wife,
we have about ten of these vintage postal trucks,
uh, all different eras, from '42 all the way up to '84.
The goal for this one is is to get it fixed up
and start renting it out for events.
But, as you can see, we got a lot of work.
-[Shorty] Look, we're here to help, man. -Yeah.
If you don't mind putting in the work,
I don't mind putting in the guidance.
-[laughs] -Open that door, uh, Matt,
and let me see what it does.
This one is gonna be a marketing truck
or it could also be rented out for weddings or parties.
It could be some beer, champagne, whatever you want.
Some Shorty's merch, you know. Hang that out the window.
-Hey, man, that'd be cool. -What, uh...
What color are you going with? What--
So my vision for this is really just to go white with it.
So that way, it could be rented out either white
or we can wrap it--
[Joe] We need to put the Shorty touch on this one.
Put some hydraulics on it maybe some.
-Put some hydraulics on it. -I don't know if--
[laughs] Yeah.
-No hydraulics? -No hydraulics.
What do these things have in like as far as power plant?
I believe it's a straight-6 258.
-[Shorty] All right, let me see-- -As small as it is,
I figured it'd have a couple of squirrels in there.
Oh, dang.
[Joe] Check out that box over there, Shorty.
[Matt] Yeah.
I was just looking at that.
Matt, was is this? A house or a car?
Yeah, so we actually modified the interior lighting
for marketing events
to be able to run off the battery
or we can also plug in to straight wall outlet.
-It's got a ton of work. -Yeah.
-I will guide you, man... -Okay.
...and get this little thing going
to where you can start makin' money on it
-and mix it up. -Yeah, no, that'd be great.
I can tell you what the first thing is.
-Okay. -You need to start debadging it.
You need to start taking everything off of it...
-Okay. -...everything that's gonna be in your way,
so we can strip it down and take that old material off of it.
[Matt] Okay.
All right, well, let's do it, man.
-All right, let's get to work. -Yup.
[Shorty] Yeah, that thing's gonna look like a million bucks when it's done.
We have the carburetors for the '56 Corvette.
I'ma start with pulling the top off.
It's good to kind of bag some of this stuff up
because you're talking about almost a 60-year-old carburetor.
So, if you lose one, I mean, you might be out of luck.
Here we go.
See this in here? That has to all be cleaned,
soaped, blew out.
You do not want dirty fuel getting in here.
This is the accelerator pump right here.
When you give it gas, that thing moves
up and down like that, and it pushes gas
and it comes out of these squirters right here.
This base will come off.
And then we'll soak the body.
Ready to take a bath.
We got everything clean now.
We're gonna go ahead and start assembling some of this.
I wanna see me light the gas.
My air's like the gas going into the float chamber.
When I push these up, it'll cut the airflow off,
which will cut the gas off. See?
[blowing]
[blowing stops]
I might get it. I might not.
See 'em squirt?
So the accelerator pump's working. All good.
And the carburetor's done.
One down and one more to go.
-How're we doin', Matthew? -Good, good.
Just got the bumper off here.
Matt has been really hard at work with this AM General.
I see you made a lot of progress.
Yeah, I got everything off, I believe.
He's got a lot of work on his hands
because, you know, he wants to make it look really good.
To make something look really good,
you gotta make it look really ugly first.
-Want me to start doing the razor blades? -Yeah.
Hey, Matt.
-Yes, sir. -Look how easy it comes off, man.
[Matt] Wow.
Once you finish doing this...
-Yeah. -...we'll take the DA
feather everything out really good,
you get it taped up, we prime it.
Yeah.
-It'll be okay. -Okay.
Yeah, it's almost like I don't wanna get off of it.
-It's too much fun. Let me have a turn. -It's too much fun. Yeah.
-Look at this. This is like dreadlocks. -Yeah.
Joel and I are gonna assess the body on this Corvette
and figure out how to attack it.
I think we're good for now.
We're gonna start looking at all the body panels,
see how that fits.
And then, in the process, check for any cracks
that are on the fiberglass
or any holes that have been waddled out
that need to be redone.
