What dare, might I ask, that you wanna do to this thing?
[Bill Carlton] The 2023 International can carry tons of weight.
Man, I love brand-new trucks.
But we don't have a lift that's big enough.
[Ronnie Sipps] It's like a pallet jack on steroids.
They've got forks that lift up 18,000 pounds.
Let's do it right here.
We're gonna make this one just over the top.
Build the running boards on it.
We gotta stretch the chrome bumper, get rid of all the chrome.
Looks good.
[Jamie Marshall] We'll make everything just tie in together. Look slick.
[Carlton] Make this way lower.
[whoops]
[Ryan Marshall] You're gonna get such a great load angle for those low-profile cars.
Man, it just makes sense, right?
That's looking good, man! Yeah!
[theme music playing]
[Carlton] 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.
[soft instrumental music]
-[Carlton] What's up, Ryan? -What's happening, Bill?
-How you doing today? -[Carlton] I'm doing all right.
How you doin', man?
Dang, you got a lot of trucks here.
[Marshall] Got a few.
-Got a few. -Good thing, since you sold mine.
[laughs]
Ryan's an old friend from the north side of Houston.
Him and his family sell wreckers and towing equipment.
The last wrecker I got from Ryan was a 2022 International.
We made it look good.
You know, it was different from every other one on the road.
[Marshall] It kind of became a legend.
You know, everybody kind of knew about it in the scene.
[Carlton] Ryan took it to a tow show.
He said, "Hey, man, I got your truck sold."
So, I pretty much didn't have a choice.
There was a guy out of Louisiana
that offered us some money that we really couldn't refuse.
So, I called Bill up and he said,
"Go ahead and pull the trigger and sell it."
Hey, man, the time's right, the time's right.
With everything you do to these things,
-you make my job easy selling the truck. -[chuckling]
You know I liked it, but I just want that extra room,
and a black one.
You got me hooked up, right?
-Got it here. -It's in?
It's here.
I'll go grab it and pull it up for you real quick.
[Carlton] Appreciate it.
[instrumental rock music]
Seeing that truck come at me, I'm glad the old one's gone.
I've been missing my black truck.
You know, the four-door's exactly what I wanted.
This is what I've been waiting on.
That's a good-looking truck, man.
The 2023 International MV607 can carry tons of weight,
meaning we can almost tow anything we want.
[Marshall] So, you got the new body style International.
Crew-cab, of course.
It's got a 9,000-pound front axle,
17,000-pound rear axle,
Cummins motor, Allison Transmission,
air ride, sun visor.
It's probably got all the bells and whistles we can get on it.
[chuckling] Yeah, man.
So, what dare, might I ask, that you wanna do to this thing?
I got some ideas on some things.
We already know we have to cover up the tanks,
build the running boards on it.
I gotta stretch the front bumper, get rid of all the chrome.
I mean, that's a given.
But I think one of the coolest things
we could possibly do to this is make it lower.
-Have the lowest rollback around. -That would be cool.
If I'm gonna do that, now's the time to do it.
I need to take it as is,
before you put the bed and everything on it.
Everything's easily accessible.
Now's a great time to take it, do what I need to do,
and I'll bring it back to you.
-It just makes more sense than working under it. -Yeah.
You got a wide-open canvas the way it is now.
I might as well bag the front, too.
[whoops]
[Carlton] I mean, we've done a bunch of medium duties before,
with air suspension, but never a rollback.
If you lower the rear end and raise the front,
you're gonna get such a great load angle for those low-profile cars.
-Man, it just makes sense, right? -Yeah.
Let's go check out the front, make sure there's no surprises.
So, on the rear suspension, that's typical.
But for anybody to do anything on the front of the truck...
Man, I love brand-new trucks.
...I don't think I've seen anybody do it, ever,
because it's all leaf springs. That's gonna be a tough challenge.
[Carlton] The way to do this is just get rid of the lower springs.
It's got two springs. Just get rid of the lower and de-arch the main spring,
and compensate with the big airbag.
So, you'll have that ride quality, that adjustability,
and have that low stance, too.
You know, that sounds super cool.
I've built many trucks, my father's built many trucks.
We've never seen anything like that.
