Squarebody C10 Updates + More | Shop Talk Ep. 23

Hey guys, Jason with Fat Fender Garage, and I am dressed up really nice today. Actually not really nice, but I had a meeting early this morning, so I would much rather be in a t-shirt. But anyway, so we're gonna do a little shop talk, but we're gonna do it Fat Fender Garage, Jason style. And so we're just gonna do some build updates and talk about them and the things we know. So this is a pretty cool truck right here. Belongs to a friend of ours, his name's Zeke. And he sent this truck down here, all original paint. Honestly, I feel like this was restored. Our best guess once upon a time was in Mexico. We found like just enough documentation that I think maybe somebody had built it down there. Did a pretty good job on it actually, and been cruising it for a while. And I could be totally wrong, who knows, but that's what it seemed like. And so we got it back here, basically at the point where I think we're about ready to fire this up. It's waiting for a couple things to show up. This is sitting on a brand new chassis. One of the collaborations that we have with Porter Built. And so we've got a brand new Porter Built chassis underneath here. We've powder coated, put it all together. And we're basically plumbed, 85% wired up. Just waiting for some wheels that we actually did get some wheels. We're gonna do just a basic off the shelf wheel. A cast wheel that we found, we got from Wheel Pros. Like a torque thrust looking wheel. And really from there we're gonna get moving on this thing. So we've got our radiator in it. We've got the Gen 3 10 speed automatic. Our brake booster kit, which we sell. You can kind of take a look at that. This truck had actually red inner fenders. It had a red core support. And honestly we just kind of went back to just a little bit more of a traditional look. So we went back to the black inner fenders and a black core support. I think it was too much red. We did clean up the firewall. Got it all painted so it looks cleaner. When you pop the hood it's gonna look really nice in here. Anyway, it's pretty cool. We've got the condenser. These are our brackets that we sell. Part of our condenser kit. And if you can see how they're designed, it's really just to keep this about a quarter of an inch off your radiator. What happens is when the air is flowing through and it's going through the condenser, you want it to continue through the radiator. If you have a big giant gap right here, then what's gonna happen is it could potentially hit the condenser and then come out the sides and then you don't get enough cool air through your radiator and you're gonna run a little bit hotter. So that's why our radiator and our brackets and all that stuff actually works really good as a kit because it puts everything where you actually want it to be. And you're not sitting there trying to figure out how to design brackets and put it all together. We've hardlined this right here. These are fittings that we use here. And we've got just a tiny little dryer with the trinary switch. So anyways, we like to hardline it on this side. It's a little bit tighter, cleaner, less likely to leak. That's Jake. All right, less likely to leak and we'll carry on. We've actually got a lot of chassis we gotta get done. So this is one that Brett's been working on. We've got this chassis that's being assembled here and there's another chassis over there being assembled. There's like four or five of them going together right now. We got a little bit behind being at the F100 show and so we're trying to get caught back up and get some stuff done and kicked out of here. So hopefully in the next couple weeks we'll have about five more chassis out of the shop. So these things really are dynamite. I actually love them so much. Porterbilt does such a good job being able to have a shop like them that we can collaborate with, we can talk to, we can make adjustments on the fly. So this is a Watt's Link back here. We're kind of updating and moving and adjusting so everything we do is all Watt's Link related. They've got these really super cool billet links right here that you just sit there. You can put a wrench on here if you want. You can turn it, adjust it, and get everything nice and centered. But it really holds the rear end right where it needs to be. Once upon a time I actually said it's just like a Panharbar and a Watt's Link, they're kind of the same thing. And boy, Nate with Porterbilt gave me a hard time so I won't make that mistake. Anyways, but Watt's Link is pretty much everything we're using. We're using Curry housings and then we also use the fabricated housing as well. So we use them both, just depends on the application. And really just depends on a lot to do with the look you're