Project Old Skool

Today it's the start of project. Old school.

We're taking Ford's Classic F 100

turning it into one mean daily driver.

And it's one of the most famous Fords ever.

Bigfoot.

It's all today here on trucks.

Hey, everybody, welcome to trucks where it's all about building great performing custom trucks.

Anywhere from the good, the bad and the ugly. And today we started this old school 53 Ford and you guys are gonna love it.

Trucks are trucks, right?

Well, not exactly.

I mean, the fact that they have four wheels, an engine and a bend, the back is common. Yeah, but some trucks will turn your head no matter where they go and classics do it better than anything.

Just like that one.

This awesome 56 F 100 was built by Don Mathis

and it'll grab your attention wherever you go.

But

can you drive a classic like this every day?

This truck's got $100,000 thousands of hours invested in it.

Not to mention a little blood and sweat.

It's got a beefed up 429

power steering and air conditioning and custom body work and a flawless paint job. This truck is rolling artwork. Now that was made to be seen. There is no way that's a daily driver. Definitely not.

On the other hand, this 53 we could drive this thing every day

and get every bit as much attention as that truck. Well,

maybe we can't drive it every day because it's just unreliable

and that's why it's here.

That's right.

We found this thing for 2500 bucks and we weren't about to let that get away. So we put all the other projects on hold, brought this in.

Now. It's been hacked on and painted, but it was 20 years ago

that to a purist, this truck's wasted. But the hot rodders like you and like us, this is a diamond in the rough and we're gonna show you guys that a classic like this is nothing to be afraid of. You don't have to do a frame off restoration. You can do this work at home in your shop and we'll show you how to make this truck into a reliable driver you can be proud of.

Yeah, when we get done with our classic Ford, it's gonna have a new engine suspension

and all the comforts of a new truck, but most important

it's gotta be safe. So let's go see what's under the skin of that truck.

And this truck's been clipped a whole front frame section from another vehicle has been welded on to the factory frame which is how we used to have to do this. Back in the day when I started working on these things. You'd go to a junk yard,

you'd measure it out. You'd find a frame with the suspension. You wanted

lop it off in the field, drag it back to your shop and weld it on to your project. And you have 100 guys know that this Nova clip is a pretty common mod. And this guy, he only had the right idea. He even boxed the back of the rail. He just didn't finish a job.

Now, look at this, this boxing plate. There's a giant gap there. There's no weld here. There's a ugly Frankenstein stitch weld along here and look here, there's Bondo and that's used to cover up what's on the outside. We don't even know what's behind that. And

there's a little more work here than we thought. And these fenders full of rust and mud, that's why they gotta go. So let's get this thing down and get the cheap metal off.

There's two schools of thought here. You can do it my way

or you can do it. Paul's way.

The bottom line is, don't destroy your parts.

These are antique and not junk. Somebody somewhere is dying for steel parts for their truck and these will find another home. Oh, yeah.

All right. You ready?

Now, we get to see what's behind all that Fondo.

This is where we get a better look at our Nova front end

and this is exactly why you see so many Chevy engines

in Ford trucks.

Hey, it just works.

This one's actually in pretty good shape. We just need to clean it up, reinforce the welds and we're good to go.

Now, the whole reason guys even switch these out in the first place was to get rid of that outdated straight axle lease spring set up.

Now, if this was a factory frame, we'd be able to go to any catalog and order a Mustang too or any number of aftermarket front ends.

You could even get a complete frame for this truck.

Well, you know, after we got this uncovered, the welds actually look pretty solid. So whoever did this before, sorry, but we still got a lot more work to do

these extra welds will give us the strength we're gonna need for the extra power we'll add.

Besides, this looks good enough to powder co if we wanna show it off.

All right, now that we've got that straightened out, it's time to work on the stance.

Now, we could rebuild that whole front end suspension if we wanted to.

But

this is trucks. So after the break, we're gonna drop this thing down all the way with the airbag suspension

and this piece goes back on the show circuit where it belongs. So we'll see you in a few. Hey, Paul, get that door

up next,

the legendary Bigfoot and later our F 100 runs low

on air. That is,

hey, welcome back to trucks and project old school F 100. We're getting ready to transplant in our air system now. It's not a crime to take a classic vehicle like this and put modern suspension systems like air underneath it. After all, it's not a frame off restoration. We're going for a daily driver with some serious attitude.