And I'm nervous for you, buddy.
That's the projects I like doing, getting the...
You know, once you're done, people are gonna be like...
"What the... How?"
[Marshall] If somebody could do it, you can.
They're gonna be sad at the tow show when they see this one.
[chuckling]
[intriguing instrumental music]
[engine starts]
[Carlton] Having a wrecker around the shop is instrumental day-to-day.
It's just a must.
There is many, many things to pick up, drop off
and, you know, I never knew that I needed a wrecker so much
until not having one.
If you've been paying attention, you probably have been noticing
our builds have been getting bigger and bigger, and heavier and heavier.
That's a job for the latest and greatest.
Super-heavy truck. The bed is gonna be a 16,000-pound bed,
so it'll handle whatever we wanna put on the back,
no restrictions, no limitations.
Don't get me wrong, the last wrecker, I loved it.
It served its purpose well. It represented the company well.
It was just time to move on and upgrade.
[upbeat instrumental music]
The 2023 International is the biggest wrecker we ever had.
To do the suspension I want, I gotta get this truck up in the air.
But we don't have a lift that's big enough.
So, first things first...
[Carlos Soto] Oh, man.
I told Carlos to get on the phone and find us one.
Ronnie, you're telling me these things right here
-are gonna pick this big truck up? -Yup.
[Soto] I don't know, I'm gonna have to see it right now.
[Sipps] You're about to see it.
Ronnie, this looks like a really small pallet jack.
[Sipps] It's like a pallet jack on steroids.
You got a pallet jack to move it around.
But you've got forks that lift up 18,000 pounds.
-[Soto] Do they all lift up at the same time? -Yeah.
-[Soto] Okay. So it's like-- -They're all on the same radio frequency.
[Soto] Oh, okay.
Man, so, this is ready, huh?
[Sipps] Yup, I'm just making the carriage fit that tire.
You can adjust the forks for a passenger vehicle
all the way up to an 18-wheeler.
We're ready to go up.
No, there's no way.
-Easy, huh? -[Soto] Man, that's crazy!
You're just sitting out here in the middle of a parking lot with this big-ass truck.
-So, who's using these things? -[Sipps] School districts, municipalities.
Anybody who does 18-wheeler work is using it.
[Soto] How high is this thing gonna go, man?
[Sipps] Right about six feet.
-Man, so I can walk underneath this thing? -[Sipps] Yes, sir.
-[Soto] I don't know if I want to, but... -[Sipps laughs]
[Soto] That's a lot of trust.
That's a lot of trust to be able to be under this thing like that.
Well, Ronnie, you know what, I think you've convinced me, man.
I think this is exactly what Bill's gonna need for that wrecker build, so...
Perfect. I need the truck back,
-but you can use the lifts. -[chuckles] Yeah, definitely will.
-We know how to take 'em down now. -All right.
-Cool. Thanks, Ronnie. -You're welcome.
[upbeat instrumental music]
[toy squeaking]
[Carlton] Come on, one, two, three.
Okay.
[Jamie] I got it. Hold on, hold on! Stop. Right up there.
Calm down! Calm down.
[Carlton] You know, I'm really excited to get the new wrecker in the shop.
So, we gotta make room.
We're not used to working with this long of vehicles and this tall.
So, there's only certain doors that this truck could come through,
and certain links to the shop that are working.
So, after we move a couple of toolboxes,
we should have enough room to get this sucker in.
How far's that gonna stick out back?
[Carlton] Has it adjusted for those wheels?
No? You gotta adjust it in, evenly.
[intriguing instrumental music]
[grunting]
Oh, yeah!
Man! I'm kinda anxious to get going on this.
Oh, I am, too.
We're gonna make this one just over the top.
There won't be another one.
I know I say that a lot.
-It's true, though. It's true. -There won't be another one like this.
First of all, you know we gotta get rid of all the chrome on it.
-[Jamie] Of course. -[Carlton] You already know.
-[Jamie] Guaranteed. -[Carlton] I don't know if we're gonna have
an accent color or not, or just all black. I don't know yet.
-I'm still working on that. -[Dustin] Yeah.
-But what we are gonna do is make this way lower. -Hell, yeah.
