This right here is the best thing that could happen for this truck.
[Bill] 1931 Ford Maxwell House truck.
came to us as a small project.
It's way bigger than I was expecting.
We still want to retain the original look,
with new suspension, new engine, new trans.
It's huge. I wouldn't doubt if it weighed
more than the truck itself right now.
[Bill] We've come a long way on the '49 Ford.
[Ryan] Now the fun part.
[Carlos] You're going to build a whole new bed from scratch?
Yeah, every bit of it.
-[Ryan] We like obstacles. -Yeah.
[Carlos] What's next after that?
[Bill] Man, just everything else.
[Carlos] Perfect.
We build custom trucks. We don't do restorations.
Whoo!
[laughs]
[Bill] 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.
-What's up, man? -[Rick] What's going on, bud?
-How you doing? -Pretty good, man. What's up?
All right, I need to get these bent.
Got a couple of templates here.
We just need these bends here.
This one here, if we can get
the rolled edge with this length here,
-78 inches long. -Okay.
You know a ground up build for us,
It measured in miles.
It's measured in inches.
This is going to be the exact dimensions
that you need on this, right?
[Bill] Correct, yes.
-[Rick] Okay. -Yes, sir.
I'll get on it right now.
[Bill] Perfect.
The '49 Ford came to us a rusted out old truck.
We made a ton of progress inch by inch.
[Rick] Two of each?
Two of each, yeah.
The bed was just beyond saving.
So Ryan's out getting the metal bent for the new bedside
of what will be a completely handmade bed.
Our shop brake isn't long enough to bend them,
so we'll get these guys to knock it out perfect.
[Carlos] All right, man. So I know
you're going to be happy.
All of those parts that we had on backboard
are finally starting to show up.
So you've been doing something.
Believe it or not, yes,
we finally are doing stuff up here.
We'll be able to start knocking out
some of those older projects that we've been working on.
Speaking of projects, I know that '49 back there,
seeing you guys been started working
on that thing, how's that coming?
Man, huge job.
It was in rough, rough shape when it came in, right?
-[Carlos] Mmm-hmm. -We've done a lot to it.
Getting in the shop, getting it tore apart,
body off to blast, new firewall put in.
We got the whole frame built.
Independent rear suspension, never done that before.
Building the independent front suspension,
-millionth time doing that. -[laughs]
[Bill] Engine trans is all mounted.
Man, we're in good, good shape.
The next big job is the bed itself.
So I got Ryan over at ADE, bending the bed panels for it.
You're going to build a whole new bed from scratch?
Yeah, every bit of it.
It was just too far gone.
So only thing I need from you is two fenders.
We're going to build a bed floor that lifts up
so you can see all the framework,
all the independent suspension.
The cool thing about working here
-is it's always something different. -Yeah, man.
I mean, people have been customizing these trucks
for 75 years now,
getting a little more difficult to come up
-with something people haven't seen before. -Yeah.
We're going to make it happen though.
All right, so once the bed's done,
what's next after that?
Man, just everything else, right?
Blowing it all apart, powder coat,
a lot of body work,
a lot of paint, and John Burgess.
-Man, he's got to come with it, -Yeah.
make this one stand out on the inside also.
Yeah, I mean, he's gotta tie in whatever you're doing.
Yo. Just got back.
Where do you want those bedsides at, for the Ford?
-Man, just take it right behind the truck. -Cool.
I'll be out there in just a second. We'll start making it.
Well, man, make sure you get all that stuff,
and I'm going to get to bed.
[laughs] You can't go to bed.
Go make a bed.
[Bill] Ready?
[Ryan] Oh, yeah.
Put that other one on top of it.
I don't want to walk twice.
-[Bill] Sounds good. -I'm old and I'm lazy, Dustin.
[Bill] All right.
We got our bedsides back from the bender.
We got our four pieces
that we're going to mate together.
Like that.
Once we get all these put together,
we'll have two bedsides.