after as well. Some people like that more rigid, chiseled look. I'll see if I can find one here that is in a chassis. A lot of the chassis, when we put them together, there's a lot that we do to try to help you guys figure out what kind of chassis you want. So if you're interested in high horsepower numbers, then we're definitely gonna wanna make sure we upgrade the rear end to have bigger yokes, have bigger splines. The third member, everything is designed to handle it. We always do like a true track posi system in the back. But we have it all come from Curry. Everything's set up from Curry. It's all brand new. It's ready to go. Everything's set up. You can put rear sway bars on everything and that way you can really have a nice firm ride in the corners especially. So one of the things I recall, one of the first chassis I ever bought, honestly it was a TCI chassis. And I was super excited to use it. And we got this in, it was for a 53, 56 Ford. And when we got it all in, we got it here at the shop. We start putting together and it was just super nice to have a chassis that was already just done for us. But through the course of the build and when we finished, a couple things that I learned is that there's a lot of questions to buying a chassis that I felt like I had not been asked. And so I just was like, dang it, I wish someone would have asked me all this information. So like for instance, what size wheels and tires do I wanna run on the back? And am I gonna put mini tubs? Am I gonna widen the fender? What am I gonna do? So like all that information and the look, do I want a deep dish in the back? Like what is it I'm after? And so for me, as I work with you guys on purchasing chassis, I ask you all that information. I wanna know exactly what it is you're wanting to accomplish. What the ride quality is like. What you plan to do with this thing so that we actually can custom tailor this chassis to be exactly what it should be. And you're not making provisions later on down the road, like well, I didn't know, so I guess let's just get these wheels, right? So oftentimes, when you're, you know, if you have like a 67 to 79 Ford, and you wanna use just as wide a wheel as you can get, and you actually wanna use off the shelf wheels, oftentimes, that's gonna result in a wider axle than stock because we need to be able to find the center of that wheel and we need to reach it by centering up a big, you know, 10 inch wheel in the actual fender tub. So there's a lot that goes into it. I'm super obsessed in OCD with a lot of the details. So as we walk around, look at some of these chassis, you'll be able to tell the difference, you know, with Fat Fender Garage and a lot of the other companies that you're purchasing stuff from. So there are not a lot of companies, hardly any, I would say, that actually sell a chassis, put it all together, and make sure it's on point for you. So we'll go take a look at some chassis over here, kinda explain what I mean. Pierce and Brett are putting some stuff together here. This is a 53-56. We sell this in a couple different ride heights. So you got a level one, level two, level three. Level two and three are the same. One's coil over and one's bagged. Level three will get you all the way down on the ground. This is a level two coil over. And they've purchased it powder coated. And Pierce is getting everything ready to go. He's got a proportioning valve here, just to help with the back brakes. This essentially is only adjusting the back brakes. We always put as much pressure to the front as a master cylinder will allow. And then we adjust the back just so we're not locking up. And from here, because it is riding low, they'll put in a residual valve, a two-pound residual valve, just to make sure that it's holding the fluid and the calipers always are ready to go. This is a tank that Boyd has designed for us. If you're building a Ford truck and you're doing a Coyote motor, this is the tank we like to use. You actually use, we're changing over to the Ford Mustang GT pump. And so pretty straightforward, it's pretty simple. You'll put, especially if you have like a wrecked Mustang you've bought everything from, you can just use the pump. But it's a pump you can actually get from any store. O'Reilly's, Napa, you can just get that pump. Any Ford dealership will have this pump. We'll do a video segment on why we do this and try to help explain it. But if you take a look at this tank, you would normally have right here a sending unit. And that sending unit would be going up to your gauges and it doesn't exist because the sending unit is actually built into the pump. And so the wiring harness and pigtail that we actually offer, we're using the Ford OEM stuff. So the sending unit, the pump and everything's