[Carlton] I know you've never seen a lowered wrecker before, right?
-Not a rollback, no. -Right. Right.
No. There's a reason, though.
'Cause if you lower one of these,
you're pivoting on the back of the truck.
So, if you lower the front,
the higher up the bed has to go.
You don't want that,
'cause your bumper's gonna be hitting the bed, right?
-It's gonna be difficult to lower. -So, you want that
lower in the back.
How we're gonna solve that is putting airbags on the front.
It's gonna look way cooler with it lower to the ground when you park and ride,
but have that adjustability to raise it up
to get that angle even shorter when you back up to a car.
So, what we're gonna do at the back,
the back already has air suspension on it.
We're gonna raise it up so the truck can actually ride lower in the back.
We'll be able to get the angle of approach super-low.
-Makes sense. -[Carlton] Win-win.
-And ride a lot better. -[Dustin] Yeah.
[Carlton] We're gonna build running boards
to cover all the gas tanks and all that empty void in there.
We're gonna fill all that in with a nice, smooth transition
all the way back to the toolbox.
Okay. So, make everything just tie in together. Look slick.
Yeah, man. You know, just like the last one,
but this one's a little cooler.
-And, of course... -Oh, yeah.
I already know it needs to be stretched.
It needs it. It's gotta have it.
Mmm-hmm. I would definitely.
It helps the aesthetic of making it just look lower.
And, then, that front bumper, I mean, that's the first thing you see.
-You want that mean look coming at you right away. -Yeah.
[Carlton] Mmm-hmm.
A cool tool for the shop and a cool truck just to cruise in.
So, when we go to a tow show, we're gonna kill 'em again.
That's what I'm talking about.
[Carlton] What we'll do first, pull off the bumper.
[Jamie] Set it on this table over here for now, huh?
[Carlton] Pull out the front end.
-[Jamie] Say when. -[Carlton] Yeah.
[Carlton] Pull off the toolboxes.
Once it's up in the air, it's gonna be way easier to work on.
[Jamie] This is badass. I like it.
Beats the way we used to have to do it with the forklift.
All right!
Countdown.
About two inches from the glass now.
-[Carlton] No more? -She's good for a little bit more.
[Carlton] Tell you what, let me look at it real quick.
Let's do it right here.
[Jamie] Where do you wanna go in at?
[Carlton] Right behind the hanger.
[machinery buzzing]
[Carlton] Of course, every suspension we build is totally different.
But there's nothing really unusual about lowering this massive
2023 International truck.
-Ready? -[Jamie] Yeah, I'm ready.
[Carlton] Just its size and all the geometry
makes this suspension a challenge.
[Jamie] All right, got it!
All right, man. We're gonna brake hose here, here, whatever.
-[Jamie] Uh-huh. -[Carlton] Disconnect the brake hose.
-[Jamie] Okay. -[Carlton] And that. Drop this axel.
We're gonna take the springs out.
-[Jamie] Okay. -[Carlton] Gonna go get 'em de-arched real quick.
[Jamie] All right.
[intriguing instrumental music]
[grunting]
[Jamie grunts] Get this one out.
Just walk it.
There it goes.
[Carlton] You see, the back of your leaf springs have an arch to 'em.
And this holds the load up of the front of the truck.
[Jamie] Come on. There.
-[Dustin] Got it? -[Jamie] Yeah.
[grunts]
[Carlton] Basically, a thick metal here.
Arch is the spring when it's going down the road.
So, how we're gonna lower this
is take that spring out.
It's called de-arching.
So, we're gonna send it off to the spring place.
They're gonna take that arch out of it
and then we'll reinstall 'em in conjunction with an airbag.
So, with the spring being de-arched,
it'll let that suspension come all the way down.
[Jamie] We'll take them bags off first.
These are airbags for the semi-trucks, tow trucks, whatnot.
But that's not gonna work for what we're gonna use.
So, we're gonna bag the rear, but, obviously, we're gonna be using a different bag.
Yeah.
You'd think these would be heavier, right?
[Dustin] Yeah, they're pretty light.
[grunts]
It didn't budge.
[grunts]
[sighs]
I don't think it's gonna come off.
