[reel whirring]
- [The Big Swag] Hello everybody, The Big Swag here.
There's something bugging the gear heads.
- [Commentator] Few who were committed
could hope to return to society.
- [The Big Swag] Jesse's feeling a little nutty.
- It can roll out to the nut by five,
which is some place I always thought I'd go.
- [The Big Swag] And it's about to get completely crazy.
So loosen up those straight jackets,
put those voices in your head on hold and relax.
Group therapy's about to begin,
it's called "Monster Garage."
[person screams]
- [Narrator] Join us now
as Jesse and his g*ng of Maverick Mechanics
rip, grind, and burn,
transforming ordinary street vehicles
into monster machines in "The Monster Garage."
[heavy rock music]
♪ Monster, Monster Garage
♪ Monster, Monster Garage
♪ Monster, Monster Garage
♪ Monster, Monster Garage
♪ Monster, Monster Garage
- [Narrator] This week's mission.
Turn a 1997 Ford F-150 pickup truck
into one of the coolest pieces of machinery
nobody's ever heard of,
a nut shaker.
- I didn't even know
there was something like this out there.
- This thing walks up to a tree,
[engine roaring]
clamps hold of it,
[engine roaring]
and shakes the hell out of it.
[engine roaring]
- [Narrator] The rules.
When built, the monster machine must appear to be stock.
The team can spend no more than $3,000 for parts.
Jesse and his crew have seven days and nights.
On the first day they design,
for the next five they build,
and on the seventh day they race.
If successful, they walk away with a $3,400 set of Mac tools
and the clock starts now. [clock crashing]
[upbeat music] [engine revs]
Jesse comes in hard
and leaves the white truck to contemplate its inner monster.
[upbeat music]
The design team enters the garage
and makes their way up
to meet the head mover and shaker, Jesse James.
- So we got like a F-150 to work with.
The only thing I'm thinking is
the beds are not really good mounting points for stuff
especially it's gonna weigh six or 800 pounds or more.
And I was thinking we just ditch the bed, make everything,
make our own platform everything right off the frame.
- If we can get the shaker head and this
attached to the frame,
everything else will go right along with it.
But we gotta get it tied to the truck frame somehow.
- [Narrator] The shaker head is the heart of their monster
and the centerpiece of their design.
[engine roaring]
Putting something this insane on a car
presents two big problems.
One, it needs to shake nuts out of a tree as planned.
Two, they need to keep it from shaking the nuts and bolts
out of the pickup.
- Now my business bites,
everything's geared around getting rid of vibration
so stuff doesn't stress cracking and stuff like that.
What actually makes it shake?
Is it like a motor with a reciprocating head?
- That's counter-weighted wheels is what it is.
Two opposite rotating counter-weighted wheels.
- Ralph Westerhoff keeps the nut shaking
at Orchard Machinery Corporation.
- I've been with the company for about 15 years,
so got a lot of experience with manufacturing of shakers.
I have seen "Monster Garage"
and actually ever since the first time I saw it,
I thought "What could I do to get on that program?"
It's what I do with shakers with what Jesse does,
it's just a good mix.
I think it'll work out well.
- [Narrator] The design needs a place
to put the shaker head.
- What if you just mount it right here
and it hangs off the back?
- And just let it- - Its gonna be back heavy
that way though.
- Just let it stay sticking out the whole time?
Life would sure be easier
if we could just let it hang out there.
- [Narrator] Don Mayo, VP at Orchard Machinery
has been shaking food onto people's tables for 30 years.
- We all know that food comes from the grocery store,
there's no question about it.
Go to the store, there it is.
Most people don't give it a lot of thought,
but how does it get to the grocery store?
It has to get off the tree.
[engine roaring]
- [Narrator] Jesse turns their attention
to a custom hydraulic system
needed to give their nut knocker the monster shakes.
- I think the hydraulic system, just to run it,
it's gonna have to be really solid
just because high RPM stuff,
it's gonna be pushing a lot of fluid.
- [Narrator] Jesse's got questions about the hydraulics.
Don's got answers.
- What I would suggest is belt drive a hydraulic pump
off the front of the engine and drive that
through a couple different valve bodies
and the shaker head would clamp hydraulically
and we could drive it hydraulically.
- [Narrator] The plan is to make the Ford go nuts.
Now farmer Jesse wants to give his shaker some sizzle.
- I don't think it's that complicated,
but making it look cool, you know,
no one's gonna wanna go pick their date up in one of these.
[person laughing]
- I know the flatbed look looks pretty good,
you know. - Yeah.
- You put some little rail or something on there.
- [Jesse] That might be cool.
- [Narrator] Randall Walstonholme
is a designer for Metal Crafters,
a company that creates concept vehicles
for some of the major car manufacturers.
- You could drop that baby down.
- [Jesse] Yeah.
- The design challenges as I see 'em
and what I'm interested in is the aesthetic of it
and I think Jesse has a real feel for that.
