Devil in the Details | F_cking Cars Podcast Ep 10

What else is going on, or has it just been 69 for the last couple of weeks?

Just been 69 in the last couple of weeks.

Hell, yeah.

At least you know that you're the idiot here, right?

Hey, f***ing cars!

So what's happening, man?

What's going on with you this week, this last week?

A couple of weeks.

It's been a little bit.

I got the truck back together.

I had to, I had a mishap with the top retainer ring, which is also what you used to set your

preload and your ride height.

It's like the knot above the coilover, or that you adjust your coilover.

And it's just stripped out on me.

The company that I got my coilovers from, they make the body out of steel and then

the retaining rings are all, everything else is aluminum on it.

Sweet.

I guess it's good because the shock body is not really sacrificial and then this retaining

ring is, but it was a little disappointed that I tightened, or you know, I'm adjusting

ride height one time and putting some preload in it and then it, it just, I was cranking

it down and it just, bam, shot to the top.

No way.

Yeah.

So, well, golly, that sucks.

Yeah.

Thankfully, it didn't catch my hand or anything.

Yeah.

Luckily, you can get hurt.

No doubt.

I called the company because I had the, the owner's number or whatever.

I gave him a call and I said, Hey, does this sound right to you?

Because I said, you know what?

My truck's not that heavy.

I had it jacked up.

There are only 300 pounds springs.

Like, what's, what's going on here?

And he basically was like, he probably deals with a lot of people or something,

but he pretty much gave me the, you get to buy another one and that's it.

You must have done something wrong.

So, oh, cool.

Well, at least know that you're the idiot here, right?

I was like, I was like, correct me if I'm wrong.

So it's a split ring that has like an Allen to tighten it around the coil

over body and I had the screw in it.

And I had it just backed off enough where I could, I could turn it.

It wasn't clamping the body and I said, is that, and he's like, yep,

that's what he says.

I've never heard of one stripping out.

And I was like, OK, so I get to buy a new one.

He goes, yep.

I was like, all right, thanks, I guess.

But who knows?

And then I talked to a friend that has the same coil overs

and he has, he said he has bought on two occasions, had to buy a new one.

The new almost must be a little more common

and the guy just doesn't want a minute kind of thing.

I mean, it's I think

everywhere is a little tight right now.

And he just don't want to be sending free stuff to everybody.

So I get it. I mean, he was friendly.

He was he answered the phone.

He talked to me. He was friendly.

He was cordial, you know, but I mean, it is what it is.

It's like my biggest thing is it's like a thirty five dollar part

and shipping was thirty something dollars.

It's always the case.

Yeah, yeah.

But I was like, so that's the shipping really that much.

And he's like, yeah, we insure everything now to the nines

because we had a bunch of porch pirate steel full on coil overs.

So they won't.

Yeah, but so I got it back together

and I had to since I read it all my break lines.

I thought I had it bled out good before,

but they were getting a little I was getting a little squish in the pedal.

So my son and I read bled at this morning.

He read all four corners and he was pedal man

and he didn't complain at all.

So for a thirteen year old, we're going to take that as a win.

But it's a lot of tone, right?

That's a lot of pumping, but we did get a bunch of air out.

And we went for a test drive and it was good.

So it's coming together, but it's still riding too low in the front.

So I have to.

I did all the spring math where you get your motion ratios

and then you got to put a cosine in for the to adjust that

based on the angle of the shock, how far it tips in board

because that changes that too.

And I did a lot.

And it says I don't something something got messed up in the math.

It's saying that my springs should have be right.

But in reality, it's it's just riding really low.

I'm really compressing the springs and I'm going to have to.

So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to take

my spring stack height at ride height, so compressed with the weight on it.

And then I'm going to reverse the math on that, saying if I have 26 inches

of 300 pound springs and they're compressing down to 15 inches,

then I have 11 inches of compression, 11 inches of compression per corner

is going to be this much.

So if I go up to a 500 that's going to compress this much, you know,

this percentage less, and I'm going to I'm going to do that.

And then it's a nice dude redo all the math for spring frequencies

and make sure that it's going to ride out right based on reality.

I don't know. It's it's a struggle.

But I was thinking about it and it feels like my truck's been

apart for 10 years, but really I took it apart.

I took it apart on the 20th of September.

So it was a part a week and four days.

And that was with pulling it apart twice.

So that's really not that long.

Oh, yeah, that's not too bad.

Oh, that's the 69 Mustang on the rack.

I finally got the other unicide fit up in.

And before I got that side fit up in,

I realized that the cowl that was installed by somebody else,

I welded it on better, but I never checked fitment.

I just the customer has such a tight budget

that we just like minimally moving

through getting small things accomplished.

And unfortunately, I turned out to I mean,

it's not that I would have cut the whole cowl off

because I only cut the top off.

Anyways, it was in the wrong spot.

So it doesn't it came for the windshield in it.

So now I had to cut the cowl top off.

Yeah, exactly.

So.

Everything's fit back in the front rear glass fits.

So now I just have to pull everything apart.

Put all the plug weld holes in it

and then throw everything back together.

So everything like as of yesterday afternoon is like fit.

But oh, my God, dude, fucking cars.

Things have been in my life too long.

It's just finally being able to see like this car

is going to actually turn out right, which is awesome.

But what a long road.

Is there a panel left on it, unreplaced?

Because you did quarters, rift skin and both sides.

The.

There was a lot of work that that was done, like

trying to salvage what was there on a budget and then.

Moving into this building, it followed

starting the business, it followed me here and there.

It was just trying to get the customer on board.

Like if you want it right, it's a Q code car.

It's worth a bundle of money when it's done factory, you know.

So just just trying to get them to realize that

it's worth the money to do it right.

Because it is that kind of it is that car.

Like it is that you would put back to factory

and purposely put the correct primer on the bottom side.

Purposely do the overspray in the right areas

because I have knowledge of all of that stuff.

So why wouldn't I apply it if it's just like general knowledge

to me as far as like what a Mustang supposed to be repaired as

because we did it for like five years straight, you know.

Yeah, restoration should be restored.

You know, I mean, on a valuable car, you'd want to restore it back to what's

going to give you the most value.

They brought the it wasn't the Marty report,

but it was some other report that they had with.

It's a lime gold color car, so it's like that.

Light green metallic kind of a car color.

It's real. I mean, when I looked up that car,

a 69 Q code with the in that colors, that's pretty cool.

I've never I don't think I've seen one that color

or I've never sprayed on that color in my whole life.

So I am familiar with the color, I believe,

but I don't know that I've actually seen one in person.

I don't think I've seen one person either.

So a few of those heavy metallic colors that were kind of quirky

when you see them in person now, like actually sprayed out with with new paint.

Heck, man, that Torino we did, that it was a code cue forward.

It was a 60 73, the code was cue,

but it's like a green dark green metallic.

And man, what a fantastic color that was.

I've never never thought that a really 70s color would be like

I'd be really digging it, but that one did it.

Had some pop.

It looks like super deep.

Yes, it's like super dark, you know, and with in the shade or at night or whatever,

it looks really, really dark like you can tell it's green a little bit.

And it's got my tail looking at it.

But then in the day, like in the sunlight, it's like.

If you like the color, that's one thing at night.

And another thing during the day, it's that's a that's a bang in color.

Did I have a color name or just cue?

I can't remember.

I also know as the code was cue and it was easy to remember that

because I don't know, it was a cue, it's cue something.

Yeah, normally there are two letter I thought for those.

Yeah, it was cue something.

I can't remember.

You have the computer to save all that bullshit for me.

I don't have to keep that in my memory, right?

Right. I won't hold it against you.

I rely on PPG for that.

Yeah.

What else is going on?

There's just been 69 for the last couple of weeks.

Just been 69 in the last couple of weeks.

Hell, yeah.

No, we got.

We started, we took on a project from another shop that.

Was has been in the been worked on for a while.

So it's a Monte Carlo, 73 big block Monte Carlo is pretty cool.

So we're just kind of picking up

just figuring out where they left off and getting some work done.

Tammy's got the front end all sanded down and they're almost sanded down ready

to get at least a stub painted.

And I got a I got the rockers and the

the fender bottoms on the 66 Mustang on the Hart-Morson chassis.

I got those the the fenders finally welded on brackets made for the front

fenders in the right spots, the rocker panels actually welded on

and brackets made for the bottom so they're not just like flopping

loose pieces of sheet metal on the bottom side.

So they're super, super rigid now.

And like really, really happy with how everything turned out.

I can't wait to get spend more.

Every time I work on the car, I just want to spend more time on it.

And it's like, I wish I could spend every hour of every week on it.

But we just try and be a little bit diversified as far as, you know,

keeping the projects other projects we have to go into.

But what else are the work on?

We've got some interior stuff done on the 57.

We've got the interior parts.

Some of the materials for our spray a couple of weeks ago,

but we have some of the guy who we subbed out.

He's getting some of the glass in there.

Almost have all the glass in there.

