Chuckles Garage: 1949 Ford F1
It’s not a rat rod
Transcript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:01 The year is 1947.
00:03 America was just coming out of World War II
00:06 and was becoming the economic superpower it is today.
00:09 It needed a workhorse to move itself forward.
00:12 And in that time, Ford released this,
00:15 the F1 half-ton pickup truck.
00:17 This model is a 1949.
00:20 However, this is a little bit different
00:22 than what was released all those years ago.
00:24 You see, this one has a 5.9 liter Cummings diesel
00:28 running a compound turbocharger setup.
00:30 And it makes over 2,000 pound feet of torque
00:32 at the rear wheels, which is why we decided to come
00:36 to a place up in Northern California
00:38 that lets us sample all this.
00:40 In the brown grass, on a skid pad, in the sunshine.
00:45 I have been looking forward to driving this thing
00:47 for a very long time.
00:49 So stay tuned for a very fun, slippery and slidery
00:53 House of Muscle episode.
00:55 (engine revving)
00:58 (tires screeching)
01:01 The man who created this madness, that's Scott Birdsong,
01:14 the owner of Chuckles Garage in Santa Rosa, California.
01:18 - I bought it for 225 bucks off Craigslist.
01:21 And I wanted to just flip it 'cause I had no intent for it.
01:26 I'm like 225 bucks, I'll throw it on the side yard,
01:29 I'll clean it up and I'll flip it on Craigslist
01:30 for a couple of grand and I'll make a little money.
01:33 The truck grew on me and I said, you know what?
01:36 I like this truck.
01:37 I'm gonna make a shop truck out of it.
01:41 We'll put like a Cummings diesel in it
01:43 and make it super reliable.
01:45 And along the way, one little mod added to another one
01:49 and bigger brakes meant bigger wheels and tires.
01:52 And I wanted more power so then I put a bigger turbo on it
01:56 and then I decided I wanted even more power
01:59 so then it had twin turbos.
02:01 I couldn't stop and then I saw things I could improve.
02:04 You know, it went from a $225 Craigslist truck
02:07 to a $300,000 plus something.
02:10 I still don't know what to call it.
02:12 (rock music)
02:15 - It's just mean.
02:21 I don't really get speechless.
02:23 This thing is just a masterpiece.
02:25 - You gotta see the engine.
02:26 - Yeah, dude, the first time I saw this,
02:28 I was kind of blown away because you can't not stare at it.
02:32 Give everybody an idea of how this thing gets motivated.
02:35 - Compound turbo charging.
02:37 This turbo charger here is an 80 millimeter turbo.
02:39 It's the small turbo.
02:41 - Right.
02:42 - And this one works off exhaust gases from the engine,
02:45 just like a regular turbo does.
02:47 But the difference here is this turbo
02:51 also drives this bigger turbo here,
02:53 which is a 94 millimeter Garrett GTX.
02:56 And so this turbo returns the favor
02:59 by driving the 80 millimeter from the front side as well.
03:03 So instead of breathing atmosphere
03:04 like a regular turbo system,
03:06 this turbo breathes, you know,
03:09 40 PSI of boost from this big turbo.
03:12 And so 40 PSI here and 60 PSI here
03:16 ends up being a hundred at the plenum.
03:18 - Oh my God.
03:18 When you were developing this, when you were building it,
03:23 you kind of had this idea in your head to do this system
03:25 where people are like, yeah, that's not gonna work.
03:26 - I had tons of naysayers tell me
03:29 that this big of compounds would not work.
03:32 They say it would be laggy and it would never spool.
03:33 And this thing actually spools pretty quick.
03:36 - So what type of numbers did it make on the dyno?
03:41 - This thing makes 1,463 flywheel
03:44 and 1,233 at the wheels.
03:46 - Jesus.
03:47 Oh my God.
03:48 - And double in torque.
03:51 - That's very cool, man.
03:52 - Let's take a look at the rear.
03:53 - Yeah, dude.
03:54 So now the nitrous,
03:57 have you ever decided to hit that button?
03:59 - We have on the dyno a little bit.
04:01 It's good for another, you know, 350, 375 horsepower.
04:04 - The way that the cage is designed,
04:06 as an engineer,
04:07 is this something you actually sat and designed in CAD
04:09 and then incorporated into the truck?
04:11 Was it more free form?
04:12 I mean, how do you come up with this?
04:14 - The strongest part right here is all designed
04:16 for all the torque and twisting
04:18 that the rear axle is gonna apply to it.
04:20 You know, there's really no concessions
04:28 for anything street car on this truck.
04:30 It's a pure race vehicle
04:32 and it just happens to be licensed.
04:33 - I was gonna say, you have plates on it.
04:35 - Yeah, it's got plates.
04:36 - So you fabricated all of this?
