Project Highlights

Thunderpig's Bed Moves!

Wanna see something cool? How about a bed that opens at the touch of a button?


The bed now lifts with the help of 2 actuators installed on both sides beneath the bed.

Here is a shot of the passenger side actuator with the bed closed.

They still need to be shimmed and adjusted to open and close uniformly, but I wanted to share the latest mods on Thunderpig.

Thunderpig

We started rebuilding Thunderpig over 2 years ago.. Even though a lot has changed, nothing was ever lost. This truck has been in our family for 3 generations, and I hope it remains in the family, for several more generations to come..

A Day in the Park

Hobble Creek Car Show 2011

This weekend's car show was a lot of fun.. We took a nice drive through Springville and then through a canyon to the Hobble Creek Rotary Park. The car show was really nice! About 200 cars and a steak dinner! sweet! This was also our first car show with a finished interior!

Check out the new trim around the headliner! I love the way it looks.

The new carpet looks great too! Its thick but soft and matches the leather really well!

The speaker panels were redone to align the bottom edge with the pattern on the door panels.

The new steering wheel leather wrap looks awesome.. I like how everything matches now in the cab.

And look at what we won... BEST PAINT! I was excited to see this, because I have to tell you, the ghost flames deserve it.. The paint job that Eric Horvath did on our truck is awesome.

Zach and Logan also thought the award we received was cool.. :-)

New Upholstery

About 4 month's have passed since our original upholsterer (Monty's Upholstery) started working on the truck.. From the get-go, Monty had a lot of energy and his design ideas for the interior were right on with what I had envisioned.. but due to scheduling conflicts and communication issues between myself, the hotrod shop, and the upholsterer, we've had a heck of a time getting the interior completed the way I wanted it. Within the time we've had to work on the upholstery, several car shows have taken place, and right before each car show we've had a little more upholstery completed each time.. Overall Monty did a great job. He created (2) sweet looking seats, a cool one of a kind embosed flame headliner in leather, and with Joe's help on the metal work he did a fantastic job on wrapping the new lower dash panel and all of the speaker panels.

The carpet on the other hand has been re-done 3 times but never seemed to look quite right. Whether it was the grain of the carpet not being straight in the cab, or the carpet being cut down the middle and then installed around the seats, rather than under the seats due mostly to the large base of the custom seat brackets..

During the last carpet installation, the seats were removed, the large seat bracket bases were trimmed down, and the carpet was laid across the full length of the cab floor.. Everything looked good until I noticed a 6" cut just behind the gas pedal (to allow installation over the pedal) that didn't look right.. I had specifically asked that the gas pedal be removed so that no cuts to the carpet would be needed for a clean install.. Now the cut had been made in the new carpet and the frayed edges from the cut (even as minor as they were) were standing out like crazy to me.. I just knew that eventually the edge would would wear into a hole. Also the carpet still wasn't stretched because the outside edges hadn't been secured with fasteners yet.. And in fact the fasteners weren't ready or wrapped in leather yet. And the Lindon Days car show was the very next day.

I had high hopes the truck would be ready for the car show that weekend, but the progress and the results just weren't there. So we decided to skip the car show and I wrapped up any futher efforts being made on the truck by Monty. I settled what I owed him and decided to work with another upholsterer (Candido Escobedo - All In One Upholstery) who Joe had recently met. After talking to Candido, he put me at ease with the number of great ideas he had to help finish up the carpet and the headliner edging. Also he said he would have it done in a week! I was grinning ear to ear!


Soon after the truck was delivered to the upholstery shop, Candido was able to get a role of the new carpet and set out to install it.. Soon after he mentioned that it was pretty thin carpet and not the best quality we could use on the truck.. Candido had a scrap of carpet that came out of a car that Kirkham automotive used in one of their Cobras... The color was really close to the shade of the leather in the truck, and it was also about 3x more plush than the carpet we were using.. The material was made from wool rather than nylon also which gives it a more fluffy appearance which looked and felt great. Overall I was really drawn to the new carpet and asked if there was any possibility of obtaining this carpet for the truck.. Candido said he would check.


Then Candido showed me his plans to cover the edges of the speaker box with leather to hide the carpet binding edges which are visible with the doors open. Overall I liked what I was seeing.


The next day Candido called and said.. Guess what my man? We were able to get 4 yards of carpet for your truck! I was thrilled! So he returned the other carpet and proceeded to install the new carpet in its place. He also worked with Joe to modify the side of the seat panels a bit more to have them roll behind the seat back (see above) rather than extend further back. Great attention to detail.


Here is how the carpet was fastened to the inner step of the cab.. Leather trim which looks great. Also notice that he added more padding beneath the seat base under the carpet to eliminate the humps from the cross member supports below the cab floor. This really smoothed out the appearance of the cab floor.


Unfortunately (or not) with only 4 yards of carpet, we didn't have enough material for Candido to re-cover the speaker box, so instead we covered it in leather! I've never seen a leather subwoofer box, but boy does it ever look cool now! :-)


Candido also dished out the arm rest pull pocket a bit more and reinforced it with stitching. The previous arm rests looked very cool stylewise, but were hard to grip onto when shutting the doors. The new handles are much deeper and easier to grasp onto.


Here is how the arm rest looks now with the new deep pockets. No change to style, just more functional.