This we just had a 58 Chevy truck dropped off

on an Hart-Morson chassis or on a sorry, Rooster Shop chassis.

Pretty rare.

So I haven't really done any work on it, but.

They're bringing the rest of the bed parts and the rest of their parts.

And we're going to get a game plan going as far as that goes,

like getting all the sheet metal fix.

It's all aftermarket, which is pretty cool.

I'm really excited to work on it, actually.

But when you when you have a vehicle,

you're normally working on something, regardless of how old is

you're normally working on something that somebody did something on.

You know what I'm saying?

Yep.

But so this car or this this truck, it's like

the cabs aftermarket, you know, everything's aftermarket.

Everything's brand new.

So I'm just dealing with making what I have in front of me work.

So it's it's just like a different mindset.

As far as going into the project, you don't have to like you're just

making work with what's in front of you.

You know, you're not pulling it apart

and having being surprised at what's underneath,

which is can bring a fair amount of anxiety to the job.

You're not putting unicides on just to find out

that the cowl panel doesn't fit.

Well, yeah, I told the customer, I'm like,

I'm thankful that we got whole unicides, though,

because I think I don't know if I said this last week,

but you once I started peeling it apart,

like every panel underneath of it is terrible.

Like like the next one was bad.

You know, you cut roof parts out and then you the next panel was like,

oh, maybe we could have saved this.

Like, no, like it's it was bad.

Well, at least it'll be right now.

Yeah, yeah, it's actually fitting up pretty good.

I was surprised that I'll throw in it together.

You know, I wasn't.

I maybe have like three hours after I got it,

like up the panels upfitted, like actually just thrown together.

Took me three, three and a half hours to get everything like

this is where I would weld it together.

So I don't think that was too bad for all aftermarket panels

and you're building the whole cabin of the of the vehicle pretty much.

So it was too bad.

Still got to figure out the drip rail area

because the drip rail doesn't come with the roof and you have to buy it separately.

And they just showed up and it's like

I'm at the study, the the old drip rail and measurements off of that

just to make sure I'm not screwing myself.

It's.

Oh, it's a lot.

It seems like there was a long stint there where.

Nobody wanted to they wanted to shave the drip rails off of everything.

And now it seems like the drip rails really come back.

I think people are just sick of their shit leaking because they want to drive it.

I mean, that's the same idea of having like a roaster shop chest,

your art morson chest, they just want a drivable car.

And the owners of this 58, they were saying that they.

I was kind of give a slightly comfortable renting them on, you know,

having everything new and, you know, let's we're starting off the right way.

And they're like, well, we have three trucks and we bought

like restoration panels for one of the cabs for everything, you know.

And so that's it's all sitting there.

So they've actually gone through it.

And this is what they're ending up with.

And they they wanted to buy just a front stub for the frame, you know,

and then potentially a rear stub.

And they're like, well, then we're just left for the centerpiece.

That's factory like reminds us by a whole chassis, you know.

So they kind of went down the roller coaster of.

You know, cost versus, you know, are you going to drive it?

And are you going to use it?

And if you're going to use it, you want to ride good.

If you want to ride good, you know, you go down that cycle and it's like,

this is what you end up with, because this is going to be the best.

Right. Yeah.

It's better to have everything that works together, too.

If you get a whole frame versus doing a lot of cutting.

Well, some of it is just even having serviceable parts.

Right. Like you can't.

Once you start getting into the this, you know, even 60s, 50s, 60s

and earlier now, you can't buy parts for shit anymore at the parts store.

You know, if you're on a road trip, you're screwed.

Not saying they're going to have the exact stuff for

our horse and chassis or was the shop chassis.

But I think you you probably have a fighting chance versus

some factory like trying to find a kingpin on the side of the road, you know.

Yeah. But is that is that four wheel drive or two wheel drive?

Yeah. Yeah.

The old parts store problems.

Yeah. Oh my God.

I usually just tried to flip the screen around some.

Yeah, I don't go in the parts store that much.

I've just come to the try not to point where I'm like,

I'll just order it and wait and then it's only on me.

And I don't have to answer a bunch of questions and.

Well, the unfortunate reality of parts stores now is if you were

you're looking for a serious part and you need the right.

The right part, the right the first time, you know, it's sometimes

these walk in parts, auto parts stores are terrible at that.

But I know there's a couple of places in town where you'll go there

and you buy a part and it won't be it'll be a shit part right on the box.

Like it's pretty nice.

Yeah, you got to think most of there, especially the bottom of the line

ones are Chinese parts that they're just putting a brand name on.

But I mean, it makes it harder as to be a technician in any sort.

It's like, how do you troubleshoot stuff when you have shitty parts?

It's a it's a replace, you know, replace a part and re-diagnose.

And if it's still wrong, like, how the fuck are you supposed to move forward sometimes?

Yeah, especially when you got like parts that are buried inside an engine.

And then you got like my the starter on my tundra is under the intake manifold.

So if I bought and I got that at O'Reilly's and if I would have put

that in and then put my intake manifold on, got everything sealed,

injectors back in and all that, just to find out the starter was bad.

It would have been a disappointing day.

It's like you would definitely pay a hundred dollars more for the right part

to make sure you didn't have to do that again, right?

Right. Yeah.

But we need the parts stores there because sometimes you need something that day

and you can't get it.

You're not wrong, but they got to be open at the same time, too.

And the man there, there's like how many auto parts stores in our town

I don't know. Good helps hard to find, I guess.

Yeah. Yeah, it's.

I don't know.

I think that's going to be a problem in five, ten years, because.

You need you need to play.

You know, you need a place to go and get that stuff that they all the same day.

You know, you're in the middle of something and you need whatever.

But if the prices are so high because overhead is so high on the store

compared to what you can buy them online for.

And then they can't get employees that know anything.

It's going to be a it's going to be a stretch, but.

Yeah, it'll be interesting in this town, you know, the car

quest hub was in is or is in Marshfield.

I don't say Vance or whatever, but it's supposedly it's all closing down.

So it's like a huge hub.

And they had the auto body hub in town here, too, for those guys,

which unfortunately, I don't I don't use anymore because it's gotten

they don't have anything in stock.

Like they just don't have anything there anymore because they've lost

a bunch of accounts and they can't keep anything in stock.

So it's one of those things where once it starts to spiral downhill,

it's just I don't know.

That's what I feel bad for the mechanic shops in town,

but I don't really use any of that stuff anyways, because it's not.

I don't do that service stuff or anything like that.

So if I'm going to the auto parts store, it's pretty it's for a pretty unique situation.

Yeah, like I said, the overhead compared to like

to stock everything and keep it there compared to just having an online store

where somebody's selling selling stuff on Amazon or whatever it be.

It's got to be difficult.

Yeah, the car was actually used to rent the space I'm in right here

to just to just shelving and parts.

It's all it was.

I think it was like seasonal stuff.

So they pull all the seasonal stuff off or out, you know, like the

I don't know if it was in snow shovels and batteries or whatever the hell it was.

But ice scrapers.

Yeah, the ice scrapers, the the noxize that you put in your gas tank

to make sure your gas tank or gas don't freeze or shit like that.

Yeah, those are not problems.

This has been a lot of crazy stuff.

Like it was a.

Your distributor, Carquus had it.

They had like they built doors in here for a while.

It's a lot of a lot of different word should.

I need a shop.

Huh.

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, I think I'm going to try and scoop out some time.

I don't think it's going to be in December, but hopefully in January or

February, just like a week from my car, I think I'm going to do it

just like block it off.

This is going to be for my car.

Yeah, it makes sense.

I think it's not something else.

I think financially it sucks.

But I think for motivation and plus, it's a good showpiece for the shop.

I think it's well worth it.

Plus, it's the holiday season, you know, you got to give give your car some time.

Get my uncle Eddie going on and ship the car.

There you go.

I think I mean, I was waiting on some of it was I knew I could

get some of these panels made and it making it look like a look like

what I wanted to look like, but then effectively TIG welding all of the

sheet metal together and doing it like somewhat efficiently, where I'm not

going to ruin my body to do it was that's a whole another thing.

And I think I'm like, I'm kind of there now.

And I'm definitely reaching the end of my physical therapy for

whatever I did on my neck.

The lady like cranked something in my jaw the other day was fixed something.

So definitely keeping posture when you're working on these cars, man.

I feel like the older I get, the more posture is.

Everything you want to do this for a long time, work on cars.

Like you got to be a monkey, man.

It's crazy. Even my wife, she's she she's getting to the point

now where we got like, you know, you got to take it a day at a time.

It's some of that you being underneath of a car and on top.

And, you know, like working around stuff, you're

you doing stuff that not a lot of people physically do.

Yeah, you got to think a lot of working on cars.

You're you're like arching over them or you're laying under them and holding

your head up and yeah, I yeah, there's nothing I'm like.

Yeah, I definitely do the the dad stretch a lot after I get out for

running something like, you know, he rolled the shoulders back.

But I was talking to a younger guy this week just about that

because he said he looks at the old guys in the shop that he works at.

And he's just like, I don't want to be broken when I'm old.