- Let's try to do one that looks kind of cool.
We could put some big giant 22 inch rims on it.
- [Randall] We want this thing to look cool
by its stance just sitting there.
If it's slammed then it gives you
a little bit of something, you know?
- [Jesse] Yep.
- [Narrator] Here's the plan from soup to nuts.
The truck bed will come off,
a custom shaker head will be mounted
on the truck's rear frame.
Hydraulics will provide the juice for their shaker.
- Going from never knowing something like this existed
to thinking I could make one in five days is pretty good.
I'm pretty confident.
[suspensful music]
[upbeat music]
[engine roaring]
- [Narrator] For this build,
Jesse has assembled a team of movers and shakers.
Dan Robinson, Omaha, Nebraska, welder.
Mike Pitinger, Baltimore, Maryland, mechanical engineer.
Tim Berghofer, Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
hydraulic technician.
Russ Angold, San Jose, California,
agricultural mechanic.
And staying on from the design team, Ralph Westerhoff.
The team gets their first look at before
and Jesse maps out their road to after.
- All right fellas, this is the nut shaker.
So basically we want to sneak up on a tree
with a lot of nuts or fruit on it,
gently grab it,
and just [vibrates] shake the hell out of it
till all the fruit falls off
and then move on to the next one.
We wanna look really cool while we're doing it.
First things first,
it's probably pull the bed off
and we could take it,
put it on the bench and like cut it apart as we need it.
- So if this thing's gonna hang out the back,
it's not gonna be stock though.
I mean, don't you think we should have this thing
telescope out the back so that when it's pulled in
it looks like a regular truck?
- I don't think it needs to, you know,
we measured it when we designed and I think that-
- [Narrator] right from the get go,
Tim is calling Jesse out on the rules to his own game.
The monster machine must appear to be stock, stock stock.
Tim wants the shaker head to reveal itself.
He presses Jesse.
- But I still would like to see it telescope
even a little bit.
- We can make it as complicated as we want,
but when, you know, day three or four rolls around,
we're gonna be, you know, thinking,
"Hey, we should have did it simple."
- [Narrator] The alpha dog lets the pesky pup off easy.
- I think day one, let's get it apart and get a plan.
Get the bed off and get all this stuff barbs,
all the stuff taken off the frame
that we don't think we're gonna need
and basically lay out a plan.
The best rule of thumb is start right now
and work every day like it's the last day.
- BFH.
That's my homemade hammer.
- [Narrator] Dan makes himself at home
with his homemade hammer,
then he and his teammates go to work.
- [Dan] Now we can work.
[upbeat music] [drill whirring]
- [Narrator] 16 bolts later,
the team has cracked the truck open,
exposing its meaty frame.
- Took us about 10 minutes, the bed is off, so.
We got five whole days now to spend turning this thing
into a walnut shaker.
Everybody's working together good so far,
so it's starting off great.
You know the first 10 minutes tell you a lot.
- [Narrator] Tim's a little off,
the first 10 minutes in this place will tell you nothing,
but he set a new monster garage record
for early overconfidence.
[upbeat music]
Right on cue, a big and nasty confidence buster
rolls into the garage.
A custom made nut shaker head. - Good work, man.
[suspensful music]
- [Commentator] Freebie, freebie, freebie.
Zero, nada.
- [Narrator] Before they're through,
this crude to iron claw will bring the truck to its knees
and have the crew begging for mercy.
- I have no leverage on this thing.
Bended that bolt, we ain't lifting it up anymore.
Before Mike-
- [Jesse] Get the two Ford jacks and we'll start lifting-
- [Narrator] They gather round
to inspect their beastly burden.
Well before the build,
Ralph Westerhoff and his crew at Orchard Machinery
built the custom made shaker head
designed specifically for the F-150.
- A normal sized shaker head is quite large,
as you can see it's approximately eight feet long
and it weighs roughly 2000 pounds.
- [Narrator] The standard sized shaker head
weighing almost as much as the truck itself
would shake it to pieces,
but their junior monster head
is still going to play the heavy
in this upcoming garage drama.
- It's gonna weigh somewhere in the range of
six, 700 pounds.
- [Narrator] But what makes the shaker shake?
- [Ralph] Basically what it is,
there's two independent wheels and they're weighted.
It's these two wheels spinning in opposite directions
is actually what creates the shake and the movement.
[engine roaring]
- [Narrator] They set out to install it,
but they need to proceed with extreme caution.
One bad cut could compromise the truck frame,
leaving it too weak to hold the claw for their monster.
- Okay, so we're gonna- - We've got this out.
- We're gonna have to cut this out-
- Correct. - Maybe weld something
to stiffen it if we need to, right.
- Okay.
[upbeat music]
- Fire in the hole.
[upbeat music] [blow torch blaring]
- [Narrator] The truck is ready
for its monster head transplant.
- We're just looking at
whether we're wide enough to set it in there,
whether, you know, final measurements.
We measured it, we measured it,
we checked it with a pattern.