We got this hanger right here that we're gonna have to move up,
which is gonna be lowering the truck.
And there's no way to take these bolts off.
So, I'm gonna end up cutting these right here off.
That thing is... go ahead and lower down the truck.
Put our bracket right where we want it.
All right.
Then, I'll transfer punch it.
Once I transfer punch it, put a mag drill on it, drill all our holes.
Once I do that, put the bolts in it.
And by moving it up, that's gonna make our suspension lower.
[upbeat instrumental music]
You know, Jamie did a great job raising that factory suspension up,
keep everything nice and in line.
Only thing we had to do is change the shocks,
and change out the bags just so it rides lower.
I basically got a bag that's four inches shorter than the factory one itself.
So, everything's just riding closer to the frame.
We're not trying to make this suspension perform better,
we're not trying to make it haul a higher load capacity.
Nope!
We're just making this suspension ride higher than the truck,
which makes the truck ride lower to the ground.
Boom, boom.
[hip-hop instrumental music]
[tires screeching]
[engine revving]
[Dustin] All right, we're gonna have some steps on it.
Me and Bill set up this piece of tube here.
This is pretty much where our step's gonna be.
This simulates our step.
This simulates our other step.
So, it'll come out, down, step,
so you have something to step up on.
I'm gonna start off by welding it to our hangers that we have here.
Get it all attached.
[upbeat instrumental music]
We'll have it all on one plane,
instead of having staggered steps.
[Carlton] Let's pack a piece of plywood bar over here.
[Dustin] Okay.
[Carlton] We got our tubing for our steps in place,
so everything lines up perfect.
You know, it's super-easy to make templates like this out of chip board,
and you can see in real time what it's gonna look like.
We got our template for the step itself,
but it's looking too bulky down here.
So, we're gonna trim this off,
so we can make the running board a lot thinner down here,
so it don't look so bulky.
So, it kind of matches the bottom of the box.
So, we want everything to have that nice flow with the steps,
all the way into the box itself,
and not just hang down and look weird.
All right.
So, what we're gonna do is just chop this off at a 45.
That way, our step looks a lot thinner at the bottom,
and matches up with the bottom of the box itself.
So, chop this out of the way and, then, we continue our template
towards the step itself.
Unbolt this.
If you got this cut,
then we can split it there and it's easier to get to.
-[Dustin] Right. -[instrumental rock music]
Let's see here.
Fits perfect.
So, I got a perfect template to take to the sheet metal shop
This is such a long piece, we can't bend in-house.
My brake's not big enough for that.
So, we're gonna take this to the local...
My "buddy."
...sheet metal shop down the street,
and he's gonna bend this up for me.
I'll be right back with it, so we can start shaping it and put right on here.
[hip-hop instrumental music]
[Carlton] Most wrecker drivers wouldn't want their truck riding too low
'cause, obviously, they'd be worried about the functionality of it.
But I want our 2023 International
to ride low and still perform like a work truck.
To be able to let it go lower,
we de-arch those front leaf springs.
Flatten them out a little bit.
Give us those inches we need,
install those bags, and make it ride low.
[Jamie] Hey, Dustin.
-Hey, come over here and lift this truck up some. -[Dustin] Yup.
[Jamie] I just need it to go up a few inches.
I think right there might be good enough.
[grunts]
I need it to go back. [straining]
Okay, let's bring it down, like, another inch.
And, then, we'll take to molly-wopping it.
[intriguing instrumental music]
There's a bolt.
-Let me go down to mine first. -[Dustin] Yup.
[Jamie grunts]
Cool.
That's all I needed right there.
Thank you.
[grunts]
Oh, man.
I'm so tired of fighting everything today.
We just got our de-arched springs in.
They're installed. U-bolts are tight.
So, the first step up to building our air suspension is building it off theirs.
This is what my lower plates are gonna sit on with my bag.
Gotta start from the base and build up.
You don't start from the roof on a house, you start from, you know, the base.
So, this is my foundation.
I'm fixing to build it all the way to the top.
[hip-hop instrumental music]
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
Oh, we're hitting that right now.
It won't... It's hitting this.
We gotta remove the bracket now.