They're all they're all.

Yeah, no doubt.

Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot to be said.

I always thought there were guys that would do like weightlifting in the morning.

And I'm like, man, I don't need to do that.

I do so much at work like, fuck that.

I don't need to weight lift in the morning.

But now I'm just getting to the point where my body's in a spot

where I can start weightlifting and it's not training in the wrong position

kind of a thing. It's that's loaded anyway.

But yeah, now I'm totally understanding like, yeah, weight training

in the morning or just like weight training and period, weight training period

is a I could see the benefits, definitely.

Because that's the hardest thing you're going to do that day.

Everything else is easy.

So if you do that, you know, working on the car is going to be,

you know, you'll you'll do the dad stretch at the end of the day,

but you won't feel like shit the next morning.

Yeah, I do. I do my exercise at night.

We also built a I welded up a pull up bar in my shop.

So the guys and I all go do pull ups all the time in between.

That's good, though.

You got to work the back out.

You have a strong back.

Even crawling inside the 69, it's like there's no way to sit

in the car and, you know, like you can like sometimes you have to make a seat.

So you because if you're going to be in a position for like an hour,

you don't want to be like you can fuck your back up real quick

by sitting goofy for an hour. Oh, yeah, for for me anyway.

But yeah, man, sometimes you're just setting yourself up

so you don't wreck yourself.

Yeah, you got to check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Check it in cars.

Yeah, well, enough of us being old men.

Oh, yeah, I don't know, man.

I'm just excited that that most thing is going to be that that 69 is like

on its way well on its way.

Then it's actually going to work on a little bit.

I'm going to work on the model a chop, get some of that roof welded together.

And then if I have any remaining time,

hopefully spend on that 66 most thing I want to get the quarter scoops welded in

and then get the I think it's some trim made for the quarter windows.

That that we that we elongated or whatever.

So we're going to have a piece of aluminum made.

So I'm going to have to make a template

and then have like a piece of aluminum made like three quarter inch

and have it over like over thickness.

So I'll mount the window to where it's going to be with like Maki or a thing,

I guess, and then basically shave the aluminum to make it look like

the trim that goes around the windows.

So it'll have like the beveled edge to it or whatever.

Gotcha.

So it'll be a bunch of sanding and filing stuff like that.

But it's like that sounds like so much fun too.

So I'm excited for that.

You so you extended the quarter windows.

Is that for like that Hertz glass or whatever you're talking about?

Well, the Hertz glass would go normally in the in the in the openings that are

factory in the in the car, they usually just cut the back of the louver opening.

And then they would it's just like a when they sold it.

It was only like a six hundred fifty dollar kit.

It was they're really cheap and they were plexiglass windows and super

duper cheap. So we decided to kind of want to go that route.

They were the the bottoms and inside of that those openings were rotted out.

So they were letting me take liberties at the time.

And I kind of swung the idea of making the window is when you look at

the car from the side, the back window and that

so the back window comes around and the louver kind of opening started here.

And it was only like three quarters of an inch off.

So if you move that opening, it almost looks like

like a straight it's like a straight line.

All the way from the the quarter window at the front of the quarter window

to the top of the the rear window, it looks it's a straight line that goes

all the way up and around.

And then the bottom of that quarter window, now quarter window opening,

curved it with the quarter panel.

So it kind of curves down.

And then when you look through the car, it looks like the car has more

hips than it does just because the window follows down a little bit.

And it's just these little things when you look at the car, it's

it looks like a Mustang until you start dialing it in.

I can't wait to park a stock one next to it.

Like I can't wait.

This I think it's a definitely a bigger deal than I'm putting it on to be.

And probably that, I don't know, I think it's a big deal of this car

because it's never I've never been able to.

Make things out of sheet metal.

And like just somebody say, I trust you, do it.

And it's turning out so bad ass.

Like, like it's a car that if you are, if it was the right deal,

I would buy the car, like that's how much I like it.

And I'm not a Mustang guy.

Yeah, I'd say it's like we know I'm not a Mustang guy and I would buy this car.

Yeah, it's pretty sweet.

It's different.

I like what you're saying with getting the lines

so the quarter window flows into everything.

And I think that that's pretty important instead of just slapping

a trapezoid on the quarter panel.

It almost it almost seems like, you know, second gen Camaro's

when you look at it from the side, they almost have like a straight line.

I don't know if it's necessarily the because it doesn't have quarter windows,

but it looks like there is kind of a line that goes.

It's got like second gen Camaro vibes in the back, but it's not necessarily.

Like it just has a line that goes around the back of the the cabin, I guess.

I don't know how to explain.

Oh, you're saying that that the front edge

of the the front vertical lines up with the the top of the rear glass, too.

Yes, yeah, that's big.

It's pretty cool. So it's got like a belt line almost.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

It's got like a belt line around the top of the car.

Right. So when you're looking from the side, from the right angle,

that line goes, it's like one straight edge all the way over.

It's like fucking nerdy, but it's really fucking cool.

Like I think that's right.

That's exactly what I was talking about, where every line

I ever put on anything has to have a purpose.

You can't just like have a thing in there.

It has to every every point needs to be an alignment with something.

Like totally agree.

Wasn't that a big thing on just 32 forwards?

Like everything, no matter where you looked at it, the lines, they never end.

They they they just keep flowing.

Like so if you're looking at it from the front, they go around the back.

Thirty six forwards are I mean, anything.

I think you could say that about thirty twos and thirty six forwards.

I think thirty six forwards are fucking beautiful like three windows.

Oh, my God, those things are fucking fantastic.

Is that what Red Rides just did? Is that Red Rides?

Yeah, thirty six Fenderless thirty six.

Yeah, yeah, that thing, which is which is a big deal

because nobody's ever really done a Fenderless thirty six.

And it was like look good.

But it was the whole idea that was their pitching ideas.

And they're like, we'll do a Fenderless thirty six and actually make it look good.

And then they just rebuilt the whole car anyway. So yeah.

Like there's I don't think there's literally anything that there is

everything is hand-built, you know, there's everything.

I was almost under the impression they didn't start with a car.

They started with a car next to next to the car.

I think they were it almost looked like they were potentially making

panels over what was there and

not taking liberties at the same time because it's not it's not the same.

Like it's I don't think there's any panel on it that would swap to a thirty six.

Like I think it's all, you know, pretty custom as far as like

stretched here, tweak there, kind of a thing.

Yeah, it's definitely got a look, though.

It's dope. Oh, my God.

I mean, there's a I think.

To really honestly think a lot of that is like.

Unfortunately, rat rod influence to a certain extent.

You look at that car, you look at that car,

you look at that truck, that 50 truck or 50 Chevy truck that Ring Brothers did.

Like it's all it's that's.

I'm not saying these are rat rods or by any means,

but there's almost like how the rat rod phase came in.

God, I'm really maybe I'm going off a bridge on this.

I want to hear it.

Right.

But you know how when it came out, it was ultra controversial.

Not saying some of these cars were ultra controversial, but.

But in certain crowds, especially the ones at the right,

the one that the Ring Brothers did, I was like,

some people are like, what the fuck is that thing?

It's it's not a Chevy truck.

It's just a it's a race car with a Chevy truck.

Body on it kind of thing.

But I mean, it's fucking cool.

It's red. It looks as fun as hell to drive.

But it's not it's like they're almost

there's almost a new genre being created as far as like.

Styling or like deleting what traditional rotting.

Not I wouldn't say deleting it,

but tweaking what traditional rotting really is because

you have to keep up with the times.

And if you're not, you can't do the same thing over and over again.

Like, I think this is a this is a fallout of that.

Like they're just trying to do something a little different.

And how are you going to allow the crowd the next time?

You know, like you got to start pulling fenders off weird shit.

That's that's kind of what I'm seeing.

You know, right, let's pull

hundreds of stuff that's never had fenders pulled off of it

and do it cool. That's what I'm seeing.

I mean, it's our expression.

I think we get like a pinto pull offenders off.

We're fucking gold.

I don't know where any pintos are,

but I know there's a couple Pacers sitting.

Well, you pull offenders off.

Now I'm just getting done.

I almost bought a pin.

Was it a no, no, it was a gremlin.

Gremlin X back in the day.

Just a regular pulled it out of a field rot in Gremlin X.

Somebody had with a head, whatever the AMC V8 was.

And it was it was a total turd.

And they wanted to weigh too much money for it.

But it was a gremlin X.

Nice. I almost bought.

I think it was like a seventy two or a seventy three Nova.

Those are two very different cars, aren't they?

This switch in seventy two, seventy three.

There's like seventy more they changed.

I thought. Oh, no. So it would have been.

Anyways, it was like three hundred fifty bucks.

Well, it was a running driving V8 car.

Right. And it was in Stevens Point.

I was a high schooler, man.

I was like, I think it was one caller or two late.

Fucked out to be cool.

High schooler with a.

Nobody in our high school had that shit when I almost bought a seventy four.

I'm so glad it didn't happen.

I almost bought a seventy four.

