Jeep TJ Reveal & Trail Ride

Previously on search and restore the journey of this Jeep began in a driveway in Louisiana and is about to end here at our Power Block Tech Center.

In just three weeks, dozens of companies and individuals have stepped up with donated parts and volunteer labor. All for Jason Smelser. A man who helps give disabled kids a thrill by organizing a TV rides.

We are helping him in return by building a Jeep that he can enjoy with his family

today. His wish comes true

and his girls are treated to a trail ride in their new set of wheels.

So

we're finally putting the body on for the very last time, but it's still got to be wired. You still gotta have switches, lights, turning signals, horns, the axles and all the rest of the drive train. There's a million little items that's gotta go on because the goal is to get it done by the end of the week, we're really good right there like

I line

up

for a

quick

second.

That's good, Mike.

When you're building a rig like this, Jeep,

you gotta check everything. You actually have to move the suspension around because that's what's gonna happen once out on the trail. So we pick the rig up with a forklift on all four corners

check to make sure nothing's gonna be rubbing or binding. If any of that stuff does bind, you gotta cut it apart and fix it.

We lucked out on this rig. Everything clears. Even at full suspension and full compression,

there was no big hiccups. Hot rods won't do this, will they?

I like it whether you're in the off road

vehicles are not. Once you look at this thing, once it started as to what it looks like now, it's really, really cool. More amazing are the volunteers they keep pouring in like Jason Plank and Craig Marsh from MTX audio

stereo is the last thing when they're out in the woods that they're worried about. But,

you know, we're going this far. Let's, let's do the whole thing. Right. And we know they can, along with countless hearing impaired customers, here's what they created for extremes. S 10 trie

project a few years back. Turn this thing up.

I brought a pair of five and a quarter inch do

max seal speakers, amplifier, subwoofer system. Oh, this is gonna be a vast improvement over the factory system. We brought a lot of equipment, everything from, meet another wizard of sound waves, Greg Cattrell,

president of Rugged radio's two way radio systems designed for motor sports,

everything from Baja 1000 to rock crawlers to king of the Hammers. It's like Christmas around here.

He brought General manager Chris Kelly to help with the install co

driver.

Passenger.

Sounds serious. And for Jason, it is what he's going to be able to do if there's ever any issue at all, he can hit the 50 watt radio inside the Jeep and immediately get somebody at base camp

dealing with special needs Children. I'm really familiar with this. My son is type one diabetic. Chris's daughter has PKU.

We're really familiar with the needs of special needs Children.

What he's doing is he's taking these Children that are never having the opportunity to go out camping and experience the things that you and I did as a kid

and I need to go out for wheeling and doing all this stuff. That's what I grew up doing. That's very, very special for a child that may not ever have the opportunity to do this. So this is really close to us for us to be a part of this because

we really understand

your last minute.

We also got another quadri

catalog and it came with Craig and Rob. Oh man, IO. According to them, I ordered half of what I needed.

You know, I

just kind of dropped the ball sometimes and we have to pick it up and run. So we brought down everything from the lockers to the soft top. So we've got the donated parts. Plenty of labor problem is now where to fit it whenever you build a Jeep, it really is 10 pounds of stuff into a five pound bag. And you think you got all the room in the world

until you bolt the fenders on and put the RD

shell on and start putting

all the reservoir tanks and the extra air intakes and it eats up all the room inside that engine bay. Everything fits tight

but it's in there. All right, all we're gonna do is fire it and make sure it hits once it does shut it down.

Man. That's sweet.

That

fire

a

double K, double kiss.

It's a

double kiss. We'll take that

next. The boys button up the little things. Tim provides a rock and roll treatment to the hood. Then later the family arrives to a warm welcome and a big blue surprise. Stay tuned.

Each build the last week is almost the same.

Just hooking up wiring,

running brake lines, bleeding the brakes. All that stuff takes forever

test, test,

test,

test,

test.

Good to go. You think everything's going smooth

and everything can fight you? We're getting ready to break in the uh camshaft blackboard leaking

somewhere.

Looks like it's coming out of the shroud.

Yep. Somebody drilled through the shroud.

Someone drilled through the radiator.

Oh, there it is right there.

There's a big old hole in it. The best thing about luck, it changes fast. We had a spare. Can't tell who it was.