What I'm doing right now is removing the air line for the air brake's bracket,
just for clearance issues.
And the same thing with the shock.
I'm gonna go ahead and remove that.
♪ Yeah ♪
The next thing is, we'll be starting our upper.
Our upper's gonna go right here,
and bolt onto the frame.
You can see where our airbags are gonna go
right in between these two plates,
and that's gonna expand to raise and lower the suspension.
Like, pretty much every vehicle we do around here
is different in one way, shape or form.
It's different sized wheels, trying to get it a little lower, higher,
there's always obstacles
and you adapt along the way.
So, what we did is utilize the U-bolts
to bolt the lower bag mount down to the axel,
and the bag will bolt to that.
Lower.
And, then, this bracket tree, just use some DOM tubing,
and that's our lower shock bolt.
[instrumental rock music]
We're about to weld all this up.
Paint it all.
Install it with the bags.
Bolts right down over the leaf spring with the U-bolts,
so it sandwiches everything together to the axel,
so everything's all-in-one.
[rock music continues]
We have everything complete now.
We got our de-arched springs, we got our lower airbag mount,
our upper, we got our shock in.
You can see, obviously, how this works, you know.
You put air in the bag, and that's gonna push
the front end down off of the frame,
and that's gonna give us lift.
Deflate the bag, that's gonna lower the truck.
[intriguing instrumental music]
Easy right there.
[Carlton] We just got our sheet metal back from the sheet metal shop.
They did a great job bending it.
The whole thing we're doing is trying to make a cool wrecker.
So, we got an extra-long piece.
So, we're gonna cut a little piece off to put on the truck.
[whoops]
So, we're gonna take this, whittle it all down so it fits the fender perfectly,
so we can make that perfect shape to the fender.
-You would leave it like that, huh? -[Dustin laughs] Body work.
[Carlton] All right, man.
So, I'm gonna take that piece, put it on the truck, use some chip board,
make a perfect pattern,
transfer it over to the step,
and make it all one piece for both sides.
So, 15.5.
15.5 to center.
We got our fuel tank cap that goes here,
so that protrudes through the step itself.
So, makes it a little difficult getting this in and out.
But we're gonna make a nice little trim piece
out of just our cut pipe we normally use for our...
you know, our suspension parts.
That's what Dustin's doing right now.
We have plenty of this pipe sitting around, so we're gonna use this,
cut it down, little pie section.
We can trim this out, weld that in, we got a nice trim piece for it.
[Dustin] I think we got us a winner
for our fuel neck recess mount.
[instrumental rock music]
Oh, it's so...
Money shot.
That go on like that?
Yeah.
Cool, we got our steps in place.
Man, it's looking really, really good.
So, the next step is to anchor it.
So, I've laid out a couple of nice proportions
of where we're gonna drill and tap it.
And we put some, you know, heavy wall tubing
underneath of this, so you got a nice, solid step,
and it's thick enough to be able to drill and tap.
So, we'll have our perfect anchor points that are super-strong
and in nice proportions.
[instrumental rock music]
[Carlton] Just the physical presence of this 2023 International
gives this truck a big, aggressive look.
And we're building running boards to complement that.
It's gonna be completely seamless.
That last little piece that we need to do to this
is fix this transition from the factory fender down to the board itself.
So, what we're gonna do is a make a sheet metal filler
that'll bolt onto the fender and continue all the way down.
So, we have something to trim all this out
and, then, we can have the transition
from the fender all the way down to the front of the boards.
Yeah, piece fits pretty good.
Now, we got a nice transition from the fender
down to the running board itself, so...
Next step is tack it all in,
cutting the board, and give it a little shape.
[hip-hop instrumental music]
[Dustin] So, we cut off the end of our running board.
I'm gonna go ahead and cut out a cap piece now.
We're gonna use that to fill in the void we cut out.
That'll cap it and finish it off.
All right, we got our cap all welded in.
We're gonna let it cool off. And, then, we can grind it.
[instrumental rock music]
-[Carlton] Pass me that real quick. -[Dustin] Okay.
All right, our running boards are coming along really well.
We had to cut some access holes for our filler necks.
-That right? -[Jamie] We're there.