This didn't happen either, by the way.

Four door straight six Nova for.

Yeah, it was like four hundred dollars.

Sure. But I'm glad that didn't turn out.

To me, I was just like, it's a classic Chevy.

I need to I need to have it.

I was 15, you know, you ever put money down on a car

and not not end up buying the car and getting fucked out of the money?

I don't know. It's pretty cool.

I haven't had that.

I had one hairy situation when I was just buying a.

I was just trying to buy a car for the wife.

So we bought a SRT for from a guy I worked with on the Dodgney on SRT for.

He's like, I was I was doing trade in.

He's buying a brand new STI and or maybe it was it was an STI.

And he's like the dealership only wants to give me like five hundred bucks for it,

a three hundred bucks for this neon SRT four.

And I was like, what?

And I said, I'll buy it for me for five hundred bucks.

And he goes, you'll give me five hundred bucks for the car.

And he's like, yeah.

And I was like, OK, I want to say five hundred bucks.

I'd seen it in the parking lot.

I'm like, can't be that bad.

So we bought it for five hundred dollars.

Sorry, if you're listening to this one, we bought it for five hundred dollars.

And I need a rear shocks.

And.

It was under a hundred thousand miles.

And it was a hundred percent factory Dodgney on SRT for manual turbo.

So they have, I think they have a DSM engine in them or something like that

or whatever, but you were fucking.

I almost bought one brand new.

I went to the dealership, like I went to the whole thing.

I almost bought one.

So I put I put new shocks in the rear and then I there was a little bit

of flaking on the rear quarters at the wheel arch.

So I repainted the quarters.

I just did a clear blend job because it was just the dog leg.

So I just did the dog leg and then clear blended it

and everything because I was like, what?

I read it's a, you know, it's a dodging in great, great power train.

Everything else attached to it.

Terrible.

But my wife drove it for a while.

The only thing we did was put a shift knob in it.

That was the only thing not stock.

She got one of those sweet, poured acrylic ones with the flowers in it,

like an actual flower.

Yeah, it actually looked all right.

But it was like a Japanese drift car thing that I was.

What color was what? Oh, blue.

Then it was the brand blue or whatever that standard SRT for blue.

And we drove it for a little bit and I put it up for sale

and I got like three people that wanted to come and get it right away

for five grand because it was a neon, un-molested

with under a hundred thousand miles SRT four.

And it was just like, there was none of those.

There was no touched one.

Any, any like enthusiast type car that is un-molested.

That's 15, 20 years old.

I think people are going to get good money for her.

So then I took that five grand and decided to buy it

because I think at the time my wife had that had a four,

fifty-four, three-quarter ton suburban for her other vehicle.

And both sides of the fence.

So we were getting her something, you know, economical.

She wanted a van, apparently I refused.

But so we went to buy her a car

and I drove down to Chicago from central Wisconsin.

So it was a four hour drive, went down there, test drove a car.

I'm like, this is not like I can't pay this guy for this car.

It was it was just every, you know, every bushing, every tie rod in it

was just not good.

And so I'm like, I'm just going to pass on this.

I told the guy, I was like, Oh, I'll give you a call, you know, whatever.

Craigslist.

And then while we were driving back to Wisconsin, my friend and I,

because we two of us went because we were assuming we were buying

a car and driving home, I was cruising Craigslist, looking for something else.

This is before marketplace.

And we swung up to Milwaukee, which sucked because we had made it to Madison.

And then I was like, let's go to Milwaukee.

So then we, yeah.

So then we go out of the way, way out of the way to Milwaukee.

And then I was looking at this Cadillac.

Test drove it and I was like, it's kind of it needs work.

And it's just like, it was just neglected.

But for the most part, it was pretty good.

It ran good.

I was like, for the money, I think it's all right.

Lowballed the guys and they were like, OK, we'll do it.

I hate where we met at like an arena parking lot or something like that.

In Milwaukee and not a great neighborhood.

And I give the guys the cash because they like they had the title out.

I hand them the cash.

They hand me the title.

We let go at the same time.

I flip the title open.

And there's signatures all over it.

Baby, like it looked like it was at an auction and then somebody signed

it else after that.

And I'm like, there's not even anywhere for me to put my name on this.

And they're like, no, no, no, it should be good.

I was like, no, this.

So then I've got two two guys in a bad neighborhood.

I'm in a parking lot.

I don't even know what who they are technically.

And they've got my cash.

And then all I've got is a car I couldn't title.

And thankfully, my buddy, who was large six foot like six foot four,

dude, he kind of circled around the back of them so they couldn't

like just walk away from me.

And I was like, I'm going to need my money back.

If you can get this title, I'll come back and buy the car.

But I'm not taking this title where I can't even sign it, you know,

and there was there was a lot of sideways eyes happening,

shifting eyes, seeing if there was like a if they could get away with it.

And then my buddy kind of was kept scooting closer to them.

So then eventually they gave me my money back.

And lo and behold, I never got a call back saying they got the title for it.

Interesting.

But the person I never titled it, that's just a you have the title.

And this says I want it, right?

Right. Yeah, that's fine.

But it's super scary.

I ended up turning that thing into two cars.

I took the money and ended up buying her like a Passat wagon,

1.8 turbo, and then I bought myself a 240 sx.

240 sx.

There you go.

So it's got to be for me, right?

And I was dailying the 240 sx.

I took it deer hunting for fun because I wanted like a

Griswold's looking deer hunting trip.

I think I sent you a picture, didn't I?

Yeah, it is pretty good.

Eight point buck tied to the back of a 240 sx.

Heck, yeah.

But I and then I got pulled over in that car.

Uh, I was dry.

I was leaving work at first shift, so it's 2.15.

I'm driving home 35 miles an hour and a 35.

Like, I didn't even have room to get up to speed yet.

Cop pulls behind me, flips the lights on.

I'm like, OK, whatever, pull over.

He comes up to me and he's like, you know, I pulled the over.

I was like, I have no idea.

He's like, where are you going?

I'm like home from work.

I'm wearing a uniform and.

He's like, I'm going to need you to stay in the car.

So what?

And then he just, well, I think actually he made me sit there

for 15 minutes before he even got out of his car.

So what is going on?

And then another and then another car cop car pulled up

and I'm like, what is happening?

And so he comes up, tells me I need to stay in the car.

I'm like, all right.

So I stay in the car and then a couple of minutes go by

and then a drug dog gets out of another cop car.

Oh, nice.

They they have the drug dog go around my car.

The car, the the dog up in the wheel wells all over the place.

You know what I mean?

Doesn't do anything.

The guy gets back to the driver's door, throws a tennis ball

at my driver's door.

The dog catches the tennis ball and then the guy goes,

I'm going to need you to get out of the car.

The dog just marked your driver's door.

I'm like, I saw you tennis ball at it.

So then they take me out of the car and

put me up against the front of one of the cop cars.

They didn't cuff me or whatever, but they're like,

you need to keep your hands where I can see them and all this stuff.

And then the dog looked around my car.

They didn't find anything.

They're like, your door panel is a little loose.

Is there something in there?

I was like, pull the door panel off.

I don't care like whatever.

And then they told me that I had.

There's like, they're like, how long have you had this car?

And I was like a couple of months, but I've never even washed it.

Like never vacuumed it out.

He's like, you need to go down to the car wash right now and vacuum it.

There looks like there's some shake in the center console.

And I'm like, I looked, there was nothing.

And then they sent me on my way.

So they just burnt like an hour of my time

for nothing because I had a 240SX with tinted windows, I guess.

They don't seem to have the quotas they used to meet

or they're not doing the quota thing

that they used to do when you used to live around here.

It's not, it doesn't seemingly be like it's not that way anymore.

I don't know why I know they had like even in Marshall,

you couldn't drive from one end to the other without getting pulled over.

So it's not like it used to be, you know,

the cops are still dickheads and stuff.

But from my perspective, I mean, to be honest, they are.

They're just fucking nosy.

They like, I don't know.

I should stop talking about that.

Well, we need the police, but there's always bad eggs.

Yeah, I mean, there are, unfortunately.

And you have a couple of bad ones and it gives them all a bad name.

But to a certain extent, they should be self weeding themselves out

because a lot of things happen that way.

And they don't have like the avenues for that to happen for themselves.

Yeah. When I was,

did I tell you about the cop that pulled me over every single time he saw me

when I was in high school?

Yeah, my people used to pull me over every single time he saw me.

And then my mother decided to contact the

chief of police and tell him that the police officer had an unnatural obsession with me.

But I think he thought he was doing like he was keeping an eye on the kids

and keeping them out of trouble.

That'll mean to tell the same story if I already did.

I can't remember.

But years later, years later, I drove tow truck for GMC dealership.

GMC Buick Mazda, what a combo.

And I got a call to my house to do a tow from dispatch

because I used to live in a busy intersection and cars would run one stop sign

and get smoked by it was two county highways meeting.

And so I get a call to my house.

Of course, I call my wife up.

I'm like, Hey, I just got a call to the house.

