With being in the automotive world one thing is for certain… Cars rust. Some rust more quickly, some rust slowly, but all in all you always have components on your car that are made up of some sort of steel that rusts and gives up over a certain period of […]
Tag: truck
Essential Items you Need To Start Off-Roading
With more and more companies offering parts and supplies to upgrade your vehicle and get it trail-ready, we thought we’d put together our list of necessary items you should invest in when entering the Off-Road hobby. Some of these can be used at home and on the trail as well!
5 Trail Items You Need on Your Truck
When you’re out on the trail your cell phone isn’t going to save you. There’s some key items you’ll need to get your rig going when broken down or stuck on the trail. We decided to put together a short list of our favorite Eastwood products that are trail must-haves. These aren’t the only items you need, but will definitely be key items for off-road vehicle survival!
Protect the Underside of your Off-Road Vehicle- The Coatings you need.
Keeping the underside of your car protected is more important than you may think; even on your daily driver. Most “rotted out” vehicles you see started rusting in the underbelly of the car or truck. These are the areas that weren’t protected properly from the factory or had a poor coating that broke down from year-round driving. On 4×4 and Off-Road vehicles the risk of road salt isn’t as bad as the damage caused by driving over “stuff” (that’s the fun of it right?). Your factory coatings aren’t going to hold up to the rock chips, brush, etc dragging under your vehicle. The truth is, no coating can withstand some of the extreme conditions seen when rock crawling or off-roading. Think about it, if it damages the metal, NO coating is going to be able to withstand that sort of impact. But there are some coatings, or combinations of coatings that can hold up better than others. I put together a list of a few of my favorites below.
Custom Scratch Built Bed DIY for Project Pile House
Project Pile House has been an ever-evolving project and like many projects, things start small and spiral out of control and next thing you know you’re detailing the inside of your glove box hinges! Luckily I’m not quite that OCD about my vehicles (yet), but Pile House is now more than just a thrown-together junkyard parts runner like I originally planned. It’s turned into a full blown custom and not much on the truck is original or untouched. After getting the cab, dash, hood, etc. all smoothed out and “roughed in”, the original patched together bed and fenders was bothering the crap out of me every time I looked at it. The fenders looked like boat trailer fenders and were more roughed up than a boxer after a title fight, while the bed itself wasn’t much better. I decided to start dreaming up a subtle custom bed.
Shaving the Column- Custom Steering Column Mods
I had previously covered in a few steps how I had come up with the steering setup on the truck. To make it short, I’m using a Packard steering column housing, a custom column shaft, and a Ford steering wheel. To make all of this work together took a bit of work, but I’ve got it all bolted up and it should all jive pretty good when done. Now I need to finish up the small details that will make the column not only look good, but also work smoothly together. I’ll be covering the latter in another post, but for now I decided to show you how I went about shaving the unneeded holes from the column housing.
Custom Hood Modifications- Converting a Multi-Piece Hood to One Piece
One thing that I’ve planned to customize on Project Pile House from day one was the hood. The hood on the truck is a “butterfly” (as I call it) style hood and was a design that Dodge rolled over from 30’s and 40’s trucks. I have taken a 50’s custom type approach to this truck and that style hood wasn’t going to flow. I decided to disassemble the hood and convert it to a one-piece hood.
Bay One Customs Chevy Cameo Concept Custom Truck Debuts at SEMA 2013
It’s no doubt SEMA 2013 was the biggest automotive trade show in the world to date. We look forward to the show each year, but unfortunately the task of going through all of the pictures, video, and content we capture at the event each year is time consuming. This year our most anticipated show vehicles was one we’ve been covering the build on for the past year. It’s TC Penick and Bay One Customs’ 1958 Chevy Cameo Concept Custom Truck.
Building Custom Mini Wheel Tubs for Pile House
One thing a lot of longterm builds have in common is that the builder or owner tend to change their minds throughout the build. This has definitely been the case with Project Pile House. Over the past two years I’ve changed Pile House from being a “thrown-together” type build to something a bit more thought out and nicer. Even small items like wheel and tire combo have changed and caused me to go back and adjust things as needed.