Slide right here,
and we'll have five, okay?
Give this another quarter inch.
We can get some screws into the... That is straight.
Set up a lot.
There you go.
You can see this real, real wavy on the inside.
That's because there's no structure
on the inside of this right now.
So what we did is make these little channels here.
We're going to attack one to the inside of the panel,
and we'll put this other panel on
and spot weld the other side.
That way they sandwich together,
and then they have a little bit of structure in here
in between the two bedsides.
And once it's all welded and cleaned up,
body-worked, and painted,
it'll look like a brand new bedside
like we bought it.
-Ready? -Yeah.
Let's do it.
-Go for it. -Ah.
Lead.
[Ryan] We like obstacles.
Yeah.
[Ryan] All right. Right there.
[Bill] Couple of days over from the '49,
we're working on a '31 for Maxwell House.
Well, let's slap that sucker.
Something right there.
I'd say let's start off by going from the bottom
of the cross member to the top of the frame.
And let's get that overall look.
So we got two classic trucks going on at the same time.
And we build custom trucks.
We don't do restorations.
Having said that, I still want to keep the things
that make this a cool old truck.
Come this side.
While making custom details
that'll make this truck stand out
from everyone else.
That's pretty dang close.
That's those accurate measurements.
[Jamie] Hey, I wouldn't bet against your eye.
[Bill laughs]
[Jamie] Really close. All right, jump shot.
I'll take that bet.
I got that too.
[Jamie laughs]
The 1931 Ford Maxwell House truck
came to us as a small project and just grew into something
that nobody could have planned for.
Did you level this?
I haven't leveled anything yet.
[Bill] This job is definitely not like we normally do.
This one's a little different.
We're just doing engine and transmission
and all the suspension.
We still want to retain the original look,
but just new suspension, new engine, new trans.
Now just the height we need to come up with.
We got everything torn down.
We got the rear hangers made
and all that coffee equipment came in,
and it's way bigger than I was expecting.
There's just not enough space in the back of the truck.
We're definitely going to have to build a trailer.
We got the trailer hitch built on the back of the truck.
The only thing left is all the rest of it.
Ah, the importance of having everything leveled, man.
That's where it really starts out.
You know, this side's nice and tight,
and the other side's loose.
I've tweaked the frame a little bit,
loosened up some pieces,
and put a lot of weight on this one corner.
You know, when this thing was restored,
they just bolted it right back down.
They didn't check the square of the frame
or anything like that.
This right here is the best thing
could happen for this truck.
We're going to start with replacing
the whole straight axle with independent front suspension.
So first things first on that
is building the lower part of the frame,
which the control arms and everything mount to.
That's the whole crossmember
that's going to support the weight of the engine
and have attaching points for all the suspension.
So it's a critical part of the build
is getting that right in the right spot, the right level,
the right wheel base.
There's a lot of things you've got to figure on
when putting this crossmember in.
Let's see if this works.
We're swapping out the existing power plant
for a 4BT Cummins on the '31 Ford.
This diesel engine's way bigger than
what came stop 93 years ago.
But it's going to give old Max a lot more power.
So I asked Jamie to get it in and let's get it mounting.
[Jamie] Don't let it hit that firewall.
[Ryan] Yeah, right there.
[Bill] Power it up.
[Ryan] Barely.
How's that?
[Jamie] That's pretty workable now.
You can see the size of this engine.
It's huge.
I wouldn't doubt if it weighed
more than their truck itself right now.
We're going to have to take a few things off of it
just to get it shoehorned in here.
Once we do that, we can put everything back on,
lift the truck up, put the motor on the stand,
kind of shift around to get it exactly where we want it.
Now we're at that point
where we're going to do motor mounts on it.
Come this side.
so we can connect it to the frame.
Once we do that, this thing ain't going to move nowhere.
This is a lot of motor in this truck.
This is a 4BT.
These things are known for how much torque they got.
It's going to pull this truck around, no problem.