Everything good.

I think she was at work or whatever.

So it didn't even matter.

But I get there.

There's a Jeep rolled over in my front yard.

I go flip it, clear it out, get it on the truck and then park the tow truck

in my driveway and then put the whole time.

And then I swept up the road and all that from it.

And the cop that was on site blocking traffic was the cop that used

to give me all the trouble when I was a kid.

And you could tell he was like, Hey, man, it's really good to see you out here,

you know, being a part of the community helping and cleaning up and whatever.

And I could tell a hundred percent

that he thought he had a positive influence on my life.

And here I went from this kid doing burnouts

to now I'm helping the community.

I'm cleaning up accidents and helping the police, you know.

Why would an arrogant thought, you know, like even just the freedom to say,

like, yeah, I mean, I get it.

You're proud of somebody to be

worked for a tow truck company, isn't necessarily like

being a part of the community.

Cleaning off the road is probably being a better community

member than being a tow truck driver, because there's tow truck drivers

that don't clean up shit.

Some of them do the good ones do, but there's some of them that don't.

At least when I was hired, I was told if you drive for dispatch,

you have to sweep the road of any debris and like I said,

so I've had cars and then where they sweep the whole entire road up

and then they put it in the back of the car that comes in to get fixed.

Like how sweet little dry.

Oh, yeah, that's sweet.

Yeah, that's like some of the parts you need are in there,

but it's like in a foot deep of oil, dry that.

The tow truck was fun in Wisconsin in the winter time.

That is not no, no, no, no, no fucking no.

There was not fun.

There was times I would pull up the cops there and I'm looking around.

I'm like, where is the car?

And then it would be like down a hill, 150 yards.

No. Yeah, that's why do you want to do that?

So then you got to get all of your chains and all of your winch cable

and then you got to be able to pull it up the hill and then swap stuff out,

like keep tension on it.

Oh, yeah.

And that's fun.

Um, I sent something to have some friends.

Real with me today, but I sent something to some friends this morning

that said I don't want to be safe.

I want my life to be in danger and I want to lie about it being fun later.

Yeah, that would be doing the tow truck thing for sure.

That's how I feel every time I take my boat out in the ocean.

Like as soon as that's as soon as I leave the like the inlet

and I'm going like out into the big open water in my boat, I paid $175 for.

I get like a little.

I think that's good for us, though.

Before you go, you go like you go like a long ways out, out.

I think six, seven miles out is both far as we could have gone.

No way.

You can't see land.

No fucking way.

Not this guy.

One time, not to diverge the boat stories, but one time I was out

in the Gulf, we were doing some island hopping in this skiff

that I got for free from my work because they're like,

it's not even worth we'd have to pay to get rid of it.

So then I did some horse trading and I got this boat working.

And then, of course, we took it on the ocean and the Gulf of America.

It was Mexico back then.

But we took it out and then we got caught in a storm

in a 15 foot boat with a 70 horse on it.

Two stroke and we're like trying to run away from the storm

and head back to the the boat ramp.

And there's little islands everywhere.

And I'm following the channel markers and I'm like, wait a minute, I'm looking.

I don't recognize any of this.

And so I thankfully had a GPS and I started looking once

and I was able to cut back.

But yeah, whatever.

That's not that's no fuck around.

Roads will keep you.

You'll find somewhere you'll get somewhere on a road, man.

It's out of the ocean.

It's fucking crazy.

It's hard pass.

You got to play Viking sometimes, I guess.

I just seen somebody come up with like those

these like personal pontoons.

Those things look fucking down as well.

Yeah.

I saw the other day of people take

like those like a lawnmower vertical shaft motor, you know,

because how often do you see that free?

And they they took apart a boat motor.

They took the power head off of a boat motor

and they put a lawnmower one on it.

They're like driving John boats around

with a lawnmower engine on the top of it.

That's hilarious.

I think that's like Rainbow Falls.

That's that's what they had.

They're like these bumper boats.

Do you have a Rainbow Falls when you were a kid here?

I heard about it.

Oh, dude.

It was like it was like Wisconsin Dells,

but better because it was, you know, 45 minutes away.

It's fucking awesome.

I wasn't close to me.

Wasn't really kid kid, do I guess?

It's like eighth grade when we moved there.

Oh, sure.

We when we were in Tennessee, we did those K1 speed go karts.

Have you seen those?

Those things, that's something fun, though.

So they have like a national circuit of go karts.

So you can like take your license from one

and go to a K1 in another big city in another big city.

And they actually do like

like sanctioned races and they've got like leaderboards

and they've drift night.

But we took my kid up there when we were in Nashville.

And it was pretty sweet, like fast go karts indoors.

They're all electric, instant torque sliding.

You like they have enough power

to slide around corners and stuff like that.

That's pretty sweet.

Sometimes the cars need to be big.

There is like when I lived in Eau Claire, there's like a.

It's called Action City.

They have like a family place, but they had electric indoor go karts.

And it was that they were actually like they were pretty quick.

Like you slide around corners and it was

we had nights where the auto body association in Eau Claire.

We'd meet there and have like, you know, pizza or whatever.

And then they'd like have go karts and it was all time.

So you could have like competition.

Who lap had the best lap time, stuff like that.

It was it was actually pretty fun.

Have a couple beers.

They had like a bar there.

So you could have a couple beers and like go around the go car track.

It was a pretty good time.

I remember my roommate and I we would sit at the bar for one.

We sat at the bar for a while.

Got like every fancy drink on the menu

and then get up the go karts.

It was pretty fun, fancy go car drinks.

Kids into the wall, man.

Oh, yeah.

That's fun.

That's all Claire, man.

That was pretty fun, but I don't know if I want.

I don't know.

Pretty cool town.

I don't know if I want to live there forever.

I'd like I want to move somewhere, but I don't know where I'm to.

I don't think it's going to be out of Wisconsin, but it could be.

Keep thinking about where.

I think people I know, wise and stuff, I might go to Tennessee next

because it's kind of a milder temperature than up north.

It's fucking hot.

Yeah, we've talked about that.

For me, it's hard to say bye to the ocean.

But I think about the desert a lot lately

with all the truck stuff that we're into.

But I don't know if I'd want to actually live in the desert.

Well, fucking way, I think that would get old really quick.

I think it'd be cool for a couple of years.

And after that, you'd be, I don't know, that's where I would be.

I think unless I plant my feet and start a shop,

I think maybe moving every once in every five years

or something might not be terrible, though.

Yeah, I mean, to me, there's I don't think if I were

somebody to ask me right now, like.

Not not necessarily an automotive business,

but just to start a business in general.

Like you have to really want to do it.

And if you're living and if you're not living

and breathing it for the first five years, you're don't even try.

You know what I'm saying?

Like you have to have that gumption that like that for to make sure

that it's going to work and because it's everything,

I mean, especially for me and Tammy, it is everything.

We don't have another source of income.

And it's so it's like and anything you anything you care about is hard.

It doesn't matter what it is.

You care a lot about it.

It's hard because the highs are highs and the lows are low.

So, I mean, it's to start your own business.

If it's something that you can set up to where you can travel

and setting up your own parameters, it definitely helps.

But it's still it's I don't know.

I thought I have my mind wrapped around it even before I started business,

you know, like what it would potentially look like.

And it's a little more eye-opening as far as how even just lonely it is.

Because you don't really have,

but especially if you're doing something very specialty,

you don't have a lot of people you can ask questions to to even

all if you're doing it right, you know, like.

These numbers look right like they're working.

But do they look right to you?

Not necessarily asking people numbers, but just for instance, you know,

like, you know, how many vehicles took that somebody would work on

in comparison to us and how many vehicles you'd have in the shop,

cash flow, all that kind of stuff.

There's it's all just very, very specific, so specific.

What works for somebody isn't going to work for another person either.

So. Yeah, I was talking to my friend with the Resto Mod Shop.

And I mean, he's 10 minutes from the beach in Fort Myers,

but he told me what the overhead on his place is to pay payroll

and the bills, and I was like, Jesus Christ, you're a dude.

It's very aisle. I'm going to believe this.

It's nuts. That's so much money.

I can't even fathom.

And we're just two people here, you know, running up, doing this

as a business is way different.

I mean, I thought I'd carve out an avenue in the in the 30s,

40s, 50s custom car stuff, and it's such a small avenue

like it's hilarious that even thought that that was even possible.

Really? Right.

Yeah. I don't know what the right path for me is.

Well, that's what I'm saying.

Like I think you're just doing stuff that you love to do.

You know, like hot rods and trophy trucks.

You said mentioned something the other day, like it can be that, though.

But it can be that. Why can't it be that, you know?

I don't I wouldn't mind working on a trophy truck.

I don't have the knowledge of suspension that you do, or like anybody should.

Like I'm just not there with that.

That avenue of aftermarket automotive shit, you know, like I love it.

But I didn't have knowledge of it anyways.

But I mean, like I have a guy that has a 300 ZX that wants

a wide body, like welded on, you know, make wide body

to keep metal and welded on it.