We measured a couple more times,
but now it's sitting here
and everybody's like, "Does it fit?"
- Looking great. - Hey watch it now.
- Watch yourself. - Oh, watch that.
- [Ralph] Yeah, shaker teeth moves.
- [Narrator] It takes the entire team
to wrestle the giant claw onto the truck.
- [Tim] Okay, forward
oh, watch your fingers.
There, that's it.
- [Narrator] Once the team gets the shaker in place,
they rush to take some measurements
and then quickly remove it
before the big head pretzels the truck frame.
Jesse wants to be sure
that the truck will support the shaker head.
- You know, this frame is really neat.
We're gonna have to plate the inside of this frame
with some eighth inch to box it in.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- See there was a cross brace right here.
- I think this frame's sufficient enough.
Clean it up and mount to the top.
Ditch all this stuff.
You know, and basically put the shaker head
right where we want it,
and brace to it.
We need space and all this shocks and leaf springs
are totally in the way,
so we're gonna just get rid of it
and put a four link set up on this.
- [Narrator] Jesse's plan is to use a four link system
to replace the truck's rear suspension.
A four link system secures the axle to the mid frame
and uses airbags to lift and drop.
The team attacks the back of the truck.
Any extra metal or parts are torched out.
[upbeat music] [blow torch blazing]
- You good?
- [Narrator] The leaf springs are blown away.
[upbeat music] [blow torch blazing]
Russ cuts the steel to reinforce the frame.
- Good enough for the girls I go with.
[blow torch blaring]
- [Narrator] Stripped and strengthened,
the frame is now buff enough to support the weight
of the shaker appendage.
The new suspension system is a space hog.
The gas tank has to go,
they need to replace it with a smaller one.
A plastic fuel cell would be the simplest solution,
but the team decides to resize the original tank.
The gas tank rebuild is complicated, risky,
and time consuming.
[upbeat music]
Once they're done cutting and welding the tank,
it will be sent out to be coated in urethane.
[upbeat music]
They expect it back by the end of the following day.
- You know, being gasoline, it can't leak at all.
You know, little spark go boom.
- [Narrator] Dan Robinson,
a farm mechanic from Omaha, Nebraska,
is pursuing his lifelong passion for metal.
- I've always been an artist
and done different things with art
and I found a passion in metal.
That's a lot of my respect for Jesse and what he does.
I wanted to come here,
soak up like a sponge whatever I could, you know.
Watching Jesse on "Motorcycle Mania" one, two,
seeing how much he pours into his work.
I'd like to be doing what Jesse does.
I mean coming here it's an experience of a lifetime.
- [Narrator] The gas tank could have been a minor problem,
but they've turned it into a major issue.
The decision to rebuild rather than replace
speaks volumes about the heart and soul of this team.
The car should appear stock we were told
and so it will,
even if the peace in question is underneath the vehicle
and hidden from view.
This team doesn't play by the rules,
they're dead serious about them.
[upbeat music]
And so ends another day in the human laboratory.
- That is off, we got a nice solid frame here
to start working with.
Everybody's working together good so far,
so it's starting off great.
- [Russ] How far is the beach from here?
We can go the beach.
- I don't think we'll be saying that on Friday.
[people laughing]
- Monster Garage.
Garage. Garage.
[upbeat music]
- [Narrator] Monster Garage factoid.
The average annual yield of a walnut tree is 1,200 nuts.
The Ford F-150 pickup truck has 1,481 nuts and bolts.
♪ Monster, Monster Garage
[upbeat music]
- [Narrator] Day three gets going with a little breakfast.
Jesse notices there's no donuts.
Somebody thought croissants would be a good change of pace.
"Monster Garage" mantra.
This is no place for delicate French pastry.
[upbeat music]
- Yeah.
- [Narrator] Tim walks in with a key organ
for their monster,
a heart for the hydraulic system.
- We got a hydraulic motor and a hydraulic pump.
[upbeat music]
- [Narrator] Team nut shaker
has decided to run the hydraulic pump
off the truck's engine.
- If we weld like another pulley onto the face of that
and then drive with a belt another pump
right off the side down off the frame,
it's gonna go-
- [Narrator] The hydraulic pump
will be connected to the engine
and will power the entire hydraulic system.
- The whole rest of the system
runs off of this hydraulic pump.
If we don't have this perfect,
we're just gonna be setting ourself up for trouble.
- [Narrator] Big trouble.
The specter of failure has hung over the garage
since the Hearse team went down in flames.
- Fire, fire. - Fire.
[fire extinguisher squirting]
- [Narrator] They also tried running a hydraulic pump
off the engine.
[engine squeaking]
It didn't work.
- Hey, what happened? - We seized one of pumps.
- [Narrator] They failed.
[car exploding]
- And then drive with a belt another pump.
- [Narrator] Tim's confident his pump will work.
Laughing in the face of fate,
he's even using an engine pulley
left over from the hearse build.