all built in the pigtail, you wire it all up and you're ready to go up with your gauges. So it's just a better way to do it. It's how the new manufacturers do it. We don't have to mess with the sending units being out of calibration or breaking or falling apart, getting a hole in the float or any of that stuff. It's just a better way to do it. So again, the process is really just trying to think of the very, very best way, not cut corners to save money because that always bites us in the fanny later, but the very best way that we can possibly make these. So Pierce is working hard. Pierce does an amazing job on brake lines, fuel lines. Our buddy, Casey, Casey's paint shop. He actually wanted to hire Pierce and offer him a job in Texas, but Pierce knows we'll take care of him here. Right, Pierce? Yep. Plus he wants to live in Texas and go to work for Casey, right? So this is getting real close to a completed chassis. You can see the exhaust system is done on it. All three inch exhaust. You can see a supercharger that is on this one. And so the one we like to use is a Whipple supercharger and it's on a gen three Coyote. Now this is going to be pretty awesome because look, you got a five speed. This guy's going to just go beat the heck out of this thing and have a really, really good time in it. So, but all three inch mandrel bent stainless steel exhaust. We've got a resonator tucked up in there. It's really tight, but it's in there. Dual Borla exhaust. And then of course we got the fuel tank. The fuel tank, again, is using a Ford GT pump, but this time instead of just a regular GT, we're actually using the GT 500 pump. So the same pump goes in there. You just swap it out really easy. You don't have to buy anything different. It's got dual pumps. It's ready to go. It's the same pump that the GT 500 uses. So you're going to be in good shape. This is the chassis right here. We're working on a exhaust system on it. Again, it's another three inch exhaust. You take a look at it. We've got some flex right here. He's tacking it all in. Everything's V-band bolted together so you can get it apart. You got the resonator, you got an X-pipe and he's getting it all finished up. So he'll probably be done with this today. If not, tomorrow, weld it all up. This is Jason's little, Jason, he's a welder, another Jason, right? One time we had three Jasons and it got real confusing. It was like new Jason, old Jason, OG Jason, it was just kind of, right? So he also helps us with the headers. We got a couple of guys here that do headers. They do a super good job and are cranking these out. They can knock out a set of headers in both sides in like a day and a half. Fully welded, ready to go. Here's this Bronco. It's a 1972 Bronco. He wanted us to do some work on it about a year and a half ago. So he brought it up, dropped it off. And then he said, I just want to do a Coyote swap. I may have mentioned this before and do the interior. And we are so far from that, it's unbelievable. This thing is going to be insane when it's all done. It's got Dana 80 axles. He's got a heavy duty built Hero transfer case. I mean, this is essentially, it's like king of the hammer stuff. Like you could just take this thing just about anywhere. We got 40 inch tires on it. I mean, it's ready to go. And we're going to put a super cool stereo system in it. Really nice interior, electric Mustang seats. So we're just wrapping up a couple of things. Next week, we're going to roll this. Monday, we're going to roll this in the body shop and we're just going to light refresh on the paint. And I think the chassis is the chassis. It's off to powder coat. So the chassis, we're getting it blasted, get it cleaned up. I think we're going to bring it back, right? Yeah, bring it back. Just fix any imperfections. Yeah. Weld a couple little things up other than that. So we'll get the chassis back and we're going to weld it all up. Make sure it's all good, but we want to strip it. Make sure it's nice and clean. Here's the motor. You take a look at that. Look at this. This is not cheap stuff here. This is the real McCoy. He wants everything. He wants cup holders. I mean, the guy's like, I got to have it all. So anyway, so we're working all that. It'll be a traditional Bronco, which means all this will be cleaned up and we'll re-bedline everything, bedline underneath it and do a bedliner inside. So it's nice and clean and a little bit more useful for being off-roading and getting some water on it, which if I had to guess, this thing will never see water. But anyway, it'll be protected. We'll go talk about this truck here. So if you take a look here, these are all have been Cerakoted. And I want to say, I don't remember the color. Now I can't remember. Anyways, but we picked a color. I