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THIS Shop was RAIDED by the FBI | F_cking Cars Podcast Ep. 1
THIS Shop was RAIDED by the FBI | F_cking Cars Podcast Ep. 1
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About this episode
A wild ride through the world of automotive restoration and fabrication, this episode dives into the intricacies of building a 66 Mustang with a Coyote engine and an Art Morrison chassis. The hosts share their experiences with various projects, including a 32 Brookville Roadster and a long travel kit for a Tundra. The conversation takes a dramatic turn as they discuss a local shop raided by the FBI due to alleged shady dealings, including purchasing stolen vehicles. With a mix of humor and technical insights, the episode captures the challenges and camaraderie of working in the automotive industry.
Topics:
restoration projects
art morrison chassis
coyote engine
long travel kits
FBI raid
stolen vehicles
fabrication techniques
bodywork
shop experiences
tool discussions
Cars:
Chevrolet Bel Air
Ford GT40
Ford Mustang
Kia Forte
Land Rover Range Rover
Toyota Tacoma
Toyota Tundra
Quintin and Ethan kick off the very first episode of the F_cking Cars Podcast by diving straight into the wild world of car culture and shop life. From FBI raids and chop shop stories to running businesses, handling brutal triple-digit shop temps, and tackling fabrication head-on, nothing’s off limits. This is raw car talk mixed with real-life chaos — builds, breakdowns, and everything in between.
Whether you’re a gearhead, a builder, or just love the behind-the-scenes stories that never make it to the showroom floor, this episode sets the tone for what’s to come.
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Ford Mustang
"...een working on this week? I was working on the 66 Mustang here. It's got an Art Morrison chassis, so there'..."
Car
Toyota Tundra
"... arms for my long travel kit. I'm building for my tundra because for some reason even though I'm like 15 h..."
Car
Ford GT40
"there. It was hard to unsee is when you get to touch a GT 40 and then you're working on a Mustang that was originally owned"
Car
Toyota Tacoma
"I hope to go airborne. My friends Tacoma's got king shocks on it that are for the Tacoma and they have 4.6 inches"
Car
Land Rover Range Rover
"Unbelievable. Is that, was it a Range Rover or Land Rover or whatever that red thing that the..."
Car
Chevrolet Bel Air
"that has a fifty five Chevy Bel Air and it's got a roadster shop chassis but it needs"
Select text to request an explanation
Hey, f***ing cars.
So what are you been working on this week?
I was working on the 66 Mustang here.
It's got an Art Morrison chassis, so there's a lot of adapting that the body needs to be,
like that is making front inner fenders for it.
And I'm making them removable, it's got a coyote in it so that you can service the
engine because it's still over at Cam and you can't even get your hands in there.
It's like a lot, a lot of tightness on it.
But yeah, we've got the inner fenders done.
I made some upper control arm gaskets that are fit nice and tightly to the Art Morrison
chassis.
Yeah, it's pretty, there's a lot of in and out of the engine bay, so I'm kind of over
that for the month, I think.
Need to do some drive shafts or some transmission tunnel work on Friday.
But yeah, I'm done crawling in and out of the engine bay for the month, I think.
On the Art Morrison's, do they do like a Mustang 2-based or do they have like a total
different front suspension on that?
I think it's, I don't think it's a Mustang 2-based.
It looks like their own suspension.
The back is a four-link.
It's pretty heavy-duty stuff.
I mean, it's really nice.
But it's, the Mustang never really had a frame, so you got to, you know, it's your
ace in everything from the floor, front to back.
And so I made the firewall, inner fenders, I made the front bumper, the headlight
eyebrows that were made on a pop metal, remade them on a steel and welded them all on.
And so then when you do that, then you have to refloat the headlight behind it because the
pop metal was how the headlight was mounted.
So the customer is kind of, you know, if we both think it's cool, he's just all game
for it.
So definitely thankful for him.
But yeah, it's pretty, the car's taken, it's a pretty heavy-duty car as far as
like everything else in the shop.
It's probably like the most involved car, so we just try and balance budgets and allocate
about two weeks, two to three weeks on it per month.
And then we bounce around to other stuff, too.
So next week I'll be working on 32 Brookville Roadster.
I have everything pretty much fit.
Somebody bought it in pieces and they're trying to piece it together.
Usually Brookville does that themselves.
And this needed all that work and it's a lot of fitting.
So now I'm back to, I'm down to like welding stuff together so we can get that thing over
to bodywork and get that thing painted black.
Over to bodywork.
Is that still you?
Oh yeah, that's still us, sorry.
On the other side, there's a curtain here where we have our, my wife does all the
body prep work over there in our booth in the prep areas right kind of on the other
side of the computer here.
Oh, gotcha.
That's pretty sweet.
I guess since you're working on that, I probably won't bring up the oil change on the minivan
today.
But this weekend, it's fucking cars.
It is fucking cars.
This week I've been laying down the root pass welds and trying to get all the geometry
set on the lower control arms for my long travel kit.
I'm building for my tundra because for some reason even though I'm like 15
hundred miles from the closest desert, I decided to build like a pre-runner.
But it's going to look good.
It's going to look really good in the Dollar General parking lot.
I can tell you that.
Yeah, man, the Crandon, first time I ever went to Crandon and watched the
pre-runners run up there is the first race I watched.
I was sitting on, I think it was the first corner and it's like a quarter
mile drag race to the first turn.
And man, first race, second car or second truck comes around in his tumble
roll and is like, dude, this is nuts.
These guys are crazy.
So, yeah, you're in that group, man.
You're crazy, dude.
Freaking building the suspension and shut that's nuts.
So and then in addition to the long travel, I've been trying to work
out all the graphics and livery for the side there with that six
paint, six color paint job I did, because it's just got to make it
look like a trophy truck that's just driving around town, you know.