- [Tim] It's got just the right counter board in it
that it fits perfectly on here.
But the tricky part is gonna be attaching it.
- [Narrator] Cast iron and steel can't be welded together
so Tim has to come up with another way
to connect the pieces.
- [Tim] What we're gonna do is machine and adapter bushing
that the same four bolts that hold this on
is gonna hold this adapter on
that's gonna have a shaft that sticks out
and then this pulley is gonna fit on that shaft
and that's what's gonna locate this pulley.
You got a machine that we can run
to make this bore on a plate like laid?
- Yeah, yeah.
- 'Cause I figure I can chuck up a plate
and a four jaw chuck.
This has gotta be perfect.
- [Narrator] Tim's a hydraulic technician
who learned his trade the old fashioned way,
by apprenticing.
- In Wisconsin, apprenticeship's are real big.
You're being trained by guys
that have 30, 40 years experience
that are journeyman in that field
and they take you under their wing.
They often say that you're lower than whale don
when you're an apprentice.
They give you all the bad jobs.
At the time somebody might be hounding you
and the guys that you might hate,
when you're all done with the apprenticeship,
you find out those are the guys that know what is going on
and those are the guys that you start to respect.
- [Narrator] He heads over to West Coast Choppers
to use one of Jesse's metal shaping toys, a lathe.
- Well I started out with a piece of four inch stainless.
This is gonna be what bolts
inside of the engine crankshaft pulley.
So it's gotta be this diameter
so that the bolts lines up,
but at the end I gotta eventually get it down
to seven eighths of an inch on the end here
to fit on a standard pulley,
so I gotta take a lot of metal off.
It'll be a while.
- [Narrator] Tim is looking at a long and tedious day
of babysitting the lathe
to get the right size drive shaft for his pulley.
[upbeat music]
Back at the garage,
the team clears out the back seat
to make space for a hydraulic control rack.
[upbeat music]
[upbeat music continues]
Built out of square tubing,
the rack will also hold the tank
for the extremely volatile mix of hydraulic fluids.
- We had to get the tank higher than the pump
on the front of the vehicle,
we have to have that positive head of pressure
so you're not sucking oil uphill.
You know, we've got a mix of hydraulic fluid,
DC electrical, compressed air,
so if something breaks loose,
you've got the perfect mix for a fire
inside the cab of the vehicle.
It was on submarines, he did it right the first time,
he didn't have to worry about it.
- [Narrator] Mike Pittenger learned how to weld
from Uncle Sam.
- I was in Navy nuclear submarines for like 13 years
and then I became a commercial diver
when I got outta the Navy
and really perfected all the little things I learned.
- [Narrator] Mike became an underwater specialist.
- As a diver, the longest I spent underwater
was about 22 hours at one shot working.
- [Narrator] Ralph stares down at a jigsaw puzzle
of hydraulic pieces.
[upbeat music]
- I've got a conglomeration of fittings
that I gotta try and make fit to these valves
so that we can finish our plumbing
and get all our hydraulics installed.
And now it's just a matter of finding the right fittings
and plugging 'em into the valve bodies
and matching it up.
- [Narrator] The complex hydraulic system needs hoses.
Ralph heads out to find them.
[upbeat music]
These specialized hoses and fittings do not come cheap.
[upbeat music]
Back at West Coast Choppers,
Tim is about halfway through the bushing adapter
for the pulley system.
A new delivery arrives at the garage.
Suspension parts, 2,500 pound airbags,
and solenoid valves.
[upbeat music] [coins clinking]
The truck suspension will be replaced by airbags.
This will allow the truck to raise and lower
when grabbing the tree.
- Never installed one of these before,
so I'm hoping it works.
I went to college at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
and the motto there was learn by doing.
One of the things that built in college
with two of my buddies for our senior level
mechanical design class project
was a 1,400 horsepower tractor pulling tractor
with a V12 Allison Aircraft engine in it.
Most people, their, you know, senior projects are,
you know, a paper, a thesis,
or something like that.
We had a report that went along with it,
but I mean we had something tangible
that we got to drive afterwards,
which was fun.
[engine roaring]
[upbeat music] [tools whirring]
[blow torch blazing] [upbeat music]
[upbeat music] [parts clattering]
This one's the easy one.
The one I'm worried about is the back.
[upbeat music]
All right, that's it.
Bag, bag in the front.
Now all you gotta do is wait for the parts
to come for the back and it'll be done today.
Mike's working on the solenoid valve
so he gets those mounted up,
we'll be air bagged by this evening.
- [Narrator] The solenoid valves, air tank,
and air compressor join the components
for the hydraulic system on the control rack.
This slick piece of garage design goes back in the truck.
- We got some suspension parts.
- [Narrator] Russ has the parts
for the four link rear suspension.
He'll install it,
but he's flying blind.
- I put one of these together on a bigger truck,
but this is a new kit,
I'm gonna have to figure out where all the parts go.