All right, that's four anchor points I got now.
Everything's tacked up, nice and solid, you know.
We've got bushings in all four of our anchor points.
That's our motor mounts right there.
It's wild to look at the original suspension
on the '31 Ford.
It worked at the time, but compared to the air suspension
that we're building now,
the ride's just going to be a whole lot smoother.
Engineering's come a long way since 1931.
[Jamie] I'm going to go ahead and start building
the lower control arm.
Do both at the same time.
Once you get that established, we'll go ahead
and start building the uppers.
So I got my jig all square,
so my next step is go ahead
and start putting pipes
into my makeshift arm.
This is just temporary right here
to hold my lower ball joint in.
I have my angle set the way it is,
so I can actually tack this on there, pull these off.
Nothing moves.
I know everything's still square.
Once those are done, everything's stitched on here.
That's going to be our lower control arm.
Okay, so I got the lowers on.
Everything's welded out.
Both sides done.
Next step is go ahead
and start doing the upper control arm.
[Bill] See what's over the bottom of this thing.
Then we got a pretty unique situation right here.
We're working around a big wheel,
a late model spindle.
The fender curves not only one way,
it curves a lot the other way.
So we're really limited on our space and location
of all the pivot points.
So what we had to do is move the pivot point
back way out of the way,
out of line with the fender bracket.
So we had to make this weird offset control arm
that's upside down to make all the geometry work correctly
on this car with this big wheel, this big spindle.
Yeah!
We're going to go ahead and weld this out
and then get it mocked up underneath the front end
and make sure everything clears.
Then we can start playing with our
upper control arm mounting point
to get that camber right.
It's pretty unique to this suspension.
It's a little bit backwards from the way we normally work,
but that's what we do around here.
Roll with the punches.
If there's an obstacle in the way, we work around it,
make it work, and that's exactly what we're doing here.
The next step on this is building the bag mount itself.
So that's basically building a shelf
right off of the crossmember that holds the airbag
and a mount on the bottom of the control arm.
So you shoot air into it,
it pushes that control arm down,
lifts the truck right up.
[Jamie] Okay, so we got our upper bag mount completed.
Got everything welded in, the gussets.
Everything looks really good on that.
The next thing is go ahead and put our shock on.
Gonna go mock everything up.
Once I mock everything up, I'll make one side,
then I'll go ahead and make the other,
weld them out at the same time.
[exhales] That's hot.
You know, this is a lot to figure out.
Keeping with tradition, old Max right here,
we went ahead and kept the stock frame.
So it was a little bit of a challenge
to go ahead and build the components
to this type of frame.
But we got everything together,
and it's looking real good.
All right, that's exactly what we wanted.
We got our shock extended all the way down,
which is going to be the bottom of our rod height.
I'm really happy the way everything turned out.
It's going to ride good. We could turn lock to lock.
You know, everything's exactly the way it needs to be.
These old trucks definitely have their own challenges.
They're just way different from modern trucks.
We're building a new bed for the '49 Ford from scratch,
but we want it to look like it came from the factory,
but better.
All right, we got our bed sides
welded together yesterday.
Got them buffed, looking nice.
Just had to go ahead and cut some braces,
get everything in there so it's roughly set right now.
Had to do a little bit of trimming
to be able to clear our axles here.
Ryan went ahead and rolled a sweet piece of one by four.
That's going to go ahead and connect the top rails
of the bed together.
I cut a piece of sheet metal next,
and that's going to go ahead
and connect our bed on the inside.
Now it's doing something.
We went ahead and rolled that as well
to match the contour of the cab.
So yeah, we'll go ahead and get everything nice
and square true to the truck and keep on building.
So we made this front plate
with a break on the bottom here
to keep this rigid.
Got our two bed sides tied together.
Got our sheet metal work done.
So next, I'm going to make a piece of tube
that's going to have a roll on it as well.
So that's going to serve as a bed mount for us.
And also, we'll be able to mount our hinges to there
for our bed lift.