Yeah, that's like, that's a lot to take on that paint job in like in a
booth setting in a professional setting and you did it in a driveway.
Like that's masking underneath a freaking piece of plastic in the
rain, dude, that's some rough stuff.
Yeah, six colors and like, I think I only had eight to ten
hours in it, maybe 12 maxed.
That's pretty good.
Yeah.
That's pretty good.
Yeah, I was hauling your limited time frame.
There's a limited time.
Yeah, somebody once told me I was in a room between rings.
Yeah. Yeah.
One time I think I remember you coming into the paint booth
and telling me nobody masks tighter than I do.
I was like, OK.
What a brag, right?
Yeah.
Tight, tight masking, something to be proud of.
Oh, man.
No clay bar afterwards, then.
It worked and apparently that got pushed into me somehow.
I don't know.
Hey.
As long as you're not using blue masking tape.
Oh, terrible.
Yeah, terrible, terrible.
Throw it in the garbage.
Yeah, it seems like you see a lot of that.
Yeah, speaking of that place, we worked on one or work together.
Why don't we talk about that a little bit?
I think while we were there, we did at least mix some color together
on like a really crappy.
Remember that mixing, mixing room?
We just take some paint from under the bench and make a color.
I think we did like an Ironman colored burgundy.
Yeah.
You know, the Ironman car.
Yeah, that was a 65, 66 Mustang coupe, I think.
I think it was a 65.
It was a five gallon bucket.
And we were just mixing, putting pearls and tinting it just to make it look
like not poop kind of a thing.
I think it looked pretty good when it was done.
But yeah, we were mixing it in five gallon buckets and powder pearls
just pounded it in there to make it look like something,
making sure we have enough just in case you got to repaint something.
Yeah, so good luck replicating that paint, right?
Yeah, whatever saves the owner a buck.
That place is definitely it was it was all.
It was all about doing the most with the least there.
Ah, yeah, replace all these floors,
but we just have a rusty donor car. No big deal.
Yeah, I think that was the place I was told, do it faster
and do it cheaper and make it look better or something.
I don't remember. It was like, you're supposed to be fast, cheap and good.
It was like the trifecta.
Oh, that's like, yeah, that's yeah.
That's why they had all the A plus technicians running through there.
I mean, they wanted to work there.
But as soon as they saw what was happening, it was just no, I don't know.
There's a lot of people that came in and out of that place for sure.
I wanted to work there.
But when I got pulled into the office one day to be told
that I was going to be head painter of the body shop
and they were going to give me a raise to $15 and 50 cents an hour.
I was like a little discouraged.
Rolling in it, rolling in it, rolling in it, 1550, baby.
Yeah, I think I remember when I got,
I think it was like a two or three dollar raise and it was raised a big stink
and it was still wasn't making 20 bucks an hour is like
and I'm working on some of the nicest cars I've ever even seen.
And I'm making frickin $18 an hour, you know, but that was,
I mean, that's Central Wisconsin and, you know, how 25 years ago or so.
Is that a long ago?
It was I think 10, 20 years ago, 15 years ago.
I think I had a kid.
So it had to be about 12 years ago because he was, he would have been
a baby then. So it was probably 12 years ago that I worked there with you.
Mm hmm.
Sure.
It was it was an experience and perspective in play.
Yeah, it was an experience.
There was times where we'd have to like paint the frames of stuff
and I'd have to put Vaseline on my face so I could get the paint off of it
because you'd be laying under it, pressure pot spray and like frame rails.
But I forgot you were helping with the big truck stuff, too.
You were kind of doing everything there, weren't you?
Yeah, everything from, you know, whatever overran the rest of shop,
just like the the sale lot cars.
And then I did a rambler there.
That was your customer.
That's right.
But I don't know the worst thing I ever had red, white and blue on, was it?
It was red and white.
We did it like one of the red.
It was a rambler American.
We did red and white, but the guy didn't have us with the blue on
like the old I can't remember what that special model of ramblers were.
But we did half the paint job.
We did red with white.
Yeah, it was sweet car.
I think the worst thing I ever had to do there was they had me
sandblasting with blackjack, a propane truck that had propane in it.
And so I'm sandblasting on top of a ladder and it's shooting sparks
because you're blasting with iron ore.
And I'm just like, wow, I hope this thing that's all crusty doesn't leak propane.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, good story.
Yeah, that place definitely worked on some cool stuff.
Yeah, I mean, I worked on I think it was the number 19 serial number Mustang Shelby.
So it would be the the 19th Mustang Shelby that they put together.
Still had like the chalk with like the number 19 on the inside
on the deck lid and stuff to replicate all that.
That was pretty cool.
So I mean, there's some really cool cars, but at the end of the day,
they were just all really they were just general restorations on
hot like expensive cars, you know, expensive in numbered cars.
Yeah, I think that might be a good trade.
I don't know what you're talking about.
They got they got their hands left a little bit.
They had I got a call from some people I know in the town that this business is in.
And they were telling me that their FBI was there
blocking all the doors and checking things out.
And I took a little drive over there.
And yes, they were there was a large presence there.
They had a trailer there they're doing interviews in.
They it was a pretty crazy thing happening.
It definitely looked like something out of the movies is really nuts.
That's crazy.
Did do does anybody know I read all the news articles on it.
Does anybody know how they actually got kind of what led the FBI there?
Like, was it an angry customer?
Yeah, I heard it was they.
No, no, this particular incident, I don't believe was I think it was they
they buy and sell a lot of vehicles or at the time they buy and sell a lot of vehicles.
So they were dealing with a lot of cars coming in.
They had a lot of inventory sitting there and they were they would buy them,
fix them, wait to have them fixed up to make a little more money on them.