[upbeat music] [till crunching]
[upbeat music] [blow torch blazing]
[upbeat music]
- [Narrator] Once the suspension is in place,
the rear airbags are installed.
[upbeat music]
[people cheering]
- [Jesse] Right go on, pick it up.
- [Russ] There's your angle to hit the tree.
- It's cool, I'm glad we four linked it.
That's pretty trick, you know,
instead of trying to hob something together.
[tools whirring]
- [Narrator] Finally, eight hours after he started,
Tim's work on Jesse's lathe is completed.
- This is a normal stainless steel adapter I made.
This is gonna go inside of here
and that gives us an extra shaft that sticks out now
to drive this pulley
with a tapered bore.
Now this pulley's gonna sit
right up nice and tight like that
and then that's gonna drive this pump.
- [Narrator] Tim makes sure
his custom pulley and hydraulic pump are going to fit.
Then steps back and lets team mate Dan weld them in.
[upbeat music] [blow torch sparking]
The pump is ready to go
and Ralph is back with the hoses.
Tim gets to figure out where to put them.
- Well it's just a matter of
how we're gonna route the hoses back to the reservoir.
You know, we don't want to put 'em somewhere
where they're in danger of getting damaged,
but we're also trying not to do too many bends with them
because especially with a suction line,
you want a nice straight shot from the reservoir.
- [Narrator] They wrap up the hoses
and fill the tank with fluid.
[upbeat music]
- [Dan] This is five, we got 10 more to go.
- [Narrator] The hydraulic system is done.
Now they need to test it,
but they can't.
- Well we got the gas tank back,
but they urethaned it,
the inside of it to seal it
and we have to let it sit and cure.
So what that means is we can't put the tank back in,
fire the truck up and test our hydraulic system
like we were hoping to do today.
- [Narrator] So their decision to remain stock at all costs
has come back to bite them in the gas tank.
Team Nut Shaker goes home humbled
and hydraulically unsatisfied.
"Monster Garage" factoid.
With an annual harvest of 1 billion pounds,
California has more nuts than any other state.
♪ Monster, Monster Garage
[upbeat music]
- [Narrator] Day four finds the team very needy.
They need to mount the shaker head onto the truck.
They need to test the hydraulic system
and before any of that can happen,
they need the sealant on the gas tank to dry.
[upbeat music]
- How you guys doing, cool? - We're making some progress.
Rear ends in.
- What's up man? - We've tested it.
- Yeah, it worked out a lot better having that.
- Yeah. - Gone.
- Tim has been machining part-
- [Narrator] Jesse checks out Tim's work
on the hydraulic pump.
The Wisconsin whiz kid is ready.
- Nothing's coming- - Only gonna get
with that big a pulley
is it going to push enough volume?
- Yeah, we designed it where
this pump puts out 10 gallons a minute at 4,000 RPM,
but this pump after 4,000 RPM will smoke.
So we made a pulley differential here
so that even if the engine sees like five, 6,000 RPM,
this is still safe. - Bitchin'.
You can look right at that
and it's gonna work, no problem.
- [Tim] We've got a couple of feet to make up-
- [Narrator] In their dedication
to keep the truck looking stock,
the team brainstorms ways to hide the shaker head
in the truck bed.
- And then sheet metal over this,
build what other substructure we need under here
and make that whole bed long enough to cover it
in the whole truck.
Looks like a truck.
- I don't wanna keep the bed stock,
it's too boring looking, you know.
Sometimes, you know, it's cool to cover everything up,
but I also like to keep stuff a little bit honest
where it, you know,
where there's a bolt, where there's a bolt.
- [Narrator] Jesse squashes once and for all
the team's stock plan.
- Takes somebody with a little bit of vision to, you know,
take something in a direction it needs to go.
You know, he sees something in it that we don't.
- We can make some cool like motorcycle style fenders
or something like that on it.
I might be able to do that.
I made a fender or two in my day.
[upbeat music]
- [Narrator] Jesse tears out,
he's on a fender bender.
Preparations for the light pickup and the shaker head
have been intense.
The truck has been gutted and the frame strengthened.
A stronger airbag suspension system installed.
The hydraulics are in place.
It's time to give their Frankenstein a head.
- Good work man. - Yeah.
[suspensful music]
- [Speaker] I might have to close this arm.
- [Narrator] They set the shaker head onto the truck frame
and that's where the trouble begins.
It immediately flattens the new airbags.
- Oh, right now the airbags are fully compressed
so they're bottomed out.
- [Narrator] It continues to bear down,
squashing the rear differential.
- And we're actually hitting the pumpkin.
- [Narrator] The monster is rejecting its new body.
[upbeat music]
The team responds with their only weapon,
steel, two inch by two inch square tubing.
[tools whirring]
They give it another shot
[metal clattering]
and the beast fires back,
bending the three quarter inch metal mounting plate.
- Got the plates all bowed out,
that thing's too heavy.
[parts clattering]
- [Narrator] The team calls for reinforcements,
more steel.