So I'm going to trim that down now
to fit inside our bed rails.
I got our piece of two by two in here fitting good.
Man, it looks nice, and it fits nice too.
That'll make for a really nice stout bed mount
and also a hinge mount.
We're going to move on to the rear of the bed now.
I'm going to focus on getting our side rail nice and square,
just like we did on the front.
And then I'm going to put a piece of tube in here
in between the sides of our bed here.
And then I'm going to make some bed mounts that come off
the bottom of our frame that go to that tube.
So whenever you pick up the top of the bed
and look in here,
it almost looks like a floating bed.
You won't see any mounts.
I got it, dude.
[grunts] Oh.
Freaking heavy.
Tell you that much.
Now the fun part.
And then I'll weld it here and here.
[Bill] Sometimes we can salvage a bed on an old truck,
but the bed on the '49 was just beyond repair.
That's why we're going to make it from scratch
and make it a lot cooler.
The custom bed sides are looking good so far.
Now we need to make room for them fenders.
[Dustin] We got too many fenders down to fit our bed size.
And these are for a factory bed,
and obviously ours is not a factory bed.
See how it looks. See how it fits.
[engine revving]
[tires screeching]
We're going to be making a tailgate.
We're going to put a little bit of structure in this.
I'm going to make the sides out of
inch and a half square tubing.
We're going to cope it, weld it onto the side,
do all of our grinding and clean up,
and make it look real nice.
And then we can figure out
some type of sheet metal design for the center.
We're going to start with these sides here first
and just move on from there.
Yeah, boy.
Now that I got my frame built, it's got a few tacks on it.
It's not going anywhere.
I'm going to make the inside sheet metal panel now.
We'll use 16 gauge so it's a little bit more
stronger than the 18 or the 20, you know.
We're going to make it come down
and flat and come up again,
kind of give it a little bit of depth.
So once it gets welded and grinded and buffed
and looking good, it's going to have a lot of character to it,
even though it's just a couple pieces of pipe.
Oh, yeah!
All right, so now that I got my frame all welded up,
I got the front piece on here.
That one is bent and tacked in for right now.
But we need to do this backside here first
before we start getting into all the really heavy welding.
So we're going to make this back portion right now.
We're not just going to put a flat panel in here.
We're going to do a little bead roll square
just to kind of resemble the stock tailgate look.
We'll add the square in there.
It gives a little bit of structure to the panel itself.
And then once it's welded in,
obviously it'll be a lot stronger.
And it looks much better than just having a flat panel
with no characters. So...
I've got the tailgate built for the '49 Ford.
I'm working on making a hinge piece for it.
I'm machining down a piece of DOM
to slide into the tube
he's got the tailgate built out of.
And then I'm going to drill it out with a 13-16 drill bit,
which is the size of the hinge that we're going to use.
So, it'll make for a really sturdy hinge
for the tailgate to be able to swing down on.
[upbeat music playing]
[Bill] We finished the front suspension on the '31 Ford,
and now we're moving to the rear.
Well, we've got all the four link done.
We have the new hangers done, the rear end is actually mounted to the truck.
I love the new Dually Wheels, but we've got a problem.
Putting on these nice new Dually Wheels,
we're coming from a wheel that's that wide
to a wheel that's that wide.
So the issue is, here,
you see how far it sticks out of the bed?
You know, I wanna retain the vintage look of this bed,
but it's gotta grow about ten inches on each side.
So, we've gotta disassemble this bed,
and make the bed wider.
In the world of custom, this is the type of thing
that happens that keeps us on schedule.
[Jamie] Uh-huh.
You have these issues pop up all the time,
you have to find solutions.
It's just what we do, troubleshooting,
fix 'em, find a way to make things work,
to cover the wheels so we can have a nice arch, everything ties in together.
Once we do that, we'll put our new bed wood in.
Let me number 'em.
Put our stake sides on, it's gonna look like it came like that.