So this particular incident, I believe was initially started when they
unknowingly bought a stolen car, which when you're buying that many cars
and in the old car world, I'm sure it's easy to do when you're, you know, it's
you're still not doing doing your due diligence, you know, to make sure that it's not stolen.
But when you're buying like 15 to I'm sure 100ish cars a year, you know,
you how you think they're just not doing it for all of it.
So that opened the book Pandora's box, I believe.
And then all the past lawsuits and stuff that have happened or potential lawsuits
that have happened to kind of all came to fruition.
And I think that's why they got initially like they showed up at the door.
Yeah, it's scary business.
They actually what they got in trouble for I got asked to do one night
after hours and I said, you know, I don't think I need to get involved with any of that.
But so there's another guy that worked there that that's still
doing that said thing and he sent them to me.
But I I'm like, I can't.
Yeah.
There was pictures taken of it.
It's all I really.
Wow.
A legend.
Yeah, there were pictures.
Yeah, they had there are alleged pictures.
And I from what I understood from what I heard is if if the guy didn't agree to the terms
that were in front of them that they were just going to follow in the rest of his life,
which I get that to, you know, that's crazy.
So it looked like after after all they're digging, they just pretty much nailed
everything down on one car.
It looked like a boss for 29.
That was the one that got him in trouble.
Well, they held.
No, they held a boss for 29.
But I don't know that that was the source of the lawsuit.
They they went through and looked at all the cars, tried to verify ownership
of everything.
So they were going taking all the paperwork apart, making sure that this
number matches that car, this number matches that car kind of thing.
So it wasn't necessarily that I don't think I don't know.
It's really hard to say because I didn't really read any of the stuff that came
out afterwards.
I was just this is all stuff I've here say it's all alleged.
Yeah, I don't know if it was actually the boss for 29 that they that was
like the car that was that broke the candles back kind of a thing.
I think there was just the purchase of the of whatever stolen vehicle
there was just put the red flag up and they already had enough things in
front of it to where they're like, we need to do an investigation just to
verify that it's not a total chop shop.
I mean, they did some sketchy things, but I don't think it was
everything that they were.
Everything they were that's people are saying they were doing they were
doing.
I mean, some of it was definitely it just comes down to like whether
you're disclosing some of the information to the customer when
you're working on the car.
You know, right?
You can do a resolution on a car and have replaced almost everything
on the car and it's still the same car.
But when you're I mean, it just depends on if the customer or the
person buying the car is disclosed on the information that and the
work that was done to the car just to make sure that it's actually
what they say it was to begin with or what it initially started as
I guess I should say.
Yeah, it looks like the you know, they pled guilty to a felony at
the end of it and it was like a $95,000 fine or something close to
$100,000.
But it apparently was over or what they admitted to was changing
wins on engine and transmission by grinding them off and stamping
the ones in that were correct for the car.
Now, I'm sure these things they do a lot of I am a good reader.
I think on these things that they they know a lot is going on,
but they got to like find something to nail you on.
Yeah.
And that's kind of what they they got one thing that was,
you know, big enough.
For sure.
It's like the least passive path of resistance is like punishing
the guy to get him to stop doing what he's doing kind of
the thing is from from what I got out of it.
Yeah, they were just trying to nail him on something so they
could tell people from the looks of it.
But I know since then, he allegedly can't sell cars in
Wisconsin anymore.
So it was that was this is something this is something
different from that lawsuit altogether.
So as of now, I think he's just consolidating parts that he's
had forever.
But I did hear allegedly that he's gotten pinched again for
tax stuff because he's with the auction stuff he's selling
these.
Anyway, there's a bunch of stuff.
The guys and that's definitely I think there should be a
Netflix special on, but you know, they'd all have to sign
off their rights and.
It's it's the guys just a trip.
That's wild.
There's definitely a lot of cool cars that we got to work
on there.
And but I think sometimes it takes somebody that it I
think sometimes it takes somebody that's like on that
crazy level to bring all that together.
Yeah, and that was one of the things that was like working
there.
It was hard to unsee is when you get to touch a GT 40 and
then you're working on a Mustang that was originally owned
by the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz.
Like there is some pretty cool stuff we worked on and it
was hard.
It's hard to unsee that when you go work somewhere
else.
It's like you're touching cool stuff every single day and
then you go and you're working on a Kia and you're
trying to match a tricode on a Kia.
It's like, why are we doing this, you know?
Yeah.
The body shop stuff is absolutely miserable.
It can be.
It can.
It pays the bills, but it's like, I don't know that
this is something that's going to make me happy.
Try coat Kia's.
Yeah.
The collision side.
It's like, yeah.
Yeah.
Try coat Kia's are not my not my forte.
Oh, forte.
That was a good point.
Yeah, baby.
But I only worked at one shop where I worked collision
full-time for like two years.
Otherwise I've always been in a place that had restoration
there.
I only worked at that shop just to pay for parts on
that 46 right there.
So I just put the basically got the whole drive train
together from working at this collision shop.
And as soon as I had all the stuff paid for, I'm
out.
I'm in any work on the junk anymore.
So far, are you on the suspension for your trophy
truck?
Like what stages are you in just doing geometry stuff?
So I've done all the math and all the planning
and I've got like the lower control arms I actually
have together.
No.
And like I rip past the main pieces on it.
I'll take welds.
And then I'm just kind of boxing them in,
getting them ready to put the shock tabs on.
And then I'm going to do some dressy overlay
panels for a little extra strength.
And then to make them look less driveway built.
Sure.
And then after that, I got to get into upper
control arms, which those are pretty easy.
The upper control arm doesn't have as long as
you've got your mount points and you're all in
the right spot.
Yeah.
It'll be all right and everything's lined up.
And then so those will go pretty quick.
And then I have to cut the coil over like the
shock towers off of the frame and extend them
because the coil overs I got are,
they're 2.5 inch bodies reservoir coil overs
and they're 12 inches of shock travel.