don't know if it was like transfer gray or what it was, but it's a Cerakote color. It's an air dry. So what we did is we actually blasted all this in the blaster, cleaned it all with acetone, let it sit, and then we put it in the booth and then we shot it all. And it takes about five days to fully cure, but it's been a couple of days. So it's dry. It just needs to fully cure. And then this is going to go on the 49. We're just putting the 49 together and it's all been together, but we're just kind of like, now it's going to be together for good, right? So we've got kind of an electric master cylinder. There's an electric pump to help create vacuum. This puts out, shoot, like 12, 1300 PSI to the calipers. It actually puts out a lot. Anyways, this is going to be here. This is our clutch master. And so it'll go down and they'll get all the brakes and fuel and everything connected up here shortly. But this is gravity fed, and then it forces it back up in here and then you go out to the two brakes. So it works really good in tight situations. And this is a tight situation right here. Just no room to put a booster or anything. And since this guy's actually going to tow with a trailer, manual brakes just didn't feel like the wise thing to do. So if it's just a half ton and it's nothing, but if you're pulling something, I mean, just because it's 1949 doesn't mean you need 1949 brakes, right? So we're going to go this route and I think he'll be in good shape. So they're getting all this put together. You can take a look in here. We've got the Dakota digital gauges. We've got a Wilwood clutch pedal assembly. We've got a Flaming River steering column. And then we're using the Restomod AC system and we've 3D printed some parts here that we'll put vents in here just to kind of, we didn't want to mess up the dash or anything. Keep it simple. And then we'll have vents in here, the little center section. We've actually got a charge port and then the trailer, trailer brake control that he'll be able to use this right here. So it'll all be right there for him to adjust. And so we've got the Restomod membrane material installed on the back wall and on the firewall just so we can get that up in there so that we're, as we put things together, it's already in. These are Mustang seat brackets that we built. Who's actually running the electric Mustang seats in here. And this guy's not really tall, but still it doesn't matter. These are small cabs. Like I don't care who you are. And so there's just tiny. And so the original floor would have come to about right here and up. So we actually extended it and brought it up just to get a little bit more clearance. If you kind of look, the difference between that and that over there, just to make it as comfortable as we can. If he has to scoot up, that's fine. But the reality is, is you can't go back. So it looks like Jake here is making some lines and running the fuel line. Is that what you're working on then? So we'll get that in there. One thing we want to make sure is that, make sure there's support on here. Otherwise in a plastic, it'll break off. And there's a lot of fittings there. So just make sure we get that supported real good. Couple more things and that'll be it this time. I actually got to get back to work. Yes, I do work. I work hard, long days. Cody here, he's been doing just a bang up job on this truck. He's got some doors that he's built here. Super cool. He's got a little magnetic touch latch that we'll be able to control with it. We'll have some hinges that he designed that we're making. And so we'll be able to access stuff here and yet still have it kind of close up and kind of go away. Keep it simple, right? Keep it simple. And so, yeah, check it out. So he's working on that right there. We got the latches set. We're just waiting for the final hinges. What happens is when you're doing this kind of stuff, it's easy to just do like big stuff and knock it out and it looks good fast, right? This stuff, this little tiny stuff, it just takes a lot of time getting it dialed in. And if you don't take the time and put it in it, you fricking hate it later. You just hate it later, right? So you might as well just do it right now. So this is our hood latch. And we actually have, we can show you the little striker. So it's gonna get mounted on the hood. Yep, and that's gonna go down there and hold that. So that'd be a nice simple way. Keep it, again, keep it simple. And then it's just basically like a door lock actuator. It's a bear claw style latch, but it also is electric and it has an actuator built into it. So it actually has some cool features for it. Working really hard on it. Cody shaved the upper cowl right here. We could have left it open, but it just wouldn't have complimented