[Dustin] So, to finish these off,
I'm gonna go ahead and set 'em in there flush,
tack 'em, weld 'em, and buff 'em, and it'll look like one piece.
Got our filler neck tubes welded in.
Got 'em buffed.
Everything's sanded down, looking nice.
We got all our bolts in our tubes, our main step tubes.
And, then, I also went ahead and added some bolts into the cab as well.
So, that wraps it up for our running board.
Gonna get it peeled off, sent to powder coat.
We'll get it back, send it to body work, get it painted
and, then, it'll get thrown on the truck.
[hip-hop instrumental music]
It's time to stretch this bump.
You know, we can't just have...
just a stock bumper on this truck, you know.
When you stretch these bumpers, it really gives that aggressive look.
So, I have to cut this thing.
[chuckles] Velcro.
[hip-hop instrumental music]
You can barely see it, but there's a radius.
There's a little hump right in here.
Maybe you can see it like that.
It's kinda weird, the way it shapes.
It's not straight across, it kind of tapers.
So, just to make quick work out of it, what I'm gonna do is cut right underneath it.
You don't hardly ever see a stretch bumper on a wrecker
unless, you know, we built it.
But, on semi-trucks, it's a very common modification.
You know, we're trying to duplicate that somewhat,
but make it way better.
[machinery whirring]
Now, it really looks like a moustache.
You know, I'm just gonna just stack my six-inch spacers,
and I'll tack the top of the bumper, which is the bottom of the bumper,
onto this. And, then, I'll have my filler pieces.
[grunts]
Hey, fellers.
I need y'alls help real quick.
Can you grab that side?
You wanna tack it up, Ryan?
All right, thank y'all.
We got it tacked up now.
This is the gap I'm gonna fill from here to there.
So, I'm gonna do it in sections.
I'm gonna do the left, the right and then the center last.
First thing is, is rolling this piece of metal to get this radius.
Just a reference right there
to where I really need to start rolling it tight.
Making sure this radius is the same as that one is key.
So, I'm gonna make sure I roll 'em the same
'cause I don't want it to be tighter on one side
and not as tight of a radius on the other side.
They have to be exactly the same.
Yeah, that's close.
If I stomp one of 'em, flatten it out, I'm stomping two of 'em.
I'm not doing just one at a time,
so it turns out evenly.
I want everything to be symmetrical on both sides of the bumper.
[intriguing instrumental music]
Okay, I got everything welded, cleaned up, sanded.
Looks like it should've came like this from the factory.
Off to powder coat.
[hip-hop instrumental music]
With the suspension done on the '23 International,
I sent it back to Ryan's shop to get that bed.
[Marshall] So, we got Bill's truck in here today.
We need to hurry up and get it knocked out.
A little ahead of yourself, aren't you, with the toolboxes?
Yeah, we had to go
a little bit different on this one
because he needed to do his running boards
and doing his build, and doing the air suspension.
But, now, it's time to get the bed set and
get it all working, and get it back over to Bill real quick,
so he can finish his stuff.
[Brian] All right, let's get going.
[Marshall] Yes, sir.
[intriguing instrumental music]
You wanna watch that hose just so he doesn't back on it?
You know, working with Bill, it's a little unorthodox for us to put the bed on last,
but you never know what to expect with him.
So, now, we got our bed set.
Now, we're gonna weld up the frame of the truck to the sub-frame of the bed.
Now, we're gonna set the pylon, so they can get the light bar on top.
And, then, we're gonna get our hydraulics up and going,
then it's a downhill slope from there.
[hip-hop instrumental music]
Now that we have the bed put on the '23 International,
it's time to get this truck looking the part with the rest of our fleet
with that black-on-black paint.
[Patrick Johnson] What I have here
is the parts off of the new shop work that we have.
I'm about to start the sanding process.
Of course, you know, here at Ekstensive,
we pretty much de-chrome everything
just to get that custom touch.
You really wanna sand it-sand it.
You wanna give it a lot of grooves and gouges
so that your primer will adhere to it.
If it's not prepped properly,
later on, air, water, anything can basically get up under it,
contaminate it, start it to peeling.