Unfortunately not everything goes as planned.. During the installation of the seats the bolt holes didn't line up just perfectly and Candido had to re-drill one of the holes.. That particular location where the new hole was to be drilled was directly above our transmission cooler.. and as you can now see, the cab floor as well as the transmission cooler radiator was drilled through which spilled all of the trucks transmission fluid onto the floor of Candido's shop.


Luckily Joe and Eric Horvath have connections.. They were able to get Tanner Radiators in American Fork to patch the radiator on the transmission cooler which saved me ~$300 for a new radiator and allowed us to fix the truck the same day.


Meanwhile, since Thunderpig was un-driveable, the truck had its first ride on a nice flatbed from Candido's upholstery shop over to Joe's.


I was so nervous that the truck was going to go rolling off into Joe's paint booth.. But luckily that didn't happen.


Once the truck was on the ground, Candido opened the door and showed me that he had wrapped the steering wheel in the same color leather as the rest of the interior as a way of saying, sorry I drilled through your transmission cooler.. ;-) I was very impressed. Not only was this a genuine way of showing he cared, but it also looks awesome.


I was really excited to see the interior finished so quickly and with such good workmanship. I'll post better pictures from tomorrow's car show.. There wasn't enough light in the shop to take decent pictures.. Let me tell you what.. The upholstery looks great! And its all in thanks to both upholsterers for a job well done! Thanks!

Fiesta Days 2011

Today was the Spanish Fork Fiesta Days 2011 car show. We entered Thunderpig as well as some of Joe's cars and really had a great time walking around the show looking at all of the beautiful cars.

Logan stopped at this lemonade stand and was blowing kisses at this girl. Maybe he was trying to get a free sample.. smart kid! :)

All that walking around was tiring, so we stopped to enjoy a nice cold icy from one of the local vendors..

Zach had a lot of fun riding the big boy rides.. Next year Logan will be sitting next to Zach on all the rides, not just the little kid ones.

And speaking of little kid rides, this was Zach and Logan's favorite.. they road this boat around and around splashing water and ringing the bell on the boat. They had a great time.

After visiting the carnival it was finally time for the awards ceremony.. we were all tuckered out.

Look! We won a sponsors choice award!

But look what we also won... Best in Show!!

We were really excited to have done so well at the show. It's probably because this show felt more special than others. The officiators of the show gave out 3 grand prize trophys.. Myself and the winners of the Peoples Choice and Mayors Choice awards all had TV interviews as well as a chance to show off our trophy's at the local street stomp.. It was hard to tell if the crowds really cared that 3 guys walked up on stage in the middle of their dance to fist pump their trophies in the air as our names and trophies were announced, but it sure did feel cool to us. Especially to me when they said "Thunderpig... Best in Show!"

Overall we had one heck of a fun day and not only did we walk away with some great memories and laughs, but some really nice awards too!

Here is a better picture of our sponsors choice award as well as the grand prize.. Best in Show 2011!!

More work on the seats

The seats in Thunderpig look amazing.. there's no doubting that.. but the plastic seat covers that cover the sides of the seats leave something to be desired. In order to make them a bit more pleasing to the eye Joe set out to modify them to be covered in leather and extended to the base of the seat (where it mounts to the cab floor).

Here is the drivers side seat molding (painted to match the leather)

Here is the new seat cover for the passenger side.. As you can see it's been frankensteined a bit to include a new profile made of the existing plastic panel and a new metal panel with an extension to cover the seat mounting brackets.

Here's another view of the panel which shows how the new extension below will be hidden under the seat.

Now that the seat panel has been covered in leather it looks a lot better.

Now if only we can just figure out how to finish the carpet properly we'll be set! :-)

American Fork Steel Days

Today was exciting.. We got to go to a car show, play in the park, have a picnic, play with a cute puppy, then go cruise main street in Thunderpig! What did you do? ;-)

Thunderpig had a nice spot under a shade tree.. But when the sun started to shine on it, boy did it sparkle!

















Just before lunch time Jen noticed this sticker on the windshield of the pickup.. She said "did you put this here?" I of course replied.. "No! Why would I put a sticker in the window?"

Then the light bulbs turned on.. We won!!! Now where's our award? :)

Now that the pressure to win was behind us, we set off to enjoy the rest of our day at the park! What better way to do that then by having a picnic in the park!

Afterwards we went back over to check on Thunderpig.. Logan made sure the exhaust was still clean..

And that the step was still securely fashioned to the bed.. Logan loves to sit on the steps of the truck.. We joke and say they're actually seats, not steps. hah!

Then it was off to the park to play on the playscape! Zach has more fun running up the slide, then going down the slide.. Too funny.

Logan and Zach always seem to find the puppies at each show.. This was Logan's favorite.

Thunderpig ended up winning a nice big Sponsors Choice award! So I told Zach "Do you wanna go with me in the cruise with all the other hotrods since we won?" He said "YEAH!"

Logan and Mom drove down the block and found a great spot on the grass while Zach and I started the cruise

Here comes Thunderpig! Zach loved it.. We would zip down the road reving the engine and blinking the lights.. He had a blast.

From the looks of it, I think Logan had fun watching all of the cars drive by too!

There goes Daddy and Zach in Thunderpig!


Yep, we had one heck of a great day today.