Wherever you see some holes that are not-- that don't look good
that we might need to put fiberglass on--
While we're doing fiberglass on one thing,
we could probably fix another.
-Fix another. -Stuff like this,
uh, we may be able to sand it, you know,
-all the way down. -All the way down.
Yeah, and then we can put a coat of, uh...
-Fiberglass resin. -...resin. Yeah.
-Yeah, 'cause that's-- -Does that sound good?
Sounds good to me.
I just blocked the initial first block
on this radius right here.
It seemed like it doesn't have a clear coat.
Seems like it's all-- it's an enamel paint job.
'Cause usually when you sand something,
it'll really turn white right off the bat...
when you sand. But, as you can see, that's red.
When it's red, that means it's the enamel.
Cars back in the '50s were pretty much all enamels.
Some people like enamels because it's, to them,
it seems much thicker as far as a coat goes.
But a lot of people like the clear coat
because they tend to be a little bit glossier.
If it looks this good enamel,
imagine with a couple coats of clear.
It would really make it pop.
Now that the actual paint is off
and I'm now to the first, uh, layer of the gel coat,
you can actually see it's a lot of stress cracks
on this radius right here.
I might not go with the fiberglass mat,
but there is a product, it looks like Bondo,
but it's got fiberglass strands mixed into it.
I'll probably coat this radius with that
and it'll give it that nice good solid bond.
And it will also still be fiberglass.
We've already sanded the quarter panel,
which is the one that had the most damage.
And what I've got here is some Fiber-tech,
fiberglass reinforced compound filler.
That's all I really need
because it's just a hairline crack.
It's basically just like replacing it with fiberglass.
It'll be a much stronger-- a much stronger bond
and it'll keep the crack from coming back.
I've already blocked this whole side.
Right here, I had to dig in super-deep
'cause it had some big long scratches.
The filler's already been applied
and I've already sanded it,
kind of feathered it out.
By being fiberglass, uh, reinforced filler,
it makes the quarter panel a lot more rigid.
[Joel] What we're doing is going ahead
and putting the oil in the cylinders.
If any moisture got in there, there's gonna be rust.
And this will soften that up
to where we'll be able to move the crank
without basically damaging anything.
You don't wanna do a lot. Just a couple of squirts in there.
Let it soak now for a few days, and it should loosen up.
Looks good.
Rick and his family are coming out today
to check on the progress of the '56 Corvette.
In the process, we've invited a Corvette expert,
to lead us in the right direction of this car.
-David, this is Rick and his wife. -[Rick] Nice to meet you.
-Hi, I'm Sandra. -[David] Good to meet y'all.
Uh, he owns his own shop.
So we asked him to come over today
to help us identify some of the things
that you wanna know about the car.
Can you help me out to deal what kind of car this is?
Yeah, '56. It's definitely the higher-end two four car.
Three speed. So it was one of the ones
they tried to bring back and make a sports car.
They had an option of a special high-lift cam,
which was only in a 111 of 'em.
'56 is one of the least amount of cars that Chevrolet made the Corvettes.
Probably 400 and so.
It's definitely a one... one of a kind here.
One of the main things we wanted to see is to help us
figure out if maybe this was one of those cars.
It very well could be.
The only way to really, without the documentation, to really be sure,
would be to pull the engine out and take it apart,
and really check it over thoroughly.
-Right. -The only way to tell.
-Because there's no other way. -To be sure, 100%.
-[Shorty] Is that okay with you? -Mmm-hmm.
-[Shorty] Okay. -Sawyer, is that all right with you?
-[Sawyer] Mmm? -Is that all right with you?
-I don't know what we're talking about. -[all laughs]
All right.
So I got... I got all kinds of colors here.
What are your thought, first of all?
We wanna keep it original as possible.
After little bit of research, and looking at cars that actually raced
-on the Daytona beach in 1956... -Mmm-hmm.
-there's like three colors... -Okay.
that the car, more than likely was.