[steel clanging] [upbeat music]
- And this is gonna go up here
right across the middle.
It'll be just like that.
[upbeat music] [blow torch blazing]
- [Narrator] The beefed up plate is remounted.
[hammer clanging]
Final adjustments are made.
- Oh, wait till they go up a little bit more
before that block.
- [Narrator] The battle ends in a truce, not a victory.
- Perfect.
- [Narrator] But that's good enough for this team.
The shaker head is finally ready to be welded in place.
[upbeat music] [blow torch sparking]
- That's cool, I dig it. - Yeah.
This sits right in here.
- You want what end out,
does it make any difference?
- Doesn't matter. - So nipple end out?
- Yeah.
- [Narrator] To protect the trees it grabs,
the shaker's claws are fitted with thick rubber pads.
- [Dan] Oh, and just the weight of those,
hold it in that radius.
[upbeat music]
[tools whirring]
- [Narrator] They finish up the electrical
on the new suspension system.
- Hopefully when we plug this wire
into the cigarette lighter,
this whole thing's gonna work.
- Charge that baby up.
- [Narrator] The compressors are charged.
- Let's see her pressured.
- [Narrator] They're ready to see if the airbags
can handle the head.
[upbeat music]
The heavy shaker head bounces with approval.
- [Dan] Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
- [Narrator] Tomorrow is a big day.
Will it be ready to shake hands with nut trees?
[tools sparking]
Day five, the urethane in the gas tank has cured.
- Oh, it stinks.
- [Narrator] Hopefully their work
on the hydraulic system doesn't,
but they won't know this
until the gas tank is installed and fueled.
- We got some high jet fuel gasoline.
Fire this thing up,
get the hydraulic system going.
Make sure everything's cool there.
[upbeat music]
- Ah, I love the smell of gasoline in the morning.
- [Narrator] But does it smell like victory?
- Moment of truth? - Make sure it works.
- Go ahead, Tim. - Here we go.
[engine revving]
- [Narrator] The car starts on the first attempt
and the hydraulic pump is running like a charm.
- Out of 1,500, perfect. - Good pressure.
- Clamp it up first. - Clamp it?
- [Narrator] With the hydraulic system working in full,
the shaker head is tested.
- Shake.
- Shaker. - Shake it's head.
[people cheering]
- It's alive.
The monster's alive.
- Woo, let's go to the tree.
- That's the way it's supposed to work, guys.
- All right. - Hey, fire that back up,
we gotta shake a tree. - We want that one
with all the leaves on.
- Open the jaws.
[upbeat music]
♪ Monster boys, monster boys
♪ Monster boys make it easy
- Clamp her. - Close the jaws.
♪ Monster boys make it easy
- Shake. - Shake it.
[machine purring]
[people laughing and cheering]
[upbeat music]
♪ Monster boys make it easy
♪ Monster boys, monster boys
- Oh yeah.
- All right, that's great.
- That's pretty violent, I like it.
- Man, it's like you just put a quarter
in a thousand fingers bed
at your local Howard Johnsons, you know,
just shaking and baking, baby.
- Awesome, awesome.
I think you guys are probably one of the best crews
we've had, you know.
Some guys get it done,
but it looks like some dog gnawed the metal on
or something like that, you know.
[dog barking]
[upbeat music]
- [Narrator] The group shows their thanks
by giving the truck a touch of monster personality,
a steel skid plate to protect the hydraulic pump.
[upbeat music]
At the end of day five,
with one garage day left,
the team is strangely, unusually,
and for the first time in "Monster Garage" history, done.
Everything's been tested, it works.
But Jesse's not about to start handing out
tool boxes just yet.
Tonight they can go home and sleep on their laurels,
tomorrow they'll understand there's no rest days
in Jesse's garage.
- [The Big Swag] Monday, Monday, Monday,
Jesse James goes for all the marbles
in the "Monster Garage" nut race 500.
Be there or be square.
♪ Monster, Monster Garage
- [Narrator] Day six, the team proudly follows Jesse
into the garage.
Yesterday's high prey still ringing in their ears.
- [Jesse] I think you guys are probably
one of the best crews we've had.
- [Narrator] Today should be a walk in the park.
But Jesse is going back to the drawing board.
Behold the fruit shaker,
another odd member of the Shaker family.
Jesse likes how the fruit shaker takes it one step further
and not only shakes,
but collects and conveys.
By the end of the day,
he'd like to see the fruit shaker's
umbrella conveyor belt contraption on his nut shaker,
and that's an order.
[horn blaring]
- Hail Odin, Pagan God of w*r.
- [Narrator] Jesse sounds the battle cry.
The team has to come up with a design and quick.
Ralph, the shaker pro sketches out the plan.
A canopy will surround the tree.
When the tree is shaken,
the nuts will be caught
and a conveyor belt will carry them into a bin.
- We might be able to use like a sail material,
maybe a tarp of some sort.