I'll take the hit

John's ta see, that's a good man. That's a military man right there because he just jumped on the grenade there. Now, we all got it out of our system and we can move on with our life.

It's almost a sin to put a lid on this impressive engine bay.

But last week, Tim knew it had to be done

with style.

I know it's gonna be blue out here and gray in the middle. I still don't know what I'm doing. I'll figure it out as I go. No metallic, no candies, no pearls. So they can actually touch it up with a brush. If they scratch it, it'll be black out here and a little black out here. And this is gonna put some crazy little marks. A little tribute to uh eighties rock and roll band called Van Halen had an album cover and these crazy little stripes all over it.

The cameraman looked at me like you should really wear a better paint mask when you're spraying.

Do you like it?

Ok. Yeah, I love it.

It's hot.

They all doubted me.

I like it.

Shafts just showed up. Spider tracks did like a two day turnaround on the shaft. Got the CTM axle joints with this shaft set up and this joint

you can pull 50 degrees of steering out of that front axle. You really can't get any stronger joint

in the front end of a rig than what we're putting in this Jeep.

So if he breaks it,

he's doing something really good.

Ready?

Yes,

Ian's dancing makes me nervous.

Jim wants a high five too big game

since we have already broken in our newly rebuilt 4 L with conventional oil. We want Jason to keep his Jeep running like new. So we're switching over to mobile one extended performance.

It's a high endurance fully synthetic motor oil, specifically designed for longer service intervals that will reduce oil breakdown and minimize engine wear.

Plus with mobile one, he can go 15,000 miles between oil changes.

I can't fit

very last piece to go in J reel, drive shafts, front and rear.

I might have to butter myself to get out of here.

It's really neat to see how diversified. All these people are,

no matter what they're doing, they're still having fun, whether it's on asphalt, dirt, rocks, mud or whatever,

it's still cool.

And the addition of an NX top from Best Top means

we're done.

I think they're really, really gonna appreciate all the hard work that everybody put into this thing.

We'll find out soon enough because after the break, the family arrives at the tech center. Plus Jason takes the keys and heads straight to the trail when search and restore continues.

So the time has come for one of our power block viewers to get back his prize possession, Jeep, who would have thought just four weeks ago this 10 year old TJ could barely make it to the quickie Mart, let alone down some trails and over some rocks. Just look at this TJ. Now, honestly, I think it turned out better than even all of us could dream of. One thing's for sure. When the Smeltzer family hits that hardcore Arkansas trail,

there ain't gonna be nobody that can match with the stuff we put in this rig.

They're gonna be ecstatic. This thing is awesome. It's street drivable, it's trail ready.

It's got radios. I mean, it's nice

when he hits the trail in this thing, all he's gonna be able to do is go over anything he wants through it.

And hey, at the end of the day he's gonna be able to drive this thing back home because of how solid it was built.

Hey, come on in.

Good to see you again.

You've been kind of pumped up about this. Oh my God. Yes, especially today.

Yeah. It's, it's really sitting in hard today.

Yeah. Before we relieve Jason's anxiety, we snuck some of his wheeling buddies in the back door for their first look at the Jeep. I

love it. I love it.

It is. It,

it's really beautiful. Did a good job.

He'll be amazed. Absolutely amazed. That's a beautiful Jeep. Why don't you fire this thing up and go hide it from the family before

I can do that.

Hey, Joe, we need like a couple more hours. We

still got some things

to button up

on this.

Thing

and

give him some coffee or something.

Ha,

wants to talk to you about that.

Ok, Joe. We've made him wait long enough. Go ahead and bring him on down.

This is the Smelter family from West Monroe, Louisiana. We got Jason Jeannie, uh Beth Karen and Haley.

This is the gang.

There you go.

How's the last month been without your Jeep? Uh,

a

little nerve wracking. How you been getting to work?

Driving a truck? Driving my company? Let me borrow my a salesman, Toyota. So you should work that in your contract. So you get to keep a company truck. Uh It would be nice just in case you don't like what we did to this thing. You may not want to drive. I hope I like you.

You don't really have a choice at this point but before you get to see your Jeep, I

just want you guys all to know

that it wasn't for dozens of companies donating products to this thing

and these guys and tons more behind the scenes and aren't here today.

This thing would have never got done. Some of these guys even shut their businesses down just to come help and work on your Jeep.