It was either a Venetian red, Polo white, or Arctic blue.
[Pedro] Special delivery.
[Shorty] This is Pedro. He bought some samples for us to look at.
-Great. -Quite a bit of samples.
So, depending what direction the paint and everything goes.
[Shorty] He's either kind of, undecided on the color of the car,
-between maybe, like, three combinations, right? -[Sandra] Yeah.
In white, blue, red.
So, this color, if you painted the car white, this will go perfect with it.
Now if you paint it a blue, it would go perfect with it.
-If you paint it a red, look how good it goes with red. -[Sandra] It does.
And all of this is gonna depend on whether that this Corvette is one of a 111,
as to really where we're gonna go with the color scheme.
We have a variety of colors that could actually go on this car.
They want to be really careful and make a wise decision.
So, there's no telling.
I think we're getting close.
-[Shorty] Okay. -Think we're getting close.
[Rick] This is gonna work out just right.
-It's gonna be one in a million. -Yes, it will.
Sounds good.
All right. So you said you're here to work, right?
-Maybe. Mmm-hmm. -Maybe?
-Come on, man. I'm gonna put you to work. -All right.
Get over here. Come on.
[Sawyer] Oh, yeah, I get to see...
[Shorty] Get him a block and get him started.
-[Joe] You ready to work? -Yes, sir.
-Come on, man. Let me get you some safety stuff first. -All right.
-All right. So what I'm doing here is blocking. -Okay.
So what that does is, I'm trying to make sure
that all the body work is straight.
I take this block right here.
So what I do, I go with an X pattern.
This way and then this way.
Move it up a little bit.
Hey, look. You don't have to put so much effort into it.
Just glide it, okay? Just...
You can just put it on there. Put a little bit of pressure on there.
-And... And just sand on it, just like that. -Yes, sir.
[Shorty] You can't go into another spot until you finish the one spot you started on.
[Sawyer] Think I'm going into welding.
I end up having to take the Corvette door off.
Because I notice there are some cracks throughout the whole door,
that I needed to get access to and I couldn't really get to it.
With it being mounted, I glanced in there
and saw that there is a major problem in here.
That somebody had tried to repair it before.
Fiberglass is just watered up, and just thrown in there.
I need to get in there, get all that stuff... old stuff off.
And clean it up a little bit,
and put new layers of fiberglass on there to make it look clean.
Laid the mat on there, put the resin.
Get all the air bubbles out.
And that makes it much stronger.
And it'll be like new again.
Next, that I'm gonna be repairing out is all these
little chips and cracks that are throughout the door.
These are just like surface cracks, just in the top layer.
Grind those down, create a little valley.
And use a fiber tech to get those taken care of.
While I have Jose working on the Corvette,
I'm over here helping a buddy, Matt, on his AM General.
We've been spending hours just getting this thing every nook and cranny
just masked, so that way he can come in and spray it.
Doesn't have to look pretty. Just has to keep the overspray up.
I'm excited to finally get rid of that red.
No more red. We're going white with it.
If you're gonna paint this truck white,
it only makes sense to buy white primer, so you can prime it.
That way you already have a foundation.
It might not have the gloss.
It might not have, you know, what a clear coat paint job would have.
But this primer, it actually looks really good.
It'll look like it's already painted.
Gotta make sure you wear your safety equipment.
I'm actually coming along pretty well on the Corvette.
I did all the body work and everything.
But there's still surface cracks on the outside of the body.
But in order to get to that, I had to grind down, create like a little valley.
This area here does hold the chrome bezel.
I might have to put about two or three layers of fiber tech, to thicken that up.
On the inside, I have a little bit more of a problem,
'cause I guess from the spare tire.
I don't know if it was actual jack or something that was lose in here.
But it kind of banged up, and then cracked it pretty well.
But I did create a good size valley that'll allow me
to put about two or three layers of fiberglass mat.
I want it to be all fiberglass,
because it just does have some weight. It does have a spare tire back there.
I'm gonna come back and redo some of the actual holes.