So I mean, I'm not opposed to working on newer, different stuff.

Just I'm not going to do collision.

You're like, I'm not going to do it.

Have to be a pretty cool car to be doing rust repair on a 90s car.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, right?

Have to be a Ferrari or something, maybe a Porsche, essentially.

I'm not sure.

But my boss was actually telling me he's got a friend

who does just vintage Ferrari restorations.

Yeah, there's a couple of guys that have avenues like that.

But those guys are drying up.

Those guys are, I mean, there's not a lot of guys that do that

that are 30, 40 years old, you know,

they're all these guys are 67 years old.

And they're, I mean, maybe 50.

There aren't a lot of guys around.

That's what I think there's going to be a lot of future work

coming from those avenues that are going to be shutting down

and tide changes and stuff like that, which I'm excited about.

But, you know, I don't know.

I think the farther you're going to go in this, for me,

it's just going to be everybody's going to have everything

is just going to be more expensive and more expensive.

And you see me for me, right away, as soon as I started a business

in this town, it's like I'm pricing myself out.

I'm going to be able to do it pretty quickly, I think,

because you're trying to do it full time.

That's a whole different level.

Once you explain it to people, local people, they're like, OK, I get it.

But it's not even a fact of like, I get it.

Why it's not even that expensive.

It's just the time.

It's like people don't really understand the time.

It takes time is money.

Like. Yeah, I think about if I'm if I was to do one here,

I'm definitely going to put up a building, at least to store my stuff

and work on my stuff.

But if I was to do a business in it, I think I would end up having

to get my own truck and trailer set up and just go get cars from the coast

because at least you can get people that because I'm an hour and a half

from both coasts two, three hours from Miami.

If I'm going to get real work that's worth doing,

I'm going to have to get it from people that are willing to pay for it.

I wouldn't necessarily go down the road that saying you need a truck

and you need a trailer, because if you're working on cars, that's what you do.

That's the portion of car hauling is so minimal to me.

I just hire all that stuff out because it doesn't it doesn't make

fiscal sense for me to have insurance on a truck and trailer

that I use three times a month, and that would be that would be a lot.

You know, if you have the room for the for the customer projects

that you need and your stuff, you know, let's say you have

like one or two customer projects in your building,

you're going to have a lot of stuff to do and you can just.

I mean, you wouldn't even need to buy a trailer is rent one.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, I actually have a friend that I would just probably sub out to do it.

Yeah, see, that's exactly that's what I would do.

I wouldn't be insurance for that stuff.

Mike. Yeah, I heard a buddy of mine that's got a truck and trailer

and he's like, they're going to be the two trailers or something.

It's astronomical.

The amount of money you got to have just for insurance for home cars

and you're ensuring the vehicle that's in it to send that, you know,

the more you work on it, the cooler the car is, more expensive it is.

So now you're ensuring, you know, half a million cars, potentially something like that.

Right.

Yeah, I don't know.

I I like to be I like where I go and just pop in and do a part of a job

like when I went and flew to Tennessee and sprayed the engine bay.

If you did, I mean, having a you could you could do it.

You just do an LLC and then start putting, you know, instead of,

you know, paying yourself through the LLC and then also buying your tools

to the LLC instead of paying it through taxed income and all that stuff.

So there's there is real potential and real upsides to doing that.

And even if it's a minimal, you know, at just keeping it very small,

I think that you could it's still very, very, even with a full time job,

you'd still be able to filter money through LLC, pay for things.

I mean, living life through an LLC is I mean, it is like apples

and and not like potatoes.

Like it's as far as being an being being an employee, I think it is.

It's like you used to for I have a different outlook as far as like

what I looked at my how I looked at my previous bosses to how they lived

and now being a business owner and seeing how money flows and how things like

you can buy things with the business, but they're yours, but they're the businesses.

You know, there's like there's all weird things like that.

You know, we don't pay ourselves or the shit on the books,

but we have, you know, something that you know,

it's all it's called the right off people.

That's a right off.

It's called the right off people.

They'll just write it off for you.

Right. Yeah.

Shit. I mean, there's benefits and there's definite.

I mean, you got to answer the phone every time it rings, you know,

right? That's hard for unless you live in Florida.

The business is here.

They don't answer their phones.

They don't have customer service.

I mean, that's how I was kind of impressed when you said

you're your spring guy actually answered the phone.

When you talk to somebody, that's actually pretty impressive.

Usually I don't get to talk to anybody.

He where you talk to a second and you get put off to somebody else

and they never call you back.

Every time I've gotten voicemail, but I get a call back.

So sure, that's pretty good.

People are busy.

If they're in Vegas and I'm in Florida,

imagine how many people in between they have to deal with.

You know what I mean?

Sure, you know, but like I said, he was pleasant

and he was honest and talked.

So that's more than you're going to get for most people.

It's easy to be somewhere that you have to buy a part twice.

So I think we've all been there.

I think I bought, I don't know what I did with my the front end of my

my 46, but I bought I had to buy a spring for.

I cut the springs in the same at the same exact spot

for both sides in the front.

So I want to lower it a little bit from the Mustang to style

or that I got from that from J.W.

Rod, Roger.

So I cut both springs in the exact same spot.

And it was like a.

It's like it almost a half inch sag from, you know,

from one side to the other.

So I bought a new spring.

I think I left.

What did I do?

I left a half a coil.

On it, installed it, same shit.

Please, I don't even.

Yeah, how would, yeah, whatever.

So I'm like, it's got to be, I'm not like, it was just,

I honestly think it was how I had it sitting in the garage.

That honest.

My when I was right when I first got to kind of got it

like even before it was a driver.

When we took the tundra for a test drive today,

I would, when I like turned out of the driveway,

I gasped on it real hard.

So it lifted the one corner up.

And then when I went to the stop sign, it hadn't leveled out yet.

My wife was behind me, her and my son, because we've got his 93

Toyota pickup.

And even though the frames were out and it runs good.

So I'm like, I told them it hasn't run in a few weeks.

Why don't you guys, you should at least run it today,

whether you, whether you drive it or whatever.

But they figured since I was test driving the truck,

they should go out for a rip and the little four cylinder

truck and they were following me.

And she's like, your truck was really crooked.

Leaning at the stop light or stop sign because I had just

lifted the one corner up so hard and the shocks have so much

hold that it stayed up like that.

But then I went around the corner and I was leaning it

hard and it's fun.

But I bet it was fun.

You can literally, my spring rate is so close to holding it

where I want it.

It's it, it's kind of that I can go up and I can grab the

front of the truck, lift it like two and a half inches and

let go and it stays.

Yeah, but I can also push it down like three, four inches and

it'll stay there too.

So I've seen a video.

I wasn't there when it happened, but at PRI last year when

Morgan Clark had that land rover, I think it's land

rover at the show.

He went over and like grabbed it and it went up like

they went up like 12 inches or something like that.

Like, yeah, it's just like, what the fuck?

You see pictures of that this week?

Yes.

All the panels like, oh, that's going to be like a million

dollar car when it's done.

It's got to be like, come on.

It's I mean, I believe I saw he's building another one

after that, you know, that because I think that one's

a V10 turbo.

And I think they're and they're building that one as

like a luxury pre-runner.

And then they're I think they're going to do a V12 turbo

serious one.

Oh, they're going to get serious after this.

For the same owner.

You see even the suspension like the just the.

The I don't know what plate they make that suspension out

of, but Jesus Christ, like it's that's not sheet metal work.

Like it looks like she.

Yeah.

Oh, there.

So he built, if you look at the early part of that,

he did build sheet metal control arms for it,

but they went bill it later.

Oh, OK.

So he built ones to kind of figure out all the geometry

and stuff and then they decided to go full bill it later

and he cat them all out and worked with another guy

that's a designer and together they got it done

and then they had them all machined out.

So, yeah, they're actually like bill it control arms

up or and lower on that.

But man, I saw I saw a post of that car

yesterday that said Morgan Clark's out here building stuff

like this while mere mortals don't even understand

what's happening or something like that.

See what I'm just trying to get this

Mustang restrictor that you put together

and this guy's in the beautiful control arms

that nobody will ever see.

We because of seeing all the stuff he does and then, you know,

there's there's no other Morgan Clark,

but there's adjacent, you know,

other builders doing really wild stuff.

And because of all of them, I think on my son's truck,

we're going to go center mount suspension on that.

So the lower control arms will mount like a trophy truck

where they're only about four inches apart

from each other in the middle.

So because why not?

If you're building control arms,

the building control arms just meant I mean,

they're just a little longer, right?

Well, it'll be from the firewall forward.

I'll pretty much be building everything else.

Everything new out of tube to do that.

But that's OK.

I got my I got a guy who was that.

You're still going to run the four cylinder in there.

Are you going to put something different?

Oh, yeah, four cylinder.

We're going to turbo it.

Oh, nice.

Nothing crazy, just like 510 pounds turbo four cylinder.

The the glory of that little Toyota pickups

is that they're just underpowered and reliable.