Yeah. Well, Kevin and I turn on the front end,

we're gonna show you a Ford truck that was not only built with modern parts

but maybe even a few futuristic ones. It's the ultimate Ford truck.

Bigfoot.

Yeah.

From Allentown to Zaire there isn't a better known or more loved monster truck than Bigfoot.

What began as a marketing tool for Bob Chandler's part shop is now one of the most technically advanced four by fours on the planet

for safety reasons. Bigfoot is restricted to a 572 cubic inch motor with an 871 blower. Still this machine punches 1500 horses.

The thing that is, is odd about a monster truck is their unsung sprung weight. It's opposite of any other vehicle out there. Our tires wheels, the axle are the heaviest part of the truck instead of the body like any other vehicle. These trucks will lift the front tires off the ground

to keep it on all fours. The Chandler uses nitrogen gas shocks.

That's our whole suspension. We have no springs on most of these trucks. What has happened in the last few years, the basic frame and the setup is pretty much the same on all these trucks. The only thing that we've changed is we've gone to a bypass shock and a better operating shock where it's easier on a driver, easier on a truck. And the whole idea is to keep that tire on the ground. So if you have good suspension and your tire stays on the ground, you can win races.

Our axle shafts are probably no bigger than a one ton pickup truck

just turning this tire. But there's a 6.5 to 1 reduction right there in the planetary at the wheel. The next big thing here, this is the whole chassis. This is the, the,

the, uh, two chassis

and, uh, the four length suspension. That's something that we put on here. That's the transfer case right in here. That's, that's more of the steering apparatus up here because we steer front and rear and was turning these huge tires. So you need a massive hydraulic system on it

and it wouldn't be a monster truck if it weren't for the tires.

What you see here is a, is our Firestone tires and they start out about 800 pounds. We cut them 200 pounds of weight off and it just gives your whole drive train much easier.

You know, it takes less energy to get, get that to get that moving

to have a monster truck is every kid's dream, but it takes a monster amount of green to run a top notch team.

Well, the truck could be anywhere from 100 to 100 and 50 maybe even $200,000 depending on

an engine can be $50,000. So, that's a big part of it. And paint a truck like that. Besides paying your driver and a, and a good salary and, and

insurance and everything else involved in that. Your tractor trailer is another $150,000. You race at these events

and we lose money

uh, without

sponsors, we couldn't race. It's just, it's impossible for 30 years. Bigfoot has thrilled crowds around the world

and for Bob Chandler, that's what it's all about because you see not only kids but uh, husbands and wife and sometimes grandmothers and grandfathers at the events. This whole thing is, is family events, you know, which really, really makes it neat,

man. 1500 horsepower. That's almost five times as much as this will put out when we're done. Yeah. Well,

they're not gonna be able to slam all Bigfoot into the turf like we're gonna do this F 100. That's exactly right. And that's what we'll do next.

Hey, guys, welcome back. So far today we've stripped the front sheet metal off our project. Old school F 100 taking the suspension apart on that Nova Subra.

And that's got us right here riding on air

and this is air ride technology system that's gonna get us low to the ground.

They all start with the shock waves that were made for a 68 to 74 Chevy Nova.

Those are supported by these beefy air ride, upper and lower control arms out back. We've got this parallel four length system with a pan art bar for stability.

We use these new gas shocks, bags and brackets and all of this completely replaces the factory leaf springs and shocks. Now,

this is the compressor that feeds the tank,

the tank then sends the air out to the ride pro controller

and then out to all four bags. This is gonna give us an adjustable ride

and a four inch drop. That's right. We're gonna start up front with the shock waves all not so fast.

We're gonna do a little surgery first.

We're gonna trim right here. So the shock wave won't hit the frame.

There's lateral or side to side movement at the suspension art

and touching metal and rub through that bag real fast.

After that, we'll grind the rough cut, smooth.

Oh, yeah. Tons of perfect.