Put "D1," so we know driver.
And then the last one over here,
put "P," whatever number it is.
Let's lift it up so we can get all these rails out.
Go grab Bill's impact.
-We'll go two at once. -[Thomas] All right.
[Jamie] Wiggle it, yeah.
-[Thomas] Let me get a grinder set up. -[Jamie] Yeah.
Thomas and I got all the bed wood off, finally.
Now I can actually see the naked frame of the truck.
Now these pieces right here are actually
what we're gonna extend down on each side.
So the first thing is break out some grinders,
start grinding these rivets.
Today, we would bolt everything together or weld it together,
but back then, you know, these rivets,
they had to heat these things up,
pound them in until they press ground with a die,
and that was a lot of work just to get one of these done.
We've come a long way, but it's nice to kind of look back
and see how things were done to really appreciate it.
Okay, so Thomas and I got all the spines off.
You know, you can see where everything's gonna go right back.
The next step is, start putting new spines in this thing.
[Jessie] Bill gave me this cardboard with a little drawing on here.
So what I'mma do now is get all these measurements
and just put it all in the computer
and cut 13 of these out.
Now that we've got 'em all cut out,
we're gonna bring all the pieces over here and start bending 'em all.
We good?
All right, let's lift.
All right, got all these bent up, but this is as far as we go.
Our break's not eight feet long,
so we're gonna have to load these up
and take 'em down the street and get 'em broken.
That means my job here is done.
[upbeat music playing]
We finished the bed sides and tailgate on the '49 Ford.
To get that tailgate opened and closed,
we're gonna add actuators.
So it can be opened by remote control.
[man humming]
Oh, yeah.
All right, so we got the bed sides
completely welded up and grinded smooth.
And I'm gonna cut these holes out first.
This is gonna be our access hole for our actuator.
Everything for that simply will be built
on the inside of the bed here.
But getting that cut out before we get the tailgate over here is necessary,
so we'll get that done right now.
Do you need a hand with that or no? You got it?
Mmm-hmm.
So, I've been playing with our actuator over here,
trying to find a mounting location on the inside of the bed here.
This pin right here will hold the base,
and then this piston here will actually go in and out
whenever the motor is running, whenever it goes in and out.
So, we're going to make a mount
that will go on the inside of the bed here.
We'll have a mount here in a second.
-Oh, my God. -Oh, did it fit in that way?
[Ryan] No, it went in the other way, through the humongous hole.
I thought so.
[Ryan] All right, so this side works perfect.
We just tested it right now. It works fine.
We're good over here, we're gonna go to the other side
and do the exact same thing.
We've already got half the parts made,
we just need to make the other half now.
All right, so I got my actuator bolted in.
I got everything welded up, and everything's down where it needs to be.
So, we're gonna make a channel
that goes around this that hides all this.
Take a couple of measurements, and make it out of some sheet metal,
and make some breaks, make some bends.
Try it out on the truck.
Oh, yeah!
And right here, we can make a trim piece.
That way when you're lookin' in here,
you don't see this void,
and to finish off the access hole.
Obviously, once it's all body-worked and painted
and it's got everything together,
it'll look finished off and it'll look like it's supposed to be.
It won't just have this cut hole, and be done.
So, we've got our panel made.
A little box to cover our actuator body.
It's gonna hide all of our wiring, the body itself.
Keep it out of the elements,
keep it clean, for the most part.
It's accessible, you can take it off.
That way everything behind there can get painted.
The box itself can get painted and then it can all get installed
whenever it's final assemblies.
We got our actuator hooked up.
We gotta test the door.
-[tailgate opening] -[Ryan] Oh, we got power.
Perfect.
We've come a long way on the '49 Ford.
The new bed's looking good,
almost factory, but with a lot of updates.
Next, we're gonna build the floor
and then we'll have all the pieces for the truck.
From there, it's body, paint, interior,
putting it all together, then it's done.
It's still a long list, but compared to where it started,
we've come a long, long, long, long way.