04:38 - Yes.
04:39 The big Cummins engine is really hard to fit in this truck.
04:42 So two thirds of the engine is behind the firewall.
04:45 Had to make a custom oil pan with custom baffles in it,
04:48 just a clearance 'cause the factory one hung down
04:50 another eight inches.
04:51 - Just about zero suspension droop in this thing.
04:53 - It's a road racer.
04:54 It's an inch and a half of droop
04:55 and an inch and a half of travel.
04:57 Also, this is a Kevlar blanket to keep the transmission bits
04:59 from coming inside and-
05:01 - Taking you out.
05:02 - Horribly maiming you in case of a transmission failure.
05:05 - I mean, just to look at, this is beautiful.
05:07 - Yeah, this is where it gets complicated back here.
05:09 - Yeah, but man, is it nice.
05:10 - Winners Custom made this rear end for the truck,
05:12 a 10 and a half inch ring gear.
05:13 It's called their super heavy duty quick change.
05:15 It's nice 'cause we can throw any gear we want in it
05:17 because sometimes we'll road race it,
05:20 sometimes we'll take it out and drift it,
05:21 and then we'll land speed race it.
05:23 - You designed all this, fabricated all the four link?
05:26 - Everything. - Everything?
05:27 - Everything, the chassis,
05:28 we built it on our chassis table here.
05:30 - How many hours do you have in fabricating the chassis?
05:32 - I've got about 3000 hours in the whole truck.
05:34 - God, oh my goodness.
05:36 It's kind of overwhelming.
05:39 - It really is to look at.
05:40 I mean, you know because you built it,
05:41 but for somebody like me.
05:42 - You built it, it's still overwhelming.
05:44 - All right, this is amazing.
05:46 I can't wait to see this thing run.
05:47 I can't wait.
05:48 - I can't wait to see you drive it.
05:49 - I can't wait to drive it.
05:51 (laughing)
05:54 - We still have to make one more stop before the skid pad.
05:57 But before we do, I have to ask,
06:00 what motivates someone to come up with this crazy,
06:03 mad and brilliant monstrosity of a machine?
06:07 (upbeat music)
06:09 - When I was a little kid, I was obsessed with semi trucks.
06:12 So I'd make them honk and I thought they were just cool
06:14 'cause there's these big, strong diesel monsters.
06:17 And I loved monster trucks and the sounds they made.
06:20 And it was all just so raw and angry.
06:23 Everything was extreme and powerful.
06:27 Everybody asks me,
06:29 why do you call your shop Chuckles Garage?
06:31 It's unconventional.
06:34 Chuckles was my dad's nickname.
06:37 My dad was a police officer for years
06:40 and his name was Charles.
06:41 Everybody called him Chuck and his CB handle was Chuckles.
06:44 And so, he passed in 2005 and I named my shop after him.
06:48 My dad would always supply me with tools
06:53 and give me things to mess around with.
06:57 But I would never want to take apart the things he gave me.
07:00 I would wait till they weren't paying attention
07:02 or it's where it left me to my own devices.
07:04 It just never stops taking apart.
07:09 I first decided I wanted to be a fabricator
07:11 when my dad taught me how to use my hands.
07:14 Probably six, eight years old,
07:15 my dad gave me a screwdriver and I had this epiphany
07:19 that I could take these things and change them
07:23 and do whatever I wanted.
07:24 You just have to have the tools to do it.
07:26 But when I really decided I wanted to be a fabricator,
07:30 it's just when I got sick of doing stuff I hated
07:34 for a paycheck and I wanted to be stoked to go to work.
07:36 I never get up and say, "I don't want to go to work."
07:39 I'm always super pumped to go into the shop
07:41 and build rad stuff.
07:43 Guys work 80-hour work weeks to save up
07:47 and just so they can play with their car on the weekend,
07:50 I get to do it every day.
07:52 - There is no better motivator
07:53 than working a death-trapped corporate job.
07:55 Scott knew this, left it behind,
07:57 and created Chuckle's Garage to satisfy his quest for speed.
08:01 (upbeat music)
08:04 (car engine revving)
08:07 - My road racing background goes back 20 years.
08:14 I learned race car setup from driving
08:18 and building my own race cars, trial and error.
08:21 I just applied the knowledge I've learned
08:23 throughout the years of building my own race cars
08:26 and then the last 10 years, owning my shop here,
08:29 building tons of customer race cars
08:30 and just applying my butt dyno knowledge
08:34 and my practical engineering knowledge
08:36 into something that really shouldn't exist.
08:39 I tried with this truck to be everything
08:42 that I want any vehicle to be.
08:44 I want to be able to do whatever I want
08:46 and I don't want it to fit in at any kind of genre
08:49 or anything like that.
08:50 It's its own entity.