Because somebody either repaired it before,
or maybe just over time, they wattled out.
So, you had a real small hole here, a great big hole there.
So I'm gonna make it all proportionate and even and make it look right.
[Shorty exclaims in excitement]
We're about to paint the truck.
However, we're gonna do it in two sections.
Just like we primed it. So we're gonna do the roof.
And we've got all these other parts that he wants me to paint.
So I got my work cut out for me today.
[Matt] We decide to go white on the truck, just because it's evergreen.
The truck will be used for many different purposes,
from market events to weddings.
Really, anyone that would wanna lease it out.
So going white is just a good color that anyone wants to add on to.
If they wanna wrap it, or if they don't want to,
if they wanna put a little logo here or there.
I'm looking forward to Matt getting the bottom ready, so we can come shoot that.
And get it done, so he can take us all out for a treat.
Some of our other vehicles, we actually wrap on a regular basis.
So, learning the process of doing custom paint
was really eye opening, the amount of hard work.
It was crazy.
We're still working on the '56 Corvette.
It's for my good customer, Rick and his family,
that potentially, they're gonna auction it off for charity.
There's still a lot to do, particularly on the body.
How's it going, Jose?
Man, it's going all right. I'm just getting it all cleaned up for you.
-Cool. -Did run into an issue though.
Check out this gap. My fingers can go all the way through.
It ain't like your standard metal.
By this being fiberglass, you know the process.
I'm gonna have to add fiberglass mat and build this edge out.
Yeah.
I mean, these cars weren't perfect from the factory.
-Right. -You know, they were all over the place.
I probably need to call Rick and ask him how he feels about it.
If he wants us to do something with it,
it's gonna require, uh, quite a bit of work.
-Hopefully we'll get an answer from him pretty soon. -Yes, sir.
[Shorty] Then we'll know what to do.
-If you need help with that, just let me know. -Yes, sir.
I talked to Rick, and he said he'd like to fix it a little better.
So I got Joe working on it, adding some glass.
We're gonna add about another quarter of an inch,
and then from there, we're gonna take it,
and get a pretty good gap all the way around.
So what I'm doing, I've already did on the bottom.
Now I add another layer of aviation tape on the top side.
And it's rigid enough, where it gives me a nice, straight line.
What I'm gonna do now, is just fold it down.
This will create like a little taco.
Then I just put straight resin, directly to the fiberglass.
My method is, I take fiberglass strands.
I chop it up into little bit strands.
I mix it. It's my own mixture.
I mix it all up. Get it all in there.
And I basically just pour it on to the edges.
You can actually call it, taco out of fiberglass.
I'm sandwiching two pieces, and putting resin in the middle.
So I guess the resin would be the meat.
I'm pouring in the... the taco meat now.
It's still really watery for me, to be able to just pour it in like a liquid.
And by doing the chop, it gives me a extra reassurance
that it's a good solid bond, where it really adheres to it really good.
And it makes the edge very rigid.
If you can see over here on this side,
you can actually see the transition of the actual quarter inch line that I made.
This is exactly what I was trying to achieve. I wanted to go above the line.
And now I just gotta shave it down to the line.
Joe is so good with fiberglass, he can make a taco.
Brother Carl is coming over to the shop to take the engine out of the Corvette.
So we can get it over to Dave.
We call Brother Carl, not Brother Carl,
but [in hoarse voice] Brother Carl.
-[in hoarse voice] Shorty. -[both laughs]
[in normal voice] What's he doing to the motor? Does he know yet?
Remember, this motor is supposed to be one of 111.
The only way you know if this a rare motor,
is by taking the internals out.
There will be date stamps on the block.
So they can tell from those date stamps if it was at least the correct year.
'59 and older heads had the staggered bolt holes.
-And in '60, they squared 'em up. -Yeah.
I've been around this kind of car my whole life. My dad had a '58,
when I was growing up.
I'll let you have at it.
And then, let me know. I'll bring the forklift in.
-And, we'll pull it out. -Right on. We'll get after it.