So we don't want to go too crazy.

We want to keep it.

So the thing I'll just run for another 100 years.

But. Yeah, I definitely want to do that.

And then I've been talking to the guy in Tampa

that's got a plasma table in his garage

and he's been CAD drawing all sorts of stuff out.

So we'll design a whole J arm set up and spindles and everything for it.

But yeah, because you need a trophy truck in high school.

It's for for safety because it's got a roll cage.

You know, it's safe.

Thunder, man. Oh my God.

All right.

So I've had the weirdest thing happen in the last.

I think it's just over a week.

I posted a video of my control arm on my truck.

All I'm doing is I'm hold.

I have my friend, he lasers out stencils for me

when I'm like air rushing things like that.

A lot of times he'll do that for lettering,

so it just makes it easy.

And I was like, hey, I want to put.

I was going to just get to cut out a vinyl.

And I was like, well, I don't want to do that.

So I had him.

He just cut out of paper or like card stock.

He cut Tereshark, my YouTube brand or whatever.

Yeah.

And this is a video of me just holding it up to the control arm

grabbing a can of paint and painting black the letters

on my red metal flake control arm.

And the video this morning is over a half a million views.

What? That's fucking crazy.

That's the most viewed video I've ever made.

And it's me spray painting my name on a control arm.

I'm getting comments in Russian and German and all sorts of stuff.

And I just don't understand at all.

I have one comment and some like as like Arabic or something.

I can't remember.

There's something weird.

And it was I don't know, it was fucking weird.

That's crazy, dude.

That's really crazy.

I mean, I should I'm thankful that the video

that got a half a million views and still getting a thousand views

an hour is my brand.

So half a half half a million people saw my brand

get and put on a control arm I built.

So that's good.

But I'm trying to figure out how you're never going to figure it out, dude.

I'm trying to do this longer than that.

You're never going to figure it out.

Do you want to know some wild?

I looked at my channel and it tells you at the top

like subscriber count, how many videos?

Subscriber count, sixty five hundred something, two thousand videos.

The famous no.

No, I didn't get, you know, I got a lot of

following from that one video.

And like I said, it's cool.

I I've been taking it apart and I'm like, OK,

so you got a couple of things going.

You got, you know, an oversized coil over.

It's red and machined and black anodized.

You've got my control arms, which are red metal flake hand built control arm.

But I think so that adds a little bit to the to the shot.

But I think what it really comes down to is when I start out,

I'm holding the stencil over it already a little bit

so you can't really see what I'm stenciling.

You know, and then it like pulls it away and it like shows it.

Yeah. And then I spray paint the tip of my thumb

and my pointer finger from holding the stencil tight.

And then I pull it away and I pulled a little tape that I had for aligning

because like I put a little piece of tape down so I knew where to corner

this thing and keep it level.

And then I pull that away and it shows it.

And that's the end of the video.

And it's of course I was spray painting tear shark in black.

So I put Rolling Stones painted black for the audio.

Seem like a no brainer.

But I'm telling you, I made this video and never even I thought,

you know, a thousand views, whatever.

But I'm just I'm thinking there's a little bit of curiosity.

And a large part of it is me spray painting my fingers.

I don't know.

I think it's I don't think anybody's ever going to figure it out.

I think some people do.

You know, no, I don't know if they haven't figured out

or if the algorithm just grabs onto people.

I think that's some of it, too.

I think it's like a not necessarily it's like a pay to play.

But I can guarantee you they know that you're

ingesting videos as much as you're putting it out.

Like they know if you're watching something,

like that's not something they don't keep track of.

They know where your eyes and screen, you know, they're in all that shit.

So it's hard to figure out because it's not anything that's like

there's so many factors that could be involved in like videos are also subjective.

And I'm sure there's different screenings as far as the algorithm goes,

as far as like, because why would it be out there for so long?

And then all of a sudden hit.

So there's like, you know, it's so it's really weird.

Because that's that's been it's been out for like a week or two, right?

It wasn't right away.

No, it started getting views like within a day.

So it's been out for a week, but basically, like.

It was like, I don't know, 12 hours after posting it,

like it got the usual like thousand views in a couple of hours.

And then it just slowly crept.

And then it just went, I think it was like two or three days is when it went nuts.

So people must have just kept or, you know what I mean?

They got enough engagement for steady that they were like, Oh, wait a minute.

People are actually watching this.

And then they just force fed it to everybody.

It's really weird.

I don't know.

But even some of my some of the videos I have to like some of them

have like 65 views and then some of them have 13,000 and fuck.

I don't you can't make sense of it all.

I don't really understand it.

Yeah, I I post car videos and I can pretty much guarantee.

They'll get a thousand views right around their minimum.

I don't get too many that don't hit it all anymore.

It's weird.

Occasionally, I'll post the video and something in it makes YouTube confused

and they'll hold on to it for like 12 hours.

And then also there must just be something in the title

or something in their AI picks up in it.

But it'll be like it'll get five views for the first 12 hours or something.

But sure, whatever.

I've been trying to broaden my viewing landscape

and watch a bunch of different kind of car YouTubers lately.

Just for inspiration and to see, you know,

how they're doing stuff with the cars, how they're doing stuff with the videos.

And that's what I was doing before you got on the.

Can't remember what it is.

It's like it looks like an 80 El Camino.

The trailer part, something.

Can't remember what it's called.

It's like an 80 El Camino, but it's like wide bodied and like fucking crazy.

It's like bananas.

The fucking Monte Carlo.

No, no, no, I'm so sorry.

It was an El Camino, El Camino, I'm so sorry.

El Camino, wide-bied.

And it's got like it's just fucking crazy.

It's trailer park, something.

Anyways, sorry.

I don't know what it's something at all.

Anyways, good story, right?

Fucking good story.

When the dude, Trent calls me and he's like,

hey, who's your what's your buddy's name from Annago?

I'm like, fucking what buddy?

So we went to this metal shaping meet in springtime and there's this guy.

I mean, he looks like the dough boy from like dough boy painting, you know,

he's but an old dude and he can barely walk.

Like we're not making fun of him, but he's just very cartoon put it that way.

But he's like, he's always just really overly interested in metal shaping stuff.

He's he's really nice.

He's just like a lot to talk to.

Anyways, I've seen him like that.

Oh, my God, I've had a brand to him like three times this last summer.

He actually came to our open house and he was running the power hammer and stuff.

Like I said, he's very nice, but he's like a lot.

So what's your buddy's name?

I don't know his name.

So anyways, we got the bullshit about him.

He's asking about VFD stuff on his Pulma X.

And so I got to talk and he's Trent's like he's

like working on a car for the Riddler like they're competing for the Riddler.

So he's they're making.

Covers to cover the where the four length bolts, I believe the four

length bolts to the like the frame.

So I'm making covers to just cover the joint.

It was like, dude, this guy does some of the best work I've ever seen.

And if he's saying that he's doing some cool shit, it's like, God damn,

that's going to be cool.

I can't wait to see it in person.

I'm going to have to go there to see it, I think, because I can't share any pictures,

you know, but so cool.

That was like really long winded story to say my friend is doing some cool shit.

Sorry. Midwest Fab is doing the Riddler thing or the other guy?

Yeah, the Midwest.

This other guy, he's just been like in the in the last.

In the last year, it's just been like there's other friends of mine

that have seen him at swap meets and stuff.

And just like a guy who's like, he's so nice that you sometimes

you just want to walk in the other aisle at the swap meet just

because you know it's going to be like 20 minutes of your life that day.

Again, very nice.

I have I have friends like that that I love, but I know that if I.

Start a conversation with them, I'm going to have I'm going to have to spend an hour,

you know what I mean?

And so it's like hard sometimes.

Yeah, well, the guys has like a Fowdy had like a P 21 Pull Max,

which is like a big Pull Max.

It's got a big job, I believe it's air driven up and down.

So I mean, it's like to buy it now would be.

I mean, I used ones probably going to be 20, 30 grand, you know,

that's a used one, probably cheap.

But he's like telling me that he's

had like doing pretty much power hammer work with it, which is not.

It's a reciprocating machine.

You're not like you shouldn't be bottoming out a reciprocating machine

and making like he's telling me he was making it work.

Like you shouldn't be hearing the machine work that hard

because it's not a hammer.

So anyway, so I was like, man, he's going to ruin the Pull Max he's got.

But I don't know.

Then he's talking to, I don't know.

So I'm confused because he's saying he's working on a Pull Max

and then stuck in the trends about a VFD and a Pull Max.

So VFD is a variable drive frequency, variable frequency drive.

So yeah, I don't know if you know anything about that.

Yeah, because a lot of the Max's were all

like my Pull Max was 483 phase.

So I had to get we actually had 483 phase.

So I had it ran.

But if you don't have that,

you have to get a VFD to run a single phase motor

or to run a single phase or get a single phase motor.

But yep.

Is the Riddler invite only?

How do you get into that?

I this isn't knowledge that I found from Trent,

but I've heard in podcasts and people that have gone there.