08:51 It's not a rat rod, it's not a hot rod,
08:53 it's not a dedicated land speed car,
08:55 it's not a dedicated drift car,
08:56 it's not a daily driver,
08:58 but you can do anything you want in it.
09:01 You can take it out and just party.
09:04 I mean, have fun.
09:05 But the real goal for this truck,
09:11 I want to be the first diesel powered truck
09:13 to go 200 miles an hour in the measured mile.
09:15 - Scott said that he wanted to go 200 miles an hour
09:22 in the mile.
09:23 Personally, I just wanted a chance
09:25 to slide this thing all over the place.
09:27 - Close.
09:34 - But you don't just get into this thing and turn the key.
09:42 There's a system, a procedure if you will,
09:44 that makes sure that when you put the sequential in gear,
09:47 all systems point to go.
09:49 (engine revving)
09:52 We had been waiting all day for this thing
09:55 to rip up the skid pad.
09:57 Now, it was finally go time.
09:59 - It goes from 200 horsepower to 1200 horsepower,
10:07 like within 800 RPM, and it's a light switch.
10:11 It's nothing and then it's everything,
10:13 and all you have is mechanical grip.
10:15 This truck, it's basically an amalgam
10:17 of everything that I thought was awesome throughout life.
10:20 This point in time, you steer with the rear
10:29 and you drive it like an old turbo can-am car.
10:32 You just hope for grip and you squirt it
10:34 when you think you can squirt it and you go.
10:36 - Watching Scott trying to wrestle old Smokey
10:41 was akin to seeing a cheetah trying to take down an elephant.
10:45 The man was working behind the wheel.
10:47 (engine revving)
10:50 - Heard a loud bang.
11:03 - Dude, you're lifting that back wheel
11:04 clean off the ground.
11:05 - Yeah.
11:06 - In every corner it's coming off.
11:07 - Oh. - Yeah.
11:08 - That's not good.
11:10 - All right, so we just watched you go out there.
11:16 It was, I don't know if you saw when you were coming around,
11:18 but I was like, "Yes, this is the best thing in the world."
11:21 - It was pretty fun.
11:22 - So how gnarly is it to like,
11:23 with that much torque and that much power,
11:25 to try to hold a drift with this thing?
11:27 - It's rough. - You're working.
11:28 - Yeah, especially 'cause we have the wrong spring rate
11:30 in the back today and it's lifting the wheel,
11:32 but it's fun.
11:33 - Three days worth of track time off those tires.
11:38 I've never seen anything destroy tires
11:40 like this in my life.
11:41 - After a few minor adjustments,
11:44 Scott and Old Smokey headed back out
11:46 onto the skid pad for another run.
11:48 Over 2,000 pound feet of torque
12:05 at the rear wheels means one thing.
12:08 You are vaporizing tires, plain and simple.
12:12 (engine revving)
12:15 - I can't tell you how hard that is.
12:26 - Oh, I know how hard it is.
12:27 I can see you struggling.
12:28 I can see you working, dude.
12:29 - Getting ready to go out on the skid pad,
12:32 extremely terrified.
12:34 Now, I don't really care if you guys out there
12:36 in internet world be like, "Oh, just man up."
12:39 Over 2,000 pound feet of torque at the rear wheels,
12:42 pedal travel that's that much,
12:44 and a price tag of around 300K.
12:47 Nervous.
12:48 I am nervous.
12:49 Shut up.
12:50 Okay.
12:56 - There you go.
12:57 What's your plan for driving?
12:59 - Stay alive.
13:00 It was now my turn behind the wheel.
13:03 And once my initial fear faded,
13:05 I found that this '49 Ford was quite possibly
13:08 the most mental thing I've ever driven.
13:11 (upbeat music)
13:13 (engines revving)
13:16 (upbeat music)
13:19 - Keep in mind that when you consider
13:44 what Scott did to old Smoky to make it do what it does,
13:48 the fact that this truck even exists at all
13:52 is pretty damn remarkable.
13:53 (laughing)
13:56 (upbeat music)
13:59 (laughing)
14:02 (tires screeching)
14:04 (upbeat music)
14:07 (laughing)
14:31 (upbeat music)
14:33 - America was built by hard work and big dreams.
14:42 This truck, this is America.
14:45 We got to go out and vlog it on the skid pad,
14:47 drive it on the street, and hang out with Scott all day.
14:50 And it has been an amazing experience
14:52 that we hope you guys have enjoyed.
14:54 So with that being said,
14:56 I'd like to thank you for watching
14:57 and stay tuned for the next episode
15:00 of the House of Muscle.
15:01 (upbeat music)
15:03 (upbeat music)
15:06 (upbeat music)
15:09 (upbeat music)
15:11 (upbeat music)
15:14 (whooshing)