That's awesome. Thank

you.

Thank

you guys.

You waited long enough. Yes,

you sure,

pretty sure sure you don't wanna have lunch. You're gonna have Mike Galley, bring it in,

we have Mike galley, bring it in.

Ok, Mike bring her in.

Start first time

to look a little bit different. You can see little seats and

a little different door.

Hey,

thank

you. Nervous raining out there.

Where is it gonna come in at?

I have no idea. It might come out of the ceiling.

Go, go, go give him a hug. Go give him a hug.

Are you sure? That's our j

I don't know.

Let's take a look. We had the guys from essentially off road come in, do some really trick suspension.

We got spider tracks, axles, we got high nine third members

will wood brakes, race line wheels, Max's tires, Billstein shocks.

All these guys work their butts off for you guys on this. Thank you guys. You guys are wheeling guys. So you know,

you know anything about the wheeling industry, that's the top of the shelf dudes over there.

There it is

guys from horsepower rebuild it.

It's got an advanced adapter Atlas two transfer case in it. PSC steering

had a specter air breather system in it

painted the whole motor while it was apart.

They powder coated a whole bunch of stuff black to make it look really cool.

The boys here brought a super top NX from Best Top.

You guys wanna take that off,

wide open designs came in and built this really cool one off cage for you.

Rugged radios came in and put all this electronics, headphones, you can talk to each other.

Come on mate

with the Jeep up on the lift. Jason finally sees up close how hard core his TJ was built.

You have any idea what you're looking at?

That's what you think about all this stuff.

It's a whole lot better

off road dudes did all this spider tracks axles. High nine, high opinion. Third members

will with brakes,

hush power muffler up in here.

No expense was spared because of the generosity

of all. And

we want to make sure that you're taken care of

and you don't have to worry about the axles ever again. I don't

think I have to worry about them.

I

think,

I

don't

think

so. That is

in

even the Southern four Wheeling community got into the spirit of giving by hosting a charity trail ride in Jason's honor.

We'd like to present the med camps

with a check for $2500. Wow.

Thank you

next. There's only one way to put these hardcore parts to the test. Some pure Southern wheeling.

Stay tuned.

Are you ready? I think I'm ready.

I think I'm ready for this

in just four weeks time. Jason's 2001 TJ has made one heck of a transformation

before. He'd have to hitch a ride with his buddies in order to hit the hardcore trails. As of today. He rides shotgun no more.

Has it sunk in yet? Yeah.

Uh, well, it's sinking.

It's sinking in anyway. It's something I never expected to get great experience all the way around. Really.

I like the color but, um,

I think I might get a little money. We need to tell you right now. The warranty is officially up on your jeep. It's all you baby.

It's good.

Yeah,

it,

oh,

I feel like a guy on a little donkey. Really slow up behind the pack.

I grew up mud riding. I don't, uh, this rock climbing thing is, it's still new to me. I've been doing it for a

couple of years, but always as a passenger, my buddies, they do it a lot, but I just recently got into it. Uh, right after I got my Jeep, I found out about it and I like it better than mud now.

No,

it's a good starter trail. It's called the tail light. It's

just a real easy rock crawl. Roll on up and

try not to scare Haley. Too bad.

We'll do it. Scratch that Jeep.

It's ok. I gave him a touch up. Thanks.

Yeah,

the matter Hayley,

I thought Haley was fearless. Looks a little scared to me.

I,

he was a little nervous. I think he was more nervous than the girls were about riding in there. But I think he knows what he's doing.

You see the big rock with mud on it, put your dry passenger side tire on that.

Ok, you're going just to the left of that.

Ok.

Disagreement.

I think somebody got scared. I think I'm a little nervous too.

I

feel

the,

what?

I

don't see many scratches on it yet.

Who

still good to go.

I'm really impressed with this thing. I know it'll do a lot more than what I can put it through. Once I get the hang of this, it's gonna be awesome.

I ain't trying to brag, but this is my first time out and I went somewhere. I couldn't go

next time on search and restore Tommy and Tim head to the rocky mountains where they find a classic Mustang

and a veteran needing a helping hand.

This husband and father of three enlisted in the army after 911 earned a purple heart in Iraq and eight years later still serves his country by counseling returning soldiers.

We'll take his first gen pony car and give it the full treatment.