I listened to a podcast with a guy I can't remember his name,

but he had a shop and he had a car that was basically to the level.

And he just showed up with it.

And they're like, well, you can't just do that.

You can't just show up with a car and not let us know what it is.

So it's almost like you have to committee years in advance.

They have to know who you are.

You have to know of the car potentially.

I don't know.

I it's I don't think it's invite only.

But you have they got to know.

I'm pretty sure they got to like you got to be on the map to a certain extent.

Because the guy you can't if you can't just show up with a done car

and compete, that's to me, it's kind of there's a lot of contention.

And when you get in, I think I think if you get into the high end cars

and all the people spending, you know, half million dollars

on these restomads and shit and thinking.

I think there's a lot of contention in the industry,

as far as like what the Riddler actually means anymore.

But to that being said, it's still the nicest cars ever, you know.

But I think there should be shows that kind of dedicate themselves

to almost the cars that don't win the Riddler because.

That's that's the part that I really it's like.

I'm writing this.

Yeah, you're pretty serious.

You have I mean, honestly, you're part of the grade eight

to get to be even considered.

But where are those seven cars the rest of the year

and the rest of the show season?

Like they should be putting like there should be a series

of bringing all those cars around and this is the car that one

bring all those cars around and show them all together

in the country, at least a couple of different times.

I think something like that would be really a little more

honor as far as like making sure that the builders are feel like

they've I mean, I don't think that a loser should be glorified.

But to a certain extent, they're all fucking amazing.

And there's a reason that they're even a part of it.

Right. This isn't a participation trophy.

Yeah, it's not because I mean, and it's not you getting.

You're not winning the Riddler.

It could I think that's pretty devastating

because you don't get any recognition.

I mean, I guess you were part of the grade eight

and that's the idea of the grade eight.

But what about the ninth car, man?

Like, I mean, come on, you know, it's like

some of the it's just so nice in comparison

to walking downtown Marshfield's car show.

Like it's just it's apples and fricking potatoes.

Soppy Joe's, dude, so different.

It would be kind of sweet Batman stuff to pull up with a car

that's like would potentially win the Riddler

and then just park it in the parking lot.

Dude, it'd be so red and be cool

if you even have the ability to do that, you know,

sometimes it's just being open.

I just I don't know.

I think that this.

I don't know.

Some of it's like.

You almost have to know what the judges are going to like.

Right. And there are I've heard complaints before.

From different builders saying that.

They didn't like that the that the floors in the car

that they built the floors in the car.

But they the judges didn't like that the floors they built

in the car had a coating that wasn't paint.

It was like a texture coating or something like that.

And they didn't like that.

But the car sitting next to it with factory floors

that were sanded down and painted got a better was the better car.

So he's like, so you're telling me that guy you can.

The joke was that you can.

That you can pimp out a pinto or a temple or something like that.

And it would still win over a car that you hand built.

It's like, I guess I get it to a certain extent.

Like when you're getting into that high end stuff

and you have customers that kind of expect

that my money is going to be not not buying this award.

But my money is going towards we're going to get this award, you know.

And boy.

I can't imagine going home with with your head down.

It'd be a rough day.

Right. You know, spending, especially not being able to show

even from a from a builder's perspective, from a owner's perspective,

you can't show that car off the whole time.

I think that's why some of these cars,

some of these builders are not necessarily going for that anymore.

But it's still just as prestigious as it has as it ever has been, I think.

Right. I mean, it's a big deal.

But to even say you're going to contender in the grade eight or anything like that.

I mean, to me, that's a that should be a big poster on the wall of your shop.

You know, that's a big.

You you'll get there.

If you want, I mean, I don't I would like to be a part of a car that got there.

You know, I don't necessarily want to have my name.

I mean, it'd be cool, but I don't necessarily have one

to have a crew that would be able to even.

Yeah. I there's not even enough people in this area to hire

to even accomplish something like that, to be really honest.

I'd have to move somewhere to have a crew of people that were.

It's just there's just not that many people out here to even help me out,

to be really honest.

So it would be hard to have my name umbrella, you know,

everything umbrella underneath my name.

But I would love to be a part of a car.

I think that Mustang that we're doing that 66.

I think it's going to be a big deal.

I don't know. We're definitely not.

That's not a Riddler car.

You know, it's not like that's a whole nother level of car.

When you're talking Riddler, that's like.

Four fold through, you know, five, six fold of what what that Mustang is,

you know, it's it's not like you're paying attention to the details

and doing summary styling.

You're I mean, you're paying just as much attention to the bottom side

as you are the top for making sure that everything from every angle

and every mirror and like it's.

That's so much work, but it's so I mean, like, again, it's fucking cool.

I could see it being fun and I can see it being taking the fun away, too, though.

I think the part where you wouldn't be able to share anything along

the way would be the hardest part, like doing the highest.

I even feel that now.

Like I can't say that I feel it now to where I can't share it.

But sometimes you just you feel like you're doing the

the nicest work you've ever done in your life.

And you're still like I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall

some days, you know, like you've never seen things nicer

in front of your in front of your eyes that you've done with your hands.

But you're still struggling to make it better and better and better.

You know, it could be better. It could be better.

But I think that's just the ongoing struggle of being trying to be a craftsman

and not not just being coming in with your ego and knowing knowing everything.

Right.

Well, if we start seeing this podcast with one blurry spot in the back of your

shock, we'll know.

Oh, man, I have a spot on my on my on my contract

about sharing it on social media and everybody's been pretty cool.

But yeah, we have one customer that was like,

well, I don't want I don't want my name attached to it.

I'm like, well, it's just not really your name.

It's just like I'm just showing off the work that we do.

She was like, oh, well, yeah, that's like,

I really don't have any other advertisement.

It's hard to advertise in a town that doesn't have a lot of client

like potential clients in it.

You know, so right, you got to pull it from somewhere.

I keep seeing people in there.

Yeah, I keep people see people debuting in their car

or getting their cars ready to debut for SEMO.

And I'm feeling like.

Really pooped out about it.

So I might have like a thing at the shop here, like a not at SEMO party.

Nice.

I like it.

We could do it now.

I would get follow everything.

Yeah, exactly.

Alive.

Just going to be me sitting in the middle of shop drinking a beer standard TV.

Maybe next year.

I think the idea was to take that Mustang.

And I think we still can.

It's just a matter of.

Hooking up with the right company.

We just kind of get closer to the finish line to even make an

attempt and reach out to the company, you know.

So.

I think we can as far as, I mean, even this,

this 58 Chevy truck, man, it's, it's a pretty cool truck.

I was.

I just think it's cool that we don't start out with a big rusty body.

And.

That's usually the biggest pain in the butt is trying to.

Accomplish some of the stuff that is seemingly easy,

but it's never that easy.

So, right.

I mean, even some of the fit in some of the body panes together.

Some of the stuff is pretty far off, but.

Some of it can be just far as like taking one spot walled off,

moving a bracket over and it all ends up. So I mean, it's just.

We got to get it all together, digest some of the problems and.

I don't know.

It's, it's lined up pretty good already.

I was over at their house a couple of times helping them out.

Getting.

Getting some stuff lined up and stuff.

And you just kind of got overwhelmed on them.

So they're like, just bring it to your shop and keep moving

with it.

I don't think we're going to get started on it right away.

I think there's more stuff this next week,

but probably going to get started on it.

I don't know, probably just.

What is this October and November,

probably December.

So maybe we'll see.

We'll see where that other stuff is in the show.

It's hard to schedule some of the stuff.

Yeah.

Unschedulable stuff.

Think sometimes.

For the time being, it looks good.

Sitting there.

Yeah.

Well,

why don't you tell everybody where to find you online?

Oh, hunger.

Hello customs on Instagram.

I have a Facebook.

I don't really post too much on it.

I'm trying to get quit and strike on Facebook.

I have hunger.

Hello customs on YouTube.

Don't really do.

I haven't done a couple.

I haven't done it.

I just.

Do some shows.

I haven't done it really too much too.

Too much lately.

I want to do an update on the 66 mustang.

I think when I have like.

Tam follow me around and do an update on that or something like

that.

As far as like the styling stuff.

Cause we're, you know,

we're kind of talking about some of the styling stuff,

but I don't think I've really done a video that actually shows

like what we actually did.

So far and stuff like that.

You know,

good to show.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

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Devil in the Details | F_cking Cars Podcast Ep 10

About this episode

top retainer ring

coilover

retaining rings

coil springs

brake lines

bleeding brakes

spring stack height

compression

spring frequencies

Ford Mustang

Q code

Pontiac Torino

Ford Torino

Chevrolet Monte Carlo

Chevy 58 truck

Toyota Tundra

intake manifold

Chevrolet Camaros

Ford Model 32

Ford Model 36

rat rod

Ford Pintos

American Pacers

AMC Gremlin

Chevrolet Nova

V8 engine

classic Chevy

Dodge Neon SRT4

Subaru STI

Volkswagen Passat

Nissan 240SX

Nissan 300 ZX

Chevrolet Camino El

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