My mom actually jokingly says that she didn't ever look twice at him,
if he hadn't been driving a Corvette.
Pulling the drive shaft out.
Get the speedometer drive loose
and probably gonna have to take the shifter off of it.
Oh, there's the shifter. [laughs]
Still gotta pull at least the fuel line at the fuel pump.
I think it's ready. Pretty much ready to come out.
-[in hoarse voice] Brother Carl. -Shorty.
[in normal voice] It has a front motor mount, and it's...
it's real close to the fuel pump.
I'm afraid it's not gonna com up out of there with the fuel pump on it.
That fuel pump will fight you to the death, Brother Carl.
[Carl] This one's not too bad, actually.
[Shorty] Okay.
Hey, don't throw it away, Brother Carl.
-That might be the rarest fuel pump ever. -[laughs]
-We ready, Brother Carl? -We're gonna know.
Till we pick it up and figure out what I forgot to unhook.
[Shorty] All right. Here we go.
[cranks forklift]
Turn that way.
All right. Easy.
We got a wire up there.
Whoa. Come on up. Stop!
All right.
Just got through pulling the motor out of the Corvette.
Get it to David, see
what kind of shape the motor itself is in.
[Shorty] We sent the hub caps off to Steve with a classic 3M restoration,
to see if he could refer to the hub caps and make 'em look like new.
[Steve] These are '56 Corvette hub caps.
We got a couple of dents on this one we're gonna get out.
And then from there, we'll go to the sander.
And from the sander, we'll go to the buffer.
And polish 'em up to a mirror shine.
You know, we just sand out the scratches we just put in it,
with some more grits and then we'll be ready to polish.
It's like little rope pieces, threads basically.
It gets out, like, your scratches and your heavy damage.
And then you go to cotton or flannel wheel.
Usually keeps gradually getting softer.
Kind of works like grits of sanding.
We'll get the last final shine on these and wrap 'em up.
That's it. The final product, it's all shined up.
Once you put the center cap back on,
man, these are gonna look really good.
We're here at Dave's shop. He is a resident Corvette expert.
He's gonna tear down the motor and see if it in fact it is,
one of the 111 rare motors that Chevy ever made that year.
-Hello, Dave. -Hey, Shorty.
-You all right? -I see it.
-I see your name on your shirt. -Yes, sir.
-Couple of Corvettes in here, man. -This is awesome, man.
Yeah, I love Dave's shop, man.
He's got some really cool awesome looking cars in here,
that he's working on for customers.
-Well, you wanna see what I brought you? -Let's see what you brought.
Shorty just brought Rick's engine over to his '56 Corvette,
for us to disassemble, check the integrity of the engine,
and to see if the original cam shaft was in the car,
for the special high-lift option.
[Shorty] One of the things that makes this motor a rare motor is the cam shaft.
And it's called the Duntov racing cam,
that Chevrolet put in this motor that year.
It's a high-lift cam shaft.
It gives the motor more horsepower, and better for racing.
This is excitement, right here.
To remove the cam shaft, we need to remove the intake manifold,
drop the old pan, remove the timing cover,
water pump, pulleys, and the lifters and the rocker assemblies.
We got really good casting on this, though.
They're really, really good.
L-25, that's probably the month, the day, the year that it was produced.
This is the moment of truth.
And this is where we find out what kind of cam it really has in there.
So how is it we're gonna know again?
-There's a number stamped on the back. -Okay.
This is a 292 cam, which is not... the correct cam.
This has been replaced.
So, what does that mean?
The original cam was probably too far worn or something and then replaced with this.
It's not the Holy Grail that we were hoping it to be.
But let me ask you something, Dave.
Even if the cam has been replaced,
and if it was one of those motors,
wouldn't the lobes be a little taller or whatever?
Could be a reproduction, yes.
We can take it to the machine shop...
-Okay. -...and have them measure this,
-the lift and duration on our cam doctor. -Uh-huh. Okay.
To see if in fact, that could be a reproduction cam.
So unfortunately, the only way to tell,
is for him to take that cam and it'll have a higher...