Now, I know it looks like we cut out a lot but we didn't weaken our frame because we got this

heavy duty cross member under there. That's right. And we created all the clearance we need to go through the full range of suspension travel without damaging the bellows let's build this thing out.

This system will give us a total of four inches of drop, fully deflated and actually can improve ride quality.

The tube steel control arms bolt right onto the factory locations on the frame and will support this air system. No problem.

This is pretty much a bolt on system that replaces the oe if you wanted to put drop spindles on for an even more aggressive stance. S 10 spindles shared the same ball joint taper and bolt pattern

and don't forget to use new Castle knuts and cotter pins when you reassemble everything.

Yeah.

Now, before we take anything apart, we've got to mark the center point of our axle on the frame.

It's a hacked up mix of an old Ford suspension mixed in with a Nova rear end. Now we'll support the rear axle and start tearing this nasty 50 year old stuff off

for something that old, these leaf spring assemblies were still solid as a rock.

Now, like a lot of parts in this truck. These are in pretty good shape,

so they won't be seeing the scrap pile.

They all get saved for the swap meet.

All right.

Next, we're working out the ride hike.

How low should we go find out when we come back?

Hey, welcome back to trucks and project old school F 100 where we're in the middle of installing an air ride suspension. Now, before we even think about welding in the four lane compact. We gotta figure out where this thing sits.

Now, we know we're tied with our Nova Subra and where it's welded in and we're staying with that. So, here's what we're gonna do.

I'm gonna jack this tire up until my shock wave is fully compressed. And that way I'll be able to tell where this truck sits with. It fully slammed.

I've got 12.5 inches to the bottom of the tire.

Now, our running board is a reference point.

We've got 17.5 inches to the bottom of the running board. So that tells me with this thing fully slammed. We've got five inches of ground clearance to that board.

All right,

the first step is to set our pinion angle. Then we want to mount our spring plates on the axle. So with the rear axle supported on jack stands,

we'll use a floor jack to set our pin angle dead level at ride height.

Thank

you.

Then

we lift our frame off the axle to our right height, which is four inches above the axle

using an angle finder.

We'll make sure the spring plate is set parallel.

Then tack in the lowest principles,

we had to cut our own boxing plates out of 316 steel to mount the upper back supports.

Remember, this is not a bolt in kit. It's a universal system that you adapt to your vehicle. So we're gonna tack everything in place and mock. The four link up

air ride says we need nine inches between spring supports and ride height

that gives the best ride and range of the rear bags

measure twice

welded. Once this is the foundation of the whole rear suspension

and it has to be right. We use square tubing to temporarily stabilize the rear axle while we tack the assembled lake bars to the housing

and then the outside of the frame ahead of the axle,

the axle brackets hold the shocks at the bottom

and we drilled an existing cross member to mount the shocks up top.

Now,

things may not fall into place right away with a universal kit.

But if you can install this kit,

you can fab up a support bracket, no sweat

with the system mocked up. We can double check measurements and fit. Remember we just tacked things into place so it's still possible to adjust or tweak the fit if you need to.

Oh man. Yeah,

on the bump stops, we got lots of clearance. Cool

the panhard bar stabilizes lateral travel

and you have to cut it to fit your vehicle.

Now, clearance is tight,

but ours works great at the top of the axle between the frame rails and is almost perfectly parallel at ride height.

You're absolutely positive that everything's in place. All the welding can be finished up. Finally, the bags can go on.

Air suspension has been used on transport trucks for decades.

So not only is it safe?

It's rock solid, reliable technology

and now it can go on almost any vehicle

for now. We're just gonna run temporary airlines, front and rear to test the bags for lease and the system for any problems.

Man, this truck's gonna look cool from a mile away when it's all laid out.

Yeah. And it's gonna be pretty bitching up close too.

Do it.

321.

Yeah,

man. That is awesome. That is low.

That is low.

That rocks. What a great stance.

Next time you guys see this,

we'll take care of that boat anchor between the frame rails. Good idea.

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The steel heat shield is carbon black powder coated.

This is legal in all 50 states

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Thanks for watching trucks. See you guys next week.