Once it starts peeling, you gotta start all the way over.
All right, I got my primer in the gun ready to go.
We gonna get a couple of coats on this thing and let it dry.
What I'm using here is a very high build primer.
Normally, we just use mainly high build primers on things that are textured,
like all the plastic pieces.
We try to sand a lot of the texture out before we prime it.
But the high build primer gives it a real solid base to start with.
Now that I got everything coated,
we'll go ahead and let it dry.
After that, we'll start getting ready,
getting it prepped for the paint.
This is a normal General Motors black.
So, actually, it only has two different tints in it,
white and a maroon added in with the black.
Get this mixed up.
Looks good.
[hip-hop instrumental music]
Now that I've got my black base on, it looks good,
everything's evenly coated.
I'm gonna go in, shoot a couple of coats of clear on it.
Everything looks beautiful. Shiny.
Perfect match as usual.
Put it in just like this and, then, we'll flip it up.
All right.
When you're gonna have a custom truck, you want custom things on it.
The last thing we're gonna do for the wrecker is install these fenders.
But there's nothing to mount it to.
[Jamie] Square it up and down and side...
[Carlton] Yeah, we gotta raise it up three inches.
So, the next step is building all the brackets and everything
that holds this heavy of a fiberglass part up while it's going down the road,
shaking and hitting bumps, hitting potholes,
some cases, hitting curbs.
So, the mounts we make had to be super-strong
and add to the overall style of it, too.
Man, I think we'll be better off go ahead and starting to do this now, yeah.
[Jamie] Clamp it and, then...
[Carlton] Clamp it, that's gonna get everything straight,
-and you can kinda... -[Jamie] Manipulate it a little.
...move the clamp a little bit to get it straight with the wheel.
After about a couple of hours lining this fender all up
so it's nice and straight, they're parallel with each other,
both directions nice and level.
We have our major brackets in place,
so now we're just building off the bracket itself coming over to the fender.
Then, we can start attaching all this.
Then, it'll finally be a fender bracket after that.
It's just straight down...
-[Jamie] How? Once we get this one? -[Carlton] Yeah, I think so.
[Jamie] I think it looks better like that,
where it just ties into this and this front's...
[Carlton] Exactly.
[instrumental rock music]
We're gonna do that.
[rock music continues]
Okay, so we're winding down on our fender braces now.
You know, we have everything connected to the frame.
Last thing is to stitch this in.
Once we stitch this in, we'll cut it here.
We'll cut it in the same place on the other side,
pull this section out.
That's gonna separate both fenders,
and they'll both be floating when we cut this off.
-We go back... -Ten years now, man.
It's been a minute.
Man, time flies, for sure. In ten years of your life, man,
there's a lot that goes on in those years. You know...
-Beard, no beard. -Young Jamie to...
-Skinny, fat. -[both laugh]
You know, I've changed a little bit, too, modified some things.
Man, when I started here, I was right here in this shop, building all the parts,
painting everything on the table, just started from the bottom, you know?
Learning every little piece of how you like things to be done here.
Hey, we're both pretty good at sweeping, too.
[laughing] I mean, swept my fair share around here.
I've learned so much from you, you know, as far as the business side,
as far as the build side, quality control.
You know, before, sometimes I might've questioned,
you know, how you're putting things together and stuff, but now--
"Used to"?
-Used to. I don't ever question that now. -[laughing]
I know...
I tell people this constantly that, you know, "Don't question it."
You know, "It's gonna come together.
Everything's always gonna look good."
Man, I got y'all fooled, huh?
-No, man. -[both laughing]
Last ten years I've been here, it's a lot of cool projects, lot of fun, you know?
I'm really looking forward to the next ten years.
[hip-hop instrumental music]
[Carlton] For us,
having a shop wrecker that looks good and performs good,
it's totally instrumental for what we do here every day.
And we need to get it to work right away.
So, we built out the fenders,
installed custom running boards
and, of course, made it low.
You know, I definitely believe what you put into something, you're gonna get out.
And this truck is a testament to that.
We've done a lot of work to the new shop wrecker.
You know, it's something I'm real proud of.
We've been working all hard on it.