[upbeat music playing]
[Bill] Our new cross-member pieces for the '31 Ford
Maxwell House truck are back in the shop.
Now we can get to building on this thing.
You can tell our new piece is about two foot longer
than our original spine.
And that's gonna cover the Dually Wheel that we've added.
First thing is, go ahead and start placing these,
get 'em centered.
Once I get the two centered,
I'mma clamp two pieces of bar on the sides
to make sure everything's square.
Then I'll be able to put all my rungs in the middle of it.
Once I get my spines exactly where I want 'em,
I'll go ahead and clamp 'em.
Once they're drilled, that's where they're gonna stay forever.
Dustin, come on over here real quick.
Just clamp it and release it.
[indistinct chatter]
[Jamie] Pick it up,
then clamp it back.
That's good now.
So, if you can see, I got all the spines in except this last one.
I have an obstruction right here with my air tank.
So, what I'mma have to do is cut along,
right along here on these edges.
Once I get that cut, I'll be able to clamp it in
to make sure everything's square.
Then I'll be able to start drillin' in both of 'em.
[indistinct audio]
[Jamie] You got it?
Okay, so I've got all the rungs lined up.
Everything looks purty.
You know, everything's flat, everything's even, square.
So the next thing is to go ahead and start drilling
into our original hardware.
Go ahead and start from the back, work my way forward.
Do that on both sides,
throw some nuts and bolts in it,
see what it looks like.
All right, so Dustin and I just got done
drilling all these spines right here.
Everything's bolted up, just like it came from the factory.
[Bill] All we're gonna do now is put the outer rails
that we took off the original bed
back onto the new rails.
So everything will look the same,
we'll just end up with a wider bed
to cover those new wheels and tires.
Let's get the other side on real quick.
It's probably good.
Hey, Dustin, why don't you just grab that side?
Jamie, you weld this side.
Once we have this on,
the stakes will fit all back in place,
everything retaining the original look.
The only thing we'll have to do
is add new pieces of bed wood.
Other than that, it's pretty much a factory-style bed.
[Jamie] So, what we've done right here is we repurposed our uprights.
You know, it actually goes right on the side of the bed like this,
and our wood slats go in there.
We had to move 'em since we added on the bed.
So, what we did is clean 'em all up,
tack some plates on 'em.
So once we get these back from powder coat,
throw some paint on 'em, bolt 'em up,
all we'll have to do is throw on some longer wood,
we'll be good as gold.
[Bill] I knew we were gonna have to make some room
for the new Cummins diesel on the '31 Ford,
but it would be totally worth it
for all the power that's gonna add to this truck.
You know, we had to cut this out for the Front Runner kit.
Jessie cut us a frame, so what I'm gonna do now is,
go ahead and take the excess off here
so we can weld the frame on.
I have to get the frame established,
then I can go ahead and start filling back in
with my sheet metal and get the design that I want.
Okay, so we just got our metal frame in, tacked up.
We're gonna actually make a vent right there.
So, we made a quick template of board,
just to make an outline of what we kinda wanna do.
It's just a a good reference.
So I'm gonna transfer this to sheet metal.
Once it's transferred to sheet metal,
bring over band saw, cut it out.
Make some bends.
Maybe refine it.
Kind of fit it.
Once we get it right how we want it,
we'll go ahead and tack that up
and start metalworking it.
What we're gonna do next is go ahead and start blowing this truck apart.
Yep, yep, yep, yep.
You know, we'll take this cowl off,
gonna take the fenders off, the cab,
everything completely off.
Everybody watch everything.
Then we'll get the frame down on the ground
with the cab up in the air on the lift.
Then we'll go ahead and send everything out for powder coat and paint.
We got the Maxwell truck pulled apart.
We got the motor out of the chassis.
Get this bad boy over to the body shop so they can get it painted.
Then we'll get it all back together.
We have the diesel engine from the Maxwell truck.