-A higher lift and duration. -A higher lift and duration.
So one last thing left to do.
And then we'll find out if it is or it isn't.
The only thing we got left after that is for him to put it back together.
And, keep on trucking.
And that, well, it'll be all the way. So might as well blast it.
-[horn honks] -Check it out, man. Check it out.
[Matt] Breakfast is served.
Look at that.
-Hey, Matt, that thing looks good. -What's up, guys?
-That's awesome, man. Look at that. -You selling taco?
Did you bring us-- I hope you brought us breakfast, man.
It's a little bit of a thank you to the guys. I wanted to bring 'em a little treats.
So, dropped off some breakfast tacos and some coffee.
Got the lights. I'm about to give you guys...
Look at that, man. Look at that.
-Brought you guys some breakfast tacos. -Some LEDs.
I think the AM General turned out great.
You know, it's perfect for what Matt wants it to be.
He wants to work out of it. He wants to lease it out.
So I hope that everything goes well for him.
And make some good money for him.
-Do you have any hot sauce? -Maybe, let's see.
[Shorty] You thought of everything.
Yeah, man. Just wanted to, like, seriously say,
thank you, guys, for all the help, man.
I couldn't do this without you. So...
Hey, well, this is the best way you can get to my heart right here, bruh.
It's good to see the final paint on the AM General.
It's been a long road. A lot of hard work.
-I ain't gonna pass out this free breakfast. -Heck, no, man.
When we first brought this van in, it was red.
It had paint cracking. It was horrible.
And so, over the past few months, we really did a transformation.
It's looking like a brand new truck, and we're excited to put it to work.
It's definitely a learning process...
-Was it easy? -It's not easy. [laughs]
I literally feel like Daniel san and you're Mr. Miyagi.
I sanded and sanded and sanded some more.
After getting in all those crevasses and curves and cracks and sanding,
I mean, it's some hard work.
I definitely have to give props to all the guys, but especially Shorty.
'Cause, I mean, the work that he does here, it's second to none.
[man] It looks good to me. I like it, man.
When we got this little truck in here,
it really looked like crap.
[Matt] Yeah, it was rough, I remember it.
So see the transformation of it, you know, when it first came in.
And now the way it looks, that's just a sign of hard work.
You know, we know you're a hard-working individual.
So, hopefully you have good success out of it.
And ultimately, that's the goal.
So this is the newest addition to our fleet.
Our business, we apparently have a bunch of vintage postal trucks
that we use for different marketing and wedding and events.
And so, we're excited to put this one to work.
Yeah, this thing's already... It's already got a job booked.
Uh, I mean, seriously, I couldn't do it, without you guys.
Man, you knocked it out of the park.
You put in some hard work, that's what you get.
You know, Matt, it looks like he's a young go-getter.
I'm happy for him and I wish him all the best
in his journey to being an entrepreneur.
Well, that's awesome, Matt.
-Thanks, guys. -I'm glad you got it done. Glad you got it finished.
-Good job, man. -Thanks, guys.
-Good to work. -Let's go to work, man.
All right.
-Oh, hey, man, we kind of, forget the tacos, man. -Yeah...
-Take more, man. -Take these as food to go.
We've made a lot of head way on the '56 Corvette, especially on the body.
But, there's still a lot to be done.
Ready for you to get busy, huh?
Once we decide on the color, we need to paint it.
Get some interior done, diagnose the motor.
I think this car's gonna be one of a kind.
We need to make Wayne one. And he's gonna call it JW, right?
For John Wayne, and he's gonna sell tacos.
Shorty's Dream Shop, we got your airride we got your tacos.
-[Shorty] Frijoles. -We need drinks now.
-I'm already getting thirsty. I can't talk. -You can blame that on him.
Hey, we're gonna put, "Authentic Mexican" at the bottom.
My tacos gonna be out of bread though, not tortillas.
Yeah, you know what? We can go back to the old school bologna sandwiches.
-Wayne's bologna. -Cut.
[all laughs]