Oh, nice.
So they're, they're like 30 inches long.
I die.
Nice.
Are we going airborne?
Most truck shocks have like four and a half.
I hope to go airborne.
My friends Tacoma's got king shocks on it
that are for the Tacoma and they have 4.6 inches
of travel on the shock.
So I should have like 19 inches of travel
before strapping it.
So I'll probably hopefully strap it around
like 17 inches of travel total.
That's pretty cool.
So the hopes are I'm going to be three
wheeling around corners when I want
and hitting jumps if I want, but the rear
suspension will have to follow eventually.
Sure.
Dude, that's pretty cool.
I've always dreamed of having something that has like
that big of like just huge suspension on it
because those trophy trucks and cranking
are just nuts.
You've got to go through the pits and like the
huge cantilever arms in the back and dude
it's just like, oh my God.
So cool.
So many fab hours, you know, it's crazy.
Yeah, it's crazy.
Yeah.
Right.
That's all the good stuff.
Yeah.
The pre-runners though, they have like
crazy amounts of fabrication.
I was looking at Morgan Clark's or a bunch
of Morgan Clark videos and he said
labor wise.
Yeah, sorry.
Labor and parts on most things in his shop
are over a half a million dollars for each
truck in there.
Unbelievable.
Is that, was it a Range Rover or Land Rover
or whatever that red thing that they're
building?
I saw that at PRI.
It's got a 10 cylinder Lambo motor
twin turbo something like that.
It's bananas.
Like I've never seen a pre-runner,
like high end pre-runner thing.
Like I don't even think that they are
there's no genre for what they're
building.
It's really nuts.
Yeah.
I don't know really, he's even he says
he doesn't know if he's supposed to
call them luxury pre-runners or what
they're supposed to be considered but
he's definitely kind of all by himself
there.
Definitely.
I don't see anything on the internet like it.
I mean, anywhere.
Yeah, I like how he goes to shows and like
displays.
Oh yeah, my driveway.
There's nothing like what's in my driveway.
Yeah, I like that he goes to shows
and displays things like in progress so
you can actually see like all of the
layers of work.
I've always liked that.
Like I want to display this Mustang and
bare metal just because it's people don't
I mean, finished cars are just like it's
just like you get over glossed.
Everything is so glossy, so done and
anybody could like to a certain extent
yeah anybody could really pile filler
and stuff too.
So it's just show off something in bare
metal.
I think that's really, really, really,
really cool.
That's stuff I like to see at shows.
Yeah, that might be just us as like
you know like craftsmen that want to see
that type of work.
But I think there are a lot of car guys
that you know either.
Yeah, I think if you aspire to do that
stuff like it's nice to also see
what it looks like it's not like a
hush-hush thing that some guy doesn't
want to share.
So you got a Mustang you're working
on? Another 69?
Yeah, so there's another Mustang.
It's a 69.
It's a Q code car.
We've done it actually followed me
from my last job that
they didn't want to keep working on it.
They had too much collision stuff happening.
So
we replaced all the floors in it.
Somebody had already started it and
scabbed some like but flux core welded
some floors in and they were like
screwdriver pop them loose kind of stuff.
So we got a whole brand new floor
but all that stuff in it new
frame rails front back everything's brand
new.
All the last thing we had to do is put a
rough skin on it and we cut the rough
skin off and there is like it's like
Swiss cheese like everywhere.
All the framework on the whole rough
so luckily
Dynacorn sells this stuff but
man
talk about fucking cars like
we think this thing's like a
rough skin away from coming off the frame
rack and now we're
long ways again.
I thought we were going to be able to get that thing in body work
into my wife's hands in the next couple
of months but it's more going to look like three
or four months probably.
That's crazy.
Is there a long wait for those Dynacorn parts?
No actually
we got they're all right here
that's basically you got to buy the whole
unicide.
So you get the outer rocker
the wheelhouse the whole
side and then you got to buy the front and back
bowl.
So it's where I don't know if we're going to
try to utilize as many as much of the parts as we
can.
I don't think we're going to put the whole thing on
just to save time because everything else a lot of
other stuff has gone through already.
Unfortunately they had to spend the much money on
the replacement parts because they don't sell them
hollow cart like the rough pieces which
I don't know why they don't but I'm sure it's
just parts management Tim.
Right.
Yeah I mean how much stuff do you want to inventory for
different situations?
Right that's just going to sit there and
suddenly you're going to pay somebody to work on it
or pay somebody to move it around it's going to cost
more at the end of the day I would suspect
but we do get our parts from
parts provider right in Marshfield here
TC truck parts they have
they basically buy
or get anything in it after market
and I can usually get it from him
just as reasonable as you could buy
online yourself but he kind of
he'll unbox it and vet it for me a little bit
so and it brings him to me sometimes like
he's not going to bring him to everybody
but we're just at the other end of town
and a good relationship with them is really awesome.
Oh yeah he just likes
coming down to the shop because there's really
not a lot of them in Marshfield.
There's not a lot of that stuff
in many places anymore.