when the hood is up. It just wouldn't have looked as nice. This right here, believe it or not, this is how you're gonna put brake fluid. If you had to, right here. There is no master cylinder or brake booster or anything. This engine compartment is gonna be clean. It's all tucked up under the dash. We've had to modify a bunch of different things and work really hard to figure out how to get it to work. It's not something you can buy off the shelf and just have it happen. This is a guy that lives in Texas. His name's Paul. He has like a Instagram, like 3T Garage or something like that. I can't remember everybody's Instagram handle, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is. I'm sorry, Paul, if I got it wrong. Anyways, but he's also got a super sick level seven pickup truck that they race. And God, I think he's cleaning up. I think he's just fastest truck in the nation. So very cool. Paul likes cool stuff. And when he does something, he never does it just good enough. It's always the very best. So if he's gonna build a race truck, he's gonna win it all. So anyways, so here we are working on the bed, dialing in a few things, the tubs, just working on the tailgate, getting that working. I think they've got, Radfab had actually put in a tailgate mechanism in there, like off the newer Chevy trucks. And so trying to get all that to work, get some clearances for the tailgate. This is the truck we're wrapping up here. It's about ready to go to the body shop. It's a 6772 F100. They're just, they got a few little pieces just ready to go in, but they're just wrapping up. We'll actually have a little door here as well. And then we'll have some charge ports and whatnot here. Let's go look underneath the hood real quick. So we're in the middle of putting some inner fenders right here, because everything's been lowered. We needed a little more clearance. And so we kind of got rid of these. And then we're just trying to get everything dialed in the very best we can. So again, this is really close to being ready to go to the paint shop. Essentially, we get these done, and make sure our hood is good. And I think we're about ready. I said, finish up a little in the back. So I'm guessing one to two weeks, this will be in the paint shop, and then we can start going through it. It had a lot of rust, unfortunately. This is a pretty nice truck. Everywhere we turned, there was just a little bit of rust everywhere. Here, the corners, inside, outside. Here, over there. I mean, it was just like little spots like this, just everywhere on the truck. It just made it really sad, because it just took a lot of effort and work that none of us wanted to put into it. All right, let's go back to the body shop. It's nice back here. We got this curtain, and there's a swamp cooler dedicated. And I would say it's about five to 10 degrees cooler back here, easily, than anywhere else in the shop. So these guys got a hard job, but at least they get the most cool air. So they are prepping, cutting, getting ready to buff. Luis, how's it looking? Pretty good? You like your new little gadget? So he turns that on. So this is a variable speed here, which can make this variable speed here. So you can go fast, slow, and getting into these little corners. Yeah, oh man, that's nice. That is nice. That's game changer right there. Luis comes to me a week ago, and he's like, hey. Actually, he doesn't even come to me. I get an email. I get an email, and I pop it up. I'm looking at it. And then in walks Luis. And I know exactly what he wants. So actually, it wasn't that bad. Pretty reasonably priced. They can buy it off at Amazon. On Amazon? Yeah, it's Max Shine. Max Shine? Yeah, a little mini. A little mini? Okay. There's several companies out there. There's Max Shine. There's, I think, Adams. There's several companies that make it. You just pick the one you want. I would say it's Meguiar's, but they don't make one. We love Meguiar's. Unfortunately, sometimes we have to just make one for us, right? But everything we use here, as far as polishing and everything, is either 3M or Meguiar's. We got the 110, the 210, the 100 compounds that we use. Even all the sandpaper we're using, wet sand is all Meguiar's and 3M. So, honestly, it's just, when you're working on stuff and it has to be the best, you gotta buy the best, right? We buffed the whole bedside today and saw that. Look at that thing. Yeah, that's nice. Look at that thing. So, got it all buffed. A little dusty. A little dusty, but man. It's flat. That thing is beautiful. Always brand new microfibers. Everything's clean. If it hits the ground, it's toast. It's gone. We can't use it anymore. Some people like to know what we use. Good stuff right there. The buffing's the easy part, right? Easy part. Luis is