And I can't think of anybody that would rather see it
other than my buddy, Ryan, at RPM.
[hydraulics hissing]
-What's happening, man? -[Marshall] What's up, Bill? How you doing today?
[Carlton] That's a cool truck, man.
What year is this?
[Marshall] '55 Chevy with an old Holmes 440.
Old school wrecker bed on it, man, it looks real, real cool.
So, what brings you by today?
Man, I got something out here for you to check out.
-Uh-oh. What do you got out here? -Bring that cleaning stuff.
-[Marshall] I'm gonna need that? -[both laugh]
-Damn, man! -[chuckles]
That's looking good, man!
Yeah!
I'd seen it before when I put the bed on it,
but I haven't seen it like this.
That is clean, classy, slick, man.
You know, I see wreckers every day.
This one definitely stands out.
I didn't think it was gonna be that cool.
[Carlton] I tell you what, I love the four-door truck.
16,000-pound bed is definitely the way to go on that.
I can haul whatever I wanna haul now
without that bed flexing at all.
Our builds have been getting bigger and bigger.
This is something I needed, man.
[Marshall] Yeah, I know when I give you something,
you're always gonna do something else.
But this rear end, how low it is,
and these full fenders dropping down,
really tucks that tire up in there really nice.
Man, you nailed it with that!
[Carlton] I wanted something that nobody else had.
I mean, nobody would ever lower a wrecker, right? [laughs]
Well, I had to have one.
So, what I did is just took the factory hanger on the truck
and raised it up, putting a smaller bag in place.
So, it actually rides three inches lower than it used to,
and drops three inches lower than it used to.
You see, all those inches are really close and tight in there.
You don't have much room.
But we got that big old fender underneath there, too,
you know, to make it even look lower.
You guys nailed that one.
-The rims, the Texas rims... -[Carlton laughing]
-Come on! -[both laugh]
Of course, Texan, we're in Texas.
You gotta have Texas wheels.
-What you thinking? -Damn.
Man, that is gorgeous.
[Carlton] One of the first things we started out doing
is color-matching everything,
getting rid of the chrome, surround around the grill, the chrome mirrors,
I had to change all that up.
Shiny black, man, it just makes it look classy.
De-chroming it and putting it all black
just made it really look sinister. It's just a tough truck.
If I told you that was an Ekstensive wrecker,
you'd say, "Of course, it is."
And it's such a big truck and skinny bumper,
so I decided to cut the bumper,
lower it down so it matches the same height
that is the running boards also.
So, everything matches and flows together.
[Marshall] You know, those running boards really are clean and slick, man.
It really sets that stuff off.
[Carlton] It just ties all that in together
and hides all the tanks and everything.
Gives you a nice look from the side, for sure.
And you can tell, it's way lower now
in the front, too, than it used to be.
I told you I was gonna bag the front of it.
-Check it out. -[Marshall] You really did that?
-[whoops] You really got that done, man. -[Carlton chuckles] Yeah, man.
You know, before, it had, shoot,
11 inches in between the axel and the bottom of the frame.
So, what I did is took the leaf springs off and de-arched them,
so the axel comes way closer to the bottom of the frame
and the bottom of the oil pan.
So, it rides way, way lower.
Then, it has that adjustability of the airbag,
so we can raise the front of the truck up,
drop the back down, and have that bed angle
so you can get lower vehicles on it.
And it rides way better, also.
Really impressive, man. Really looks good.
[Carlton] I love riding low in a big, black truck, man, for sure, right?
You know, I was kinda iffy about how that was gonna turn out in the beginning,
but you guys killed it, man. Good job.
[Carlton] Not only can I thank the guys at my shop
that I rely on all day, every day,
but also the guys at RPM at Ryan's shop, you know, for the work that they do.
You know, it was extra work going back and forth between shop and shop,
but this is gonna definitely turn a lot of heads
all around the streets of Houston.
And next time we go with Ryan to the tow show, it's gonna kill it there.
Hey, man, you get back to cleaning, man.
I'm gonna get back to the shop.
But, first, I'm probably gonna cruise around a little bit in it.
-You guys killed it! -All right, man.
-[Marshall] I'll see you after a while. -[Carlton] All right.