Yeah you're not wrong
I mean to me I'm jaded just because
I come here every day
and you know
swearing at the same cars every day so
it's definitely get jaded as far as that
goes but kind of going back to what we're
talking about that shop we both worked at
you know it's like you can't unsee it so
once you see that kind of
working on cool cars
every day and like
like sometimes I'll juggle three cars because
I used to dabble in the collision stuff
so like you're used to
working on three four cars a day if you're
good juggling you know if you're doing it right
and you're juggling enough stuff
just to be productive so sometimes
I'm working on three cars a day
and it's still productive
it just you know and making sure you have
the right stuff lined up in front of you
because sometimes you work
on something you need a part
you need the customer to make a decision
you got to stop so
that's why we do juggle some of the
some of the budgets around here just so
we don't drive ourselves crazy and
you're left in limbo a lot too sometimes
right
oh man so you said something about
you're going to be putting
putting a building up potentially
making your own little shop
is that what I hear is that hush hush
can't talk about you got to edit that out
nothing's hush hush
nothing's hush hush on the youtube
no
we bought a lot next to our house
shortly after we moved here
the guy kind of like showed up and he was
like a week after we bought
the house he catches us outside and he's like
oh I was just in the neighborhood looking
at what one of my lots to build a house
on next you know
it'd be real shame if you guys
bought this house and then there was a brand new house
right next to you right after you moved in
and I was like yeah
what's that and he's like how would you feel
about buying it and I was like well I just moved
across the country and bought a house
so I don't I don't really think that it'd
be a fiscally responsible
to immediately drop another
right like ten twelve thousand dollars on a
lot and he's like
well well just I do
ten grand cash and I was like I'm not going to give
you ten grand cash like
let me settle into a house for a while
before I even think about that and then he's like
can you do two grand
and then and then and then you can make payments
and I was like
I don't know
and then you know it kind of went on
back and forth for a while and then a few
months later I agreed to finance it with him
because I was like well it's
worth about the couple hundred dollars a month
I paid for the land is worth that to not
have neighbors next door
don't so we
definitely so now that we have a little
more than an acre here we have been
planning since the lots almost paid off
to put a shop up
in our extra lot next to the house
and hopefully be like
a little apartment and it'd be nice for my kid
when he gets older so he could get away from the parents
I'm sure but
I want to put a shop up
and build my stuff to
YouTube I've got some other side jobs to do
because I'm going to
hopefully
through the YouTube channel have like a little
hot rod shop do some stuff fabrication
and paint and whatever as long as it's a cool project
worth showing like right now
I've got a buddy with a rest oh my shop
over on the coast
that has a fifty five Chevy
Bel Air
and it's got a roadster shop chassis but it needs
quarter panels done and he's like
my shop is not the space to be doing
quarter panels in he's like
and I just don't want to put the time into it aligning
all the panels because he's like
obviously on a car like that you got to put the doors
on get those lined up to the quarters
and then vendors and get everything lined up
and then you got to take the quarters off
put new ones in
he's like I just he's like I'm not a sheet metal guy
I'd really like it if you do that
so I'm going to get that project waiting
and then
you know the way it is there's just not a lot of
rest those shops rest them on shops around
so he said if I get a space
set up I can do fabrication he said he can just
literally flood me with work because
there's a lot of guys on the coast of Florida
to have a lot of money
and nobody to do the work so
hopefully
we'll be putting up a building next year
yeah hopefully put a building up next year
and then start doing that stuff until then
I'll just do it in my two-car garage
and in the driveway and
get done what we can
I started all this in a
two-and-a-half car garage
we moved into this building
and got married
yeah yeah yeah I did
I did cars in my garage
I painted in the garage
don't tell
neighbors and shit but
I painted out of there for
six months or so
four or five months probably
until I found this space it was actually
as my neighbor's
father
or father-in-law depending on which one you talk to
they had this space here
and one day I was skateboarding past
and they were like hey you're still looking for some place to rent
and I'm like heck yes
and they
brought us here a couple days
or a day later and I'm like sign me up
when do I start
and then at the same time
I was buying
our booth on Marketplace
it was in the Fox Valley area
so we bought the booth
moved into this building
and got married on the same month
and we had to take the booth down and assemble it too
which is a
that's not very fun
yeah it was almost killed my buddy
almost decapitated
it was pretty nuts
almost decapitated him
would something come down when you're trying to assemble it
yeah it's the roof panels
yeah we were taking the roof panels off
and as we were taking them off
and using a forklift it kind of like slid
and his head was in between like
say he was a forklift and he was popping his head up
trying to like pull this thing back
and it started sliding and his head was there
it was like dude
it stopped him like yeah
it could have legit cut his head off
but don't
I mean Osho wasn't there
as long as he had safety glasses on
that's what's important
you know
yep he had a jacket on
he had boots too so he should be good
okay yeah Osho should be fine with it then
they're like oh he had safety glasses on
so just he cut his head off but
his eyes are good
yeah yep
there we go
that sounds like a lot to do in one month
oh yeah
that was it was like a lot a lot
and then like
I can't believe all this stuff was stuffed
in our garage and then we got our garage
back so now it's weird to even have
a garage now as it was just like
our shop for a long time
and it's nice not having it at
home which I could see
having it like living at a place and having a shop
but it was just like not big enough
for to be sustainable at all
you know
plus you're like in town
you can't like you can't get that forever
you can't be as legit as you can
you know
moving to a building
the goal is to eventually at some point
buy a building or buy this building
or buy something
you know throw and rent money away but
we're just renting this place now but
definitely have enough I mean we could do a lot
more with less space
it's nice having some breathing room
that you can bring a car like one of our cars
in just to clean it up
whatever just get some extra room
pretty nice
I was putting vacuum
pumps on the CNC at work and
I had outdoor ones
and
these Chinese the Chinese company
convinced us that these that we were going to
be really happy with these Chinese vacuum pumps