First thing I will need to do
is go ahead and base it with a dark gray sealer,
which I already did.
And then we will go with this color orange,
matching some of the orange that's on the truck already,
so it'll blend in with everything
once it's put back on the frame.
[Louis] So we're working on the bed wood
for the Maxwell House truck,
and we're gonna get it all prepped.
It's really important that you use the same grit.
We want everything to be nice and uniform
when we apply the stain.
So this is really the most important step
before applying any type of color to the wood.
All right, so I figured it'd be cool
since we're doing the Maxwell House truck,
we use the coffee beans to try to color the stain.
So as you can tell, this color is really coming out perfect,
and it smells awesome. [chuckles]
Let's take a look and see what we've got here.
Back in the day, teas and coffees
were used to naturally color wood,
so this will be a really neat experiment.
I'm gonna go ahead and add our stain base,
and this'll just make sure everything gets evened out.
It looks like creamer.
So, I'm gonna add some of our just,
universal brown colorant to the mixture
so that we have a really nice color.
And Bill said he wants this to look really natural,
so that's kind of how we're gonna keep it.
I add a little bit of black just to darken it up some more.
All right, this is starting to look really good.
So we can go ahead and start putting it on the bed wood.
We're gonna go in circular motions
to make sure it gets into all of the wood grain.
It's nice when you try something new
and it ends up working out really well,
and you cannot beat the smell.
This definitely beats the normal smell
that we're used to when we're working with stain.
All right, everything looks like it's soaked in really well.
Now we just gotta do it eight more times.
So, next step in the process to really protect this bed wood
we're going to use an exterior clear coat product.
It's going to do a great job at locking in the color
and to keep it well protected.
This is a Dead Flat finish,
so there's really no sheen to it.
It's gonna keep a really natural appearance.
When you're applying the clear coat,
it's really important that you keep a really nice, even,
consistent spray pattern.
Same speed, same distance from the substrate.
And as you can tell, this product here,
it actually looks kind of white when it goes down.
That lets me know that I'm actually getting material
on the substrate where I need it,
but it dries completely clear.
So, I'm really happy with the look of it.
It's gonna be very period correct for this truck,
so now we're gonna do a few more coats
on the top and bottom.
Once everything dries, it'll be ready to go back on Old Max.
Hey, I'm Louis.
Everybody refers to me here as the wood guy.
When Bill needs something done with the wood around here,
he gives me a call.
-All right, man. -Let's do that.
[Louis] I got into the woodworking business through my family.
My grandfather's been doing this for over 60 years,
so I enjoy working on wood because of the family lineage.
I really enjoy the restoration and refinish side.
Seeing things come back to life.
-[cheering] -[Louis] I also enjoy being bold
and using different techniques
that most people don't see,
but really just making things special
and seeing what beauty we can bring out of the natural wood.
Probably my favorite project was Rubio's truck,
when we did the river bed, that was really cool
to be able to utilize epoxies and different techniques
to really make that a one-off bed.
This is a trade that is constantly evolving,
constantly innovating.
There's always something to learn.
You always wanna push yourself
to be a better craftsman and show off what you can do,
and it's exciting.
Today is one of those really good days at the shop.
We're almost done with the truck portion on the '31 Ford.
We've color-matched that 4BT
to the orange of the Maxwell House logo.
[man] Yeah, you're good. You're good.
[Jamie] How's that-- Stop!
Bill, go grab that side, I'll grab this side.
[Bill] The custom bed is back from powder coat, and it looks perfect.
All right, now go down, yeah.
[Bill] So, this Maxwell House build,
I thought was just gonna be one of our smaller builds.
Get it in, get it out, go to the next one.
Well, of course, they never, ever work out like this.
We've gotten the truck done. It's complete.
The next phase of this is building that trailer.
So that's why I called in Rex.
What's happening, man?
'Cause I got a couple of questions.
Appreciate you coming in, man.
You know, we got all that coffee equipment in,
we're about to start building the trailer,
and I'd really like your input on placement.