We need at least about a 14 foot diameter
to make a tarp for this canopy,
this wraparound assembly that we're gonna build.
- [Narrator] The team frantically searches for parts.
Ralph calls his shop.
Jesse puts himself to work.
He needs parts for his exhaust pipes.
- [Jesse] Hey.
[tools whirring]
The conveyor belt arrives first.
[coins clinking] [upbeat music]
[blow torch zapping]
- This is our conveyor belt.
This takes the nuts from the bottom of the nut sack
up into the the nut bin.
[upbeat music]
- [Narrator] The conveyor belt is hooked up and tested.
[engine revving]
- [Jesse] Yep, that's the right way,
and it's working.
- It works.
They put it in.
[upbeat music]
The first project of the last day done,
onto the catcher.
[upbeat music]
Haste makes waste.
The team's made a big mistake.
- Put too much heat on this thing
and now it's kind of galling and binding up
so we gotta take it apart.
[hammer banging]
- This would be it,
this is our low point.
It's a good thing we got a lot of stuff done
on the other days
because we knew something like this would come up.
- All right, go.
[parts clanging]
- That's one way to get off. - That's one way to get it off
There, it came off perfect.
- Once we get this back to its original form,
then just be a little more careful with welding
and try not to put so much heat on this.
- Get some grease in there so it won't gall up anymore.
- It looks like it's gonna work now.
Russ refitted the whole shaft and bushings
and we realigned the gear in the rack
and now it's nice and free again.
- [Narrator] Jesse surprises the team
with a new set of Toyo tires and all the rims.
- We got some 23's, these are cool.
Those will shake some nuts.
[upbeat music]
- [Commentator] Freebie, freebie, freebie.
Zip, zero, nada.
- It's gonna be bad.
- Let's put 'em on and start making some fenders.
[upbeat music]
These are awesome.
- [Narrator] Jesse's brought over his hand shaped fenders.
They need a little trimming.
[upbeat music]
Sometimes you gotta build something
to realize you don't want it.
- Does that look dumb or is that?
- [Narrator] Inspecting his work on the fenders,
Jesse's toughest critic is himself.
- Or no fenders.
Outlaw style.
Guess which way's the easiest?
- I know which way's the easiest.
[Jesse laughing]
- It'll look a million times better
doing a burnout with no fender.
- Yeah. - Because you get that smoke
that like follows the tire around.
[tire screeching]
What do you think? - It's cool.
- All right, that was easy.
[people laughing]
- [Narrator] Mike starts work on some diamond plate.
[upbeat music]
And gives the frame a facelift.
- Nice. - Hey Mike,
you're a hell of a man.
- And a bit of a woman.
[people laughing]
- [Ralph] All right, it's a blanket party,
everybody attack.
- [Narrator] The material for the catcher's canopy
has arrived.
An army surplus parachute.
With their challenge almost complete,
they start to get a little nutty.
- Oh, what a tangled we weave.
[people laughing]
[upbeat music]
- Our capes are done now. - Check these out.
- Oh, Elton John. [person laughing]
[upbeat music]
- [Narrator] Ralph puts in what he hopes is the last piece.
Sorry Ralph.
[upbeat music]
The team has managed to build their nut shaker
in record time.
They've met Jesse's challenges like a pro,
but they forgot one simple thing.
- Where are all the nuts gonna go?
- [Narrator] There's no place to put their nuts.
We need to make a bin.
- [Narrator] Russ takes care of that oversight.
[hammer banging]
- All right, set it up,
see what it looks like.
[upbeat music]
- That's the nut bin.
- Dude, that's gonna be one sweet nut bin.
- [Narrator] Dan gives it the finishing touch.
[upbeat music]
- The nut hatch.
Do you like that?
- Yeah, it's a contraption, I like it.
- Easy access to the nuts.
[upbeat music]
- [Narrator] Okay, they're done.
Jesse wants to see it work.
- Can go ahead and drop it down
and start moving it around. - Yeah.
- [Narrator] The closest nut orchard is 100 miles away,
so they grab the closest tree around.
[upbeat music]
- Clamp her down.
Clear.
- That darn thing has wings.
- Tear it up.
Give her hell.
[machine vibrating]
[people cheering] [upbeat music]
[shaker vibrating]
- I think back aside.
[shaker vibrating]
[upbeat music]
- That's awesome.
[upbeat music]
- Baby's ready to go to the walnut grove.
[upbeat music]
- [Narrator] This monster calls for a special paint job.
Tom Pruitt of Damon's House of Paints
knows exactly what it needs,
wood grain flames.
- What we're gonna do is we're laying down a dark base coat.
This will be the actual wood grain here,
the darker color of the grain.
- [Narrator] He'll use a technique
that spans three generations.
- We're gonna lay cheesecloth out here,
we're gonna pull it and stress it
to give it the effect of having a grain.
I'm gonna try to get a nice pattern going here,
similar to what natural wood would look like.