they lasted three weeks but I had
to put them on outside and it was like
110 degrees with
UV or whatever
and my phone in my pocket
overheated and shut off in like
15-20 minutes of being outside
what
yeah
you can put a guy on the moon
but
but you can't work outside in Florida
I don't know
yeah that's that's nuts dude
that's
maybe I don't want to move to Florida
so
I consider
this is my winter I have two bad months of heat
and it beats shoveling
my roof off in the winter in Wisconsin
because in Wisconsin it was like
I mean when you got five six months of snow
yeah
so
I got two months of heat
build season
it's always
everything's build season except for July and August
so
honestly at this point
that's the thing
I'm just waiting
for a hurricane to blow the heat away
because I think that's what it's going to take
because it's just been sitting on top of us for like
like a month
sure
no
I don't know I would have been a lot longer
done on my long travel
if I wouldn't have been so hot outside
and I have to work outside because my garage
is completely taken up with tools
I believe that
because I have three toolboxes in the garage
a workbench a break
welders everything it's like that's the whole
two car garage because in Florida two car garage
is for like a Prius
and a golf cart
because a car
in the word I guess
so it's like super tiny space so that's why I work outside
but when it's 110
you don't want to do a lot of that
yeah that's nuts man
I can't imagine I literally
cannot imagine that sounds absolutely nuts
when it gets like 80 degrees
in here I'm like losing it you know
it was
102 in my shop
that's nuts
yeah we try to try to keep the door shut
usually if you keep the door shut and the dehumidifier
on it'll stay usually below
80 degrees if it's a hot day
is it pretty insulated or
yeah that's nuts
yeah it used to be a beer depot
so it was it's like the walls are like
I don't know foot
in a quarter thick something like that
they're like pretty heavy insulated
so it used to be a drive-in you there's like a wall
right here used to drive through
the building like drive in empty
drive through fill and then
and then leave so
this building's like
started in the 1950s or something like that
so it's been a lot of different things
that's pretty cool
Marshfield's an older area though
I think you got a lot of stuff from that age
yeah
the majority of it's I mean
the majority of the older stuff's been getting knocked down
lately there's a lot of old buildings
that have been getting knocked down
it probably looks a lot different than the last time
you were here for sure
I don't know when the last time you were in Marshfield but it's
it's really different
I mean it's
when's the last time you were in Wisconsin
I have not been back since I left
and we're coming up on five years in December
that's hilarious
yeah we left and we're like
we're like oh I'm sure we'll want to go back
and visit people and stuff like that
but it's like we got here and we're like
yeah I don't know if we miss anybody enough
fair that's fair
yeah I'm just fine
drinking beer in my boat
and jumping in the lake it's January
you know
yeah it's a different life
that's for sure
yeah for sure we just have to do a lot of water things
water activities to keep cool
during the summer
I believe that
yeah
yeah
the building I work in now is like not
it has like a foil insulation
and it's just like a red steel pole building
oh really
so it's like being in a toaster oven
that's rough man
I can't
no
no keeps me thin
yeah I would imagine
I would imagine
holy shit
it's be hard to get anything done
for me
I do a lot in the morning
yeah I have a particle that sits next to my welding bench
and just blows on me all day long
nice
so when I'm take welding I just have to
like have the fan blowing on me
and then my hands are like
reaching out of the wind so I don't lose my gas
on the weld
yeah that's gotta be rough yeah
you gotta have the mix of that yeah
I always sucks when I have to close the shop up
when it's a nice day close the shop up to do some
welding because it's too windy it sucks
yeah
yeah we have I put in like one of those big ass
fans on the ceiling in the shop it's like
16 foot fan
and it's really good
for blowing the heat out of the shop
in the morning it's really good like nine months
a year but like right now come
930 when the sun's like peaking
onto the steel building I have to turn it off
because it just blows hot air off the roof at you
all day long
just hot fan
yeah it's like sometimes I'm like
why do I feel nauseous I'm like oh it's because
the fan is blowing 120 degree
air at me
it's like full blown desert fan
yeah
and I'm wearing sleeves and TIG welding over
yeah hot metal
yeah I
I'm bad at wearing like the proper
like having to have sleeves
on and I'm usually getting burnt
on my neck and my arms and I got a cool
tan line on my arms
because I'm wearing t-shirts all the time
I don't do welding all day I don't weld like all
day like you do sometimes yeah see
you know it's all about
yeah I
my arms would be like
lizard scan if I didn't wear sleeves
yeah they'd be sweating even harder
and 110 degrees
geez I can't imagine
what I do do is I take
like little gel ice packs
I have small ones that I think they're for like girls
eyes when they're like trying to give it
a puffiness and I stuff them in the sleeves
as like my own little
air conditioning
just takes the edge off
at first I was
doing that you know those like
those those cheap freeze
pops that you'd get when you were young and they'd cut
the side of your mouth when you were eating them
so I'd take the grape ones
because nobody wants the grape ones and I'd stuff
them in my sleeves and then
when they turned to liquid I'd put them back
and then give them to the guys that work for me
hey I got some grape freeze pops for you
they're a little sweaty on the outside
but
oh my gosh
that's pretty wild man I mean
that's just to go to work
fucking cars man
just to go to work
have a little bit of trophy truck
building money
yeah man
I got to get some time on the schedule so I can work on my car
I've been injured my neck
enough to where I shouldn't be
welding a lot a lot with my welding helmet
so my car's been on the back burner
for a while
but yeah I can't wait to get back on it
hopefully by the end of this year I'll be
my neck is gonna be like enough to where I can like
put in some hours after hours and not like
injure my neck farther than it already was but
yeah that's the light at the end of the tunnel
as far as that goes
have you seen those Chinese welding goggles
where it's like an auto dimming
but it's only like this big
you had to do like
minimal welding I could see like maybe
but I wouldn't take well the aluminum with it
or anything
but it could be lighter on the neck
no I mean
I'm not really unless it's like a
long weld where it's like feet
where you know usually the stuff I'm doing is
fairly minimal
if I'm welding all day it's gonna be a different
situation but yeah
I'm just gonna throw my mask on quick just because it's a light
it's not very heavy
and usually like
like you were saying before like you'd weld in
awkward positions some of the stuff is just like
terribly awkward
so having that mask helps a ton
okay