I'm here to help out any way I can.
First-hand knowledge is what we need,
-for sure. -Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Let's do it.
Old Max is looking good.
Man, if you don't tell anybody back in Florida,
-I'd like to show you somethin'. -You're gonna let me see it?
I can keep a secret.
All right. Jamie, come on.
You know, I don't normally do this,
but I know he's super excited to see the truck,
so I'm gonna let him check it out.
Oh, my God!
Bill, whoo!
Old Max is now the new Max.
-Yeah, man. -Look at this thing!
They're gonna freak out at Maxwell House, man.
Big ol' wide bed on that thing too.
-[hydraulics hissing] -Oh, Bill, whoo!
[laughing] Yeah!
-I love it, man! -[chuckles]
When Old Max came out and I saw her again for the first time,
unbelievable, unbelievable.
The stance, man, those big 24-inch rims
with the coffee cup in the center,
they think of everything.
-[Jamie] Watchu think, man? -It's sitting down low,
-looking mean. -Yeah.
I love it, man, killer!
Man, I ain't gonna lie, that's the first time
I'm seeing it out of the shop too.
-It looks good. -It does.
-It is incredible, man. It looks good. -[Jamie] I like it.
-This was a fun project for sure. -It was.
[Bill] Always you think, "Oh, that's a quick, easy,"
-and no, never, no. -Nah.
Never works that way.
We got it in the shop, just stripped Old Max down,
and started working on suspension.
You know, built independent front suspension,
and got rid of that old straight axle in the front.
New four-link in the back, got rid of the oldie springs,
put a four-link suspension on air.
Man, it's sittin' fat. It looks great.
[Bill] One-ton axle in it, new dual rear wheels.
-[Rex] Awesome. -Once we did that,
oh, man, the bed's too skinny.
-Man. -I mean, the wheel's stuck out that far past the bed,
so we had to make the bed wider.
[Rex] It looks good. I love the color of the wood too.
[Bill] Well, there's a little something to that.
We stained it with coffee.
-Really? That's awesome. -Yeah.
-[chuckles] -[Bill] Even with that wider bed,
I mean, there's still nowhere near enough room
to do what you guys wanted to do in the bed.
So, made that decision a while back.
"Hey, we have to have a trailer."
So I went ahead and made that hitch
recessed into the frame.
So everything's tied down anchor.
I mean, you could haul a coffee roaster if you wanted to,
-you know? -[both laugh]
I love what they did with the truck.
It couldn't be any better.
It's gonna be tough keeping it secret.
This thing is very cool.
Whoo-hoo!
Boy, you got a lot of engine packed in that little thing.
Yes, man.
That old four cylinder that was in there, you know,
it even took up a lot of room.
But, you know, putting that Cummins with the Allison transmission,
we had to make a whole lot of room...
-[Rex] It's a big motor. -[Bill] Yeah, it took quite a while
to come up with that configuration
-where it all fit right. -[Rex] It looks tight.
[Bill] Yeah.
But it looks tight. You know what I mean?
-Yeah, yeah. -[all laughing]
[Bill] We decided to tie it in with the Maxwell House logo and paint it orange,
so you get some color under the hood too.
-Dude, it goes perfect. -It pops.
-It looks great. -It really pops.
Yeah, it looks great.
[Bill] Man, I knew this truck was gonna look better from the beginning,
but I didn't know it was gonna look this good.
Everybody that worked on it in the shop,
they get back and look at it now it's complete,
they're all just blown away also.
This truck turned out very, very, very good.
I hope all you guys out there
are gonna be super happy with it, man.
They're gonna be blown away, Bill.
There's no doubt they're gonna freak out.
You know, we're just about to go to the next step on it
and go pick up a trailer and start laying out
all that equipment that you have, man.
I'm glad you're here. I need your help with that,
so if you don't mind, let's go lay it out.
-Let's go figure it out, man. -[Bill] Mmm