This wood grain process was developed by my grandfather
back in 1942,
he used to do it on the model A dashes,
and he passed down to my dad and he passed down to me.
So this is kind of a lost technique.
Probably hasn't been used for 40 or 50 years.
It's kind of an old family trick.
[gentle music]
Getting ready to mix up some
House Of Color dark teal pearl shimmer.
It'll turn from a very dark base
into a real nice teal color when the light hits it.
[upbeat music]
[upbeat music continues]
- [Narrator] "Monster Garage" factoid.
In World w*r II,
during the Battle of the Bulge,
US general Tony McAuliffe was sent an offer to surrender
by German command.
His one word reply, "Nuts."
♪ Monster, Monster Garage
[upbeat music]
- [The Big Swag] Welcome monster fans,
The Big Swag here awaiting the start
of another "Monster Garage" challenge.
Alongside me, my good friend Frankie Whiteside.
Frankie, where the hell are we?
- [Frankie] We're in the walnut capital of the world, Swag,
Tulare, California.
We're here to see Jesse James, Chris and his new monster.
- [The Big Swag] He calls it the nut shaker
and it's a beauty.
Look at that bark.
Now that's a nice paint job, Frank.
- [Frankie] Oh, it's bad.
Another Tom Pruitt masterpiece.
[upbeat music]
Check out the competition. - [The Big Swag] You got it.
Ernesto Zarate in the industrial strength tree shaker.
Jesse's got his work cut out for him on this one.
Give us the ground rules, Frank.
- [Frankie] It's a shell game.
One walnut orchard, two monster nut shakers
and six walnut trees of their choice to shake, rattle,
and then roll to the finish line.
[engine roaring]
- [The Big Swag] It's the monster stare down.
- [Frankie] Ernesto fires right back.
[door banging]
[engine roaring]
Jesse's put the hammer down,
but Ernesto is right there with him.
- [The Big Swag] He is pulling over five tons.
- [Frankie] And can hit over 30 miles an hour.
[upbeat music]
- [The Big Swag] Jesse's picked out his first tree.
- [Frankie] And so has Ernesto.
- [The Big Swag] Jesse has to back the nut shaker
into position.
[upbeat music]
- [Frankie] Ernesto's already shakin' and bakin'.
[upbeat music]
- [The Big Swag] Jesse's pulling out
his nut umbrella, Frank.
- [Frankie] That canopy has a 14 foot diameter.
- [The Big Swag] Big enough to catch all the nuts
outta one tree.
- [Frankie] 60 pounds, Swag.
One walnut tree's got 60 pounds of nuts
hanging from its branches. - That's a lot of nuts.
Check out the conveyor belt,
it's the stairway to nut heaven.
In you go boys.
[nuts clattering]
- [Frankie] Jesse's busting a move without breaking a sweat.
[upbeat music] [engine purring]
[upbeat music]
He's locked onto tree number two.
[upbeat music]
- [The Big Swag] The nut race is heating up.
[upbeat music]
[upbeat music continues]
- Number three. - He's hitting number four.
- [Frankie] Oh, there's number five.
- [The Big Swag] Number six, you gotta be kidding me.
- [Frankie] Ernesto, the mad shaker.
- [The Big Swag] Jesse, the master fabricator.
- Neck- - And neck.
And surprisingly Ernesto has kept pace.
It's gonna go down to the wire.
[upbeat music]
[nuts clattering]
And now the mad dash to the finish.
You gotta be kidding me.
It's neck and neck, Frank.
- [Frankie] A nut shaker drag race
in the middle of an orchard,
you just don't see that every day.
- [The Big Swag] Jesse breaks the tape
then hammers home the monster nut shaker.
- [Frankie] Ernesto follows close behind
and he raced with the heart of a lion.
[upbeat music]
- [The Big Swag] That's what it's all about, Frankie,
two tough men,
they shake nut trees then they shake hands.
It's all about respect.
- [Frankie] Way to go guys.
[engine purring]
- [The Big Swag] One for Jesse James.
There's now time for tree huggers, nutcrackers,
or six foot tall giant squirrels.
He's got metal to burn, sparks the fly
because the next "Monster Garage" challenge
is just around the bend.
[door whirring]
[upbeat music]
- Good job guys. - Thank you.
- It's alive, bro.
- Some tools, Mac tools.
You've got some CDs.
- This we'll do it different
so the editor has to work hard.
- [Editor] Not a problem, Jesse.
[upbeat music]
♪ Monster, Monster Garage
♪ Monster, Monster Garage
♪ Monster, Monster Garage
♪ Monster, Monster Garage
♪ Monster, Monster Garage
♪ Super cars
♪ Designers, welders, welders
♪ Custom made vehicles to custom made sauce ♪
[gentle music]
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02x07 - Nut Shaker
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A team of five people with mechanical, fabricating, or modifying expertise was assembled to modify a vehicle into a "monster machine."
A team of five people with mechanical, fabricating, or modifying expertise was assembled to modify a vehicle into a "monster machine."