but Harbor Freight has gotten a lot of people going
oh I mean
to a certain extent
in the automotive field in general
you should be able to you should be using the tools
that you can afford
to work on the things that just to get
move things forward so I mean Harbor Freight
is it's very
very awesome for people that are
newcomers to even working on anything
um
that being said they're not the best tools in the world
but it'll get you going it'll get you learning something
um I have a Harbor Freight
wheeling machine that's
it's not the perfect thing in the world but
I made the driveshaft tunnel in this
um
parts with some Harbor Freight tools man
the kicker uh kick shrinker
stuff like that I don't think I have an actual kick shrink yeah they do
they got attachment for a kick shrinker
um it doesn't have a big throughout or anything but yeah
I mean they have some cool stuff that you can
you can do a lot with a kick shrinker and uh
and a wheeling machine for sure
yeah it'll get you going
I was actually at like a dollar tree
or something like that and they had hand tools
there for like five
dollar box end wrench set
and I was like you know that might be enough to get somebody going
that you get a job and you know
have fifteen dollars worth of tools
to get the things started
it's a lot better than getting caught in a snap on trap
or something
I gotta have snap on stop here they they've never really
been I've never had him stop here but I got like
I have someone snapped off screwdrivers
and stuff that I need and
he's probably gonna yell at me and say I had a wrench
on and stuff but this is like
many many years of me
breaking some
snap on tools you know
yeah I was using a ratchet today
that like the soft grip on it
and the end of the handle
like the last inch is like
cracked off and so it's like
floppy so you gotta slide your hand up farther
but I would have to
find a snap on guy to get it done
I don't have any that come to
my place because it's just a welding shop
yeah it's not like it used to be I mean I remember
the one shop I worked at there was I think
at the time there were five different tool trucks
that would come every week
and they were expecting to
sell stuff to everybody all the time
it was pretty nuts now I think
I don't even know if there's a mac
or a macco I don't even know if there's a macco
truck around I think it's
just a snap on truck I think but
again I don't have them stop here either
because it's like I don't want them to have pitch me
pitch selling me stuff
every week and have to go on the
on the truck and consent to all that
stuff you know
hey you want to buy $7
stick of beef turkey we'll let you
make payments on it
yeah all right yeah
or like let me run your credit
and you get a free t-shirt it's like
you know how credit works man nobody should be
signing up for this
yeah I definitely uh
dug myself a hole with the tool trucks
when I was early into the industry
it's a little bit I mean
really pushed on you
really fast like
you need to have all these tools and you should have the best
and then it pressures you into buying the best
tools to snap on tools you know the stuff that's
uber expensive but it should
be replaceable in a week
but now you so you have this
initial investment of these tools that are supposed
to be replaceable every week and somebody's coming
to you every week and saying oh you have a broken one
here's a new one but now they're just like
hard to get a hold of and I have to like
call this guy to call that guy
it's it's almost like pulling teeth it's really
dumb
I will admit though that I can basically
not use any kind of ratchet other than
a snap on ratchet at this point because I just feel
like like if they're like only
have seven teeth in them
and like a snap on just makes it so much
better and they just feel
better and you never want to throw them
across the shop
I have a snap on
ratchet that I want to throw across the shop
if the screws never stay tight in it it's got
it doesn't have enough teeth in it
it's I bought it was like the first set
I bought when I was in
auto body tech so I still have a lot of those
tools actually have the same same toolbox I've
never even upgraded I just have other toolboxes
that I've added to
just stuff that aren't like not mobile toolboxes
but yeah still have the same
toolbox when I started
not very good people like funny me
long time
I have
a snap on roll cab but I also
still have a stack
on toolbox that was my dad's that he bought
at Kmart in the 70s so I mean like
you can get going with just about anything
oh hell yeah yeah I bought my wife
a harbour freight
white toolbox she wanted a white one
and the harbour freight ones aren't
terrible I mean they're not I don't think
the doors lock on them or anything like that
so if you're wheeling it around the drawers
can definitely open up but
I mean like it's just she was
she was doing rural wireless internet
and
we started the shop here and she
one day just wanted to see if she
could come and do bodywork and she started
sanding on this I think was a
I don't know what it was at the time if it was a
a red Mustang or something
like that whatever it was it was red
but she was doing some bodywork on it she's
sanding she's after that day she's like
yeah I can do this and kind of got a little
game plan together and
so she's started with
she had no experience before she started
here and in the shop so
she's every all of her tools are all
some of them are harbour freight because
you don't use them very often
so yeah like I said harbour freight it's a
great resource if you have one in town you can
replace your stuff right away too because
it's cheap and you can get a replace right away
but um yeah I don't know
the tool game is
I like tools but
I'm not like a you gotta
have one brand or anything like that
now whatever works
exactly you should be getting more
power hammers and stuff like that instead of
more expensive ratchets
I gotta get some I gotta
get an adapter made so I can use my planishing
hammer
my planishing hammer dies in my power hammer
so I just had a machine
the top of a blank die off so I can
slide a planishing hammer in
a set screw so I gotta have
somebody in town do that project for me but it'll
just sort of have to buy
or have more dies made for the power hammer
I just have more diversity I can get
use a smaller planishing hammer dies
if it's a smaller part
that you can work on or that needs to be worked on
so it just
it's like more tools in
in your belt I guess kind of a thing
like Batman
definitely
without the mask I don't wear the
mask here
people
never paid attention to me until I
put on the mask
I think that's paying that's not even Batman
is it
I don't know I have no idea
we do have a cool project
coming in before winter
a 58 Chevy truck on a
roaster shop chassis with the LS and stuff
it's a buddy of mine and
his dad they're putting the truck together it's really
really cool but they bought a premier cab
so everything's aftermarket all the
body panels are aftermarket so
they're just
they took a big bite
they're trying to eat an elephant one bite at a time
but they're
more
they're trying to do it in their garage in their spare time
and my buddy's only home every other weekend
so he doesn't have any time to work on it
it's a red red car