like, no, nothing's easy back here. This is the cab here. We're gonna paint the inside of it. It's not going to be blue. It's going to be a different color. And that's a color we're not gonna show for a little while. So, there's some details on this truck that we're actually gonna keep back just for a little bit. We've got a few surprises. And so, we're gonna surprise you with the color of the inside of it. It's not what is going to be expected. And this might be the most radical thing I think we've ever done here at our shop. I am a very safe builder. Safe, safe, safe. I like things to just work. I'm not someone that's just gonna go super wild and crazy with crazy colors. But this one, the blue's so good. And then we thought, well, maybe we could do something different on the interior, which is kind of influence the rest of the interior of the truck and what we're gonna use for leather. So, anyways, probably in about another month, we'll let you see what it looks like on the inside. We've got some product here that is the side molding that goes actually on that truck. The blue truck we're just looking at. So, they're prepping this, getting it ready. And we'll be doing a Cerakote finish on this, plus a bunch of other parts that are gonna get Cerakote finish. We used to powder coat more and it was just hard. It was hard to get everything, door handles and mirrors and bumpers and everything. It's very difficult for us to actually get all the colors to be the same if I'm using powder coat and then I'm using Cerakote and then I'm using paint. And so, what we learned is, hey, we can Cerakote everything. And so, that's what we're doing. Let's go take a look inside. All right, so this is ready to be buffed. They're gonna just stop there. And they're going to paint the inside of the cab. Boy, it's much quieter in here. And they'll be ready to go. So, they'll paint this up here. So, it's actually really not that much to paint. And then we'll actually black out everything else clean. Clean up all the bare metal, clean it all up. And we'll probably put a little SCM rust inhibitor on it just to kill it. And then we'll clean it all off. And then we'll just black all this out. And then we'll use the Restomod membrane material, which we've already shown you in the video. And then we'll actually put all that stuff in here. A lot of times on the firewall, they actually have a thicker material, membrane max. So, there really isn't anything on the market just like that. And so, those guys are really just pushing forward and coming out with cool stuff. And it works well for us. So, paint this and move forward. Do you guys see the big radio? It's a Kenwood 10 inch. So, it's gonna be awesome. I think that is a wrap. We're gonna wrap it up in here in the paint booth. And so, it's looking like it's gotten kind of dirty with all the painting of this. And so, they'll be next tearing this booth down, clean it up, put new floors down, new filters, start cleaning the walls off and get it ready for the next vehicle. So, every vehicle that we get to the paint stage, once we get to the paint stage, it actually gets cleaned up and everything. And so, paint booths are just messy in general. Wish we could afford a big, nice downdraft booth, but you get what you get sometimes. So, thanks for following us along the Pathfinder Garage journey and everything that we're doing here. There's a lot of cool stuff. We didn't see everything. So, if you're like, oh, I hope they show my truck that's here. I'm sorry, we'll try to catch it next time. But we've got a lot of cool stuff and we don't wanna make this any longer. But at the same time, hopefully you've seen some cool stuff here and you wanna keep following us along. But make sure you subscribe because we're always got videos coming out. There's always updates. There's always some cool stuff. There's sometimes tech stuff. We got a ton of new product coming out. Like the guys in the R&D department have just been marching forth a bunch of new stuff. So, I would suspect in the next couple of weeks, you're gonna start seeing probably some new products, almost one a week for a little while. Make sure you follow along, subscribe, hit that little bell-shaped thing and then you'll know if we're actually posting something. And then share our stuff. That's actually helpful for us. If you can share our stuff and share it around on your social media platforms, that actually helps us and we really appreciate it when you do that. And so, we're looking forward to hearing your comments and we're looking forward to showing you more stuff in the future. But again, thank you from the bottom of our heart for following us and letting us be a part of your lives and doing what we love to do and let us build cool trucks. Thanks.