or a truck I'm sorry
got a lot of cool parts and should be really cool
that's sweet
so what are you guys gonna be doing on it just kind of
finishing up sheet metal
painting stuff like that
I think we're gonna take it in bites
they want everything kind of gapped out
they had
they were buying some parts and had some
they're buying a lot of parts
and there weren't like
fully installing all the parts and moving on to the next
you know some of it is making sure
the parts you're buying are appropriate for the build
and I think they were going a little too gung-ho
on buying parts
and not
applying them
right away because it was more of like
buying parts in my control and not working
like the truck
physically getting worked on wasn't necessarily
in their in their wheelhouse
so they weren't moving forward as far as they were just getting
apart so anyways
I'll be
I'll eventually be painting it I think
and they go
they go to some bigger shows
their taste is a little
farther up there than the normal guy
so they're planning
and taking it to some pretty decent size shows
the
son has another 58 Chevy Trucker
a couple of them that he wants to build
and he said he wants that the next one to be even more
nuts so I'm like well it's on a roaster shop
chassis and it's all brand new parts
and you know I can't imagine
being even more nuts but it's definitely
possible
seems like these roaster shop chassis
and our Morrison chassis are popping up more
and more for other builds
yeah I think it's just everybody wants to be able to drive
this stuff and not
let it feel like a clunky
like this thing
most things really never drove that great
clunky the engine
would really shake the car
the power steering was like
you're really feeling everything when you turn in the
wheel so everybody
wants to get into them and drive them
and the only way to really do that
well is sometimes just
get a whole different chassis I mean you can
rebuild stuff
you can rebuild a factory car and you still
have a ton of money
and making sure all the parts are new
you know that you have new ball joints
and all that good stuff
when you go through all of that
you're paying somebody to do all that
sometimes you just buy a chassis and it's done
I mean I think a lot of the legwork is out
now
if it's a chassis replacement that's one thing
but adapting a car like this
it's a whole different
different
different elephant to buy it to I think
yeah it seems like not that long ago everybody's just running
S10 frames if they wanted to do an upgrade
and then they put a small block in it with a small block kit
for one of those and like that was what
the I updated my
my chassis was
yes I remember
I remember me and you
bullshitting back and forth about
something when we worked work together about
S10 chassis
and you telling me how ugly they were
and you weren't wrong man they are ugly
they're terrible
yeah they're terrible but I guess
they're a major car driver
yeah
I mean if that's like
the only way but
man
usually you got to spend some time adapting
the suspension then to look like it fits
right in the vehicle so like
what really does it cost in the end you know I don't know
right I think it's
if the guy's doing it himself that's one thing but if you're paying a shop to do it
that's never the answer
right
yeah I think that those
those chassis seem expensive
if you actually put down all the labor
and what you'd have to pay for all the suspension
everything it's nice to just get like a package
that works together
and then you know everything's going to be good engine can bolt in
training one can bolt in
yeah
yeah and it's just as specific as you want to get with it too
I mean some like
I'm pretty sure majority of the
chassis companies you can buy one that's powder coated
brake lines done fuel tank
I mean everything so I mean
you can you can buy it's
almost all a car a lot like you know you can get it done
done like you know you've got to
do anything to it
but
yeah so I mean
supposedly I mean I would suspect
there's some retrofitting I mean
direct chassis replacements would be different than
like you know
putting something on a Mustang it's going to be a little more involved
because it's a unibody car
right
so
is that chassis made to work for a Mustang
and then you're just adapting it or is it a
completely different car chassis
yeah
this art morson chassis is made
for the Mustang it's all specked out for the
wheel openings and stuff like that
it's
it is just a chassis so there is no
like
body mounts go here and this is where this
goes and this is where this goes so it came
to me
the body was floating on the chassis it had
started the
shop that had started it
the owner had got cancer
that his business was sort of dissolved
for he owned the building
but the business was really dissolved for three years
or so and then he was kind of getting
back on his feet couldn't find employees
and ended up giving me a call through a mutual
friend of ours and so the car came to us
like I said it was floating on the chassis wasn't even attached
so
it was very head scratching at first as far as
like where do you even start
and it's kind of
get the front wheels in the front wheel opening
and start figuring out
where it's going to attach how you're
going to pull the bolts out where the bolts are going to come out from
where to put the thread inserts
in the frame and how you're going to mount everything
I mean it was a lot the first
year was just figuring out
all the parts they had
and had just so they just stopped on it
so it was just figuring out the parts they had
adapting it to this
custom chassis I'm very familiar with Mustangs
but adapting it
to a custom chassis is not
something that I've ever done before
when I got called me about it he's like
tell me
it's on a chassis and this and that
sent me a couple of pictures and I'm like
I think I can do it
kind of
a little bit naive
maybe I definitely knew I could do it
but I didn't think that the car was going to be going to the level it's at
we're making things out of sheet metal
that I didn't think
five years ago I would have been capable of
building but
every day is a school day you just got to try and heart
outpace yourself from the day
before
yeah I don't know
right necessities
the mother of all invention
yeah
yeah really it is I mean
for me it's hard to learn
even like the power hammer stuff when I got it
it's I'm not just taking
a piece of sheet metal and just like running
it through to bend some stuff
up it's almost like it's got to be
application based
and
this is what I'm doing and I got to learn it
for this
not saying that that's the right
way I think there's you can
and sometimes you're learning on a
car for a customer and
you're not necessarily
billing for all the time because you have
there's learning time involved
so you have
eight hours in a day and sometimes you're charging for
five or six just because I was
learning
two or three of those hours
I might have messed up and started over
adjusting
and changing
change of die or something you know I don't know
but
it seems like we can do this all day but why don't we save
a little bit for the next episode
for sure
until next week
keep fucking with cars
keep fucking with cars
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