- My name is Brian Rainey,
and I drive a 2012 RAM 2500 Cummins,
and this my episode of "The Builder".
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♪ Attention, attention ♪
♪ I got some things I wanna mention ♪
♪ You listenin' ♪
♪ Fact check yeah ♪
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My current setup of my truck is,
it's an eight inch, McGaughy's premium long arm kit.
With a Top Gun Customz leveling kit stacked on the front.
Which we don't recommend doing but if you do your research
you can figure it out on your own.
It's also got 24 x 14 ARKON Triumph Chrome wheels
wrapped in 40 x 15 and a half Fury MTs.
I also have Flight Fab trac bars, Flight Fab tow hooks.
I have Black Label Lighting rock light kit.
I have Morimoto headlights and,
RetroShop LLC 5Th Gen conversion,
with the conversion harness,
thanks to the girlfriend 'cause it was expensive,
as well as a Gen Y edge.
And that's pretty much all that my truck has.
It's pretty basic, 'cause I'm poor.
Dad sent me your credit card.
What got me into building would be Lifted Truck Nationals,
'cause I didn't have my truck last year when that happened.
As well as Daytona Truck show
was somewhat with me on that one.
And we went two years ago and then last year.
And when you go out on the beach
and see all those big trucks,
and all the big trucks at the show,
and you just kind of like get drawn into it.
I mean, some of those trucks cost as much as a house.
Just all the crazy colors, the powder coat,
the big wheels, the big lifts, the crazy wrap jobs.
You name it, it's been done or it's gonna be done,
or someone's looking into doing it.
So that really like influenced me to try
and build stuff I liked,
which was like the bigger show trucks.
The ones that are running 40s and 26s and stuff like that.
What do I enjoy most about building trucks?
To start with, my truck got redone twice.
The first time Offsets Garage, built it at our shop at work.
We just threw in the eight inch Mcgaughys lift kit,
and then put the wheel and tyres on.
As well as I do like small stuff, like the headlights,
and stuff in my shop.
And then this last winter I tore it apart,
down to basically a cab and a bed on a frame.
Pulled all the axles out all the suspension
powder coated it all.
So watching it go from like a stock height truck,
to lifted, and then taking it all back apart
after all that work just got done.
And then running parts all over the state
and waiting for parts coming from all over the country.
Just watching the change and everyone's like,
"Well, it's just a color change."
But you look at the truck, it looks totally different.
You know it is my favorite part, is watching a truck go
from stock to everyone asking how you can drive it
down the highway every day.
Do I have anyone that influences me or helps me?
Yeah.
Obviously the big Instagram models like, you know,
High Roller on 30s, I'll Teach You How to Skate.
Big throwback Joe Rubio's truck,
as well as a couple local bodies
like Mitchell White's 3rd Gen,
Michael Mays 4th Gen from Florida.
Just, I like really clean trucks,
like they're clean and simple,
they're not like super over the top.
They might be bigger but they're not like
crazy wrap, crazy, crazy, colors.
Just clean and simple,
and can't really be too clean with a simple truck.
That's my big thing.
So obviously building a big truck like this,
I'm not big enough to do it all by myself,
so I've had a lot of help.
So the first iteration that we did,
when we just threw the kit in
before we got everything all powder coated,
Cody Banker, and Brent Buebolts, at work,
helped you know, build my whole truck
'cause I had never built a truck, I built a lot of cars.
And they did a great job and they had quite a few setbacks
just due to the size and how you actually
like drilling through these frames
is not fun for the Radius Arm Brackets.
But you know, they hammered it out,
and really grinded through it.
And I tried to help as much as possible,
with you know mainly it was holding a flashlight
or hand and data tool.
So it wasn't was too bad but the second go around
when I pulled everything apart,
I spent a whole week tearing
the whole truck apart, by myself.
And it took seven to eight weeks to everything powder coated
and I had a buddy James,
pretty much cart me all over the state
'cause I don't have another truck to haul
I have my other truck with it.
So we took his truck and ran out of Milwaukee
ran up to New London, dropped everything off
for powder coat over the course of eight weeks.
Got all the axles powder coated the arms, the everything.
And by the time we got to back it was summer.
So we sat and drank while we looked at all the cool parts,
and admired how beautiful they looked.
And the next day I called my buddy Cody Harris up
as well as Mitchell and James come out and help
throw my truck back together
with whether it was pressing in ball joints,
U joints, grabbing a leaf spring,
or trying to jack the axle up at the same time.
Which is not very easy, I will say that well
'cause I did it on the ground so that didn't help.
But, it was nice having like a bunch of group of friends
come together and drink beers,
and throw a whole truck together in pretty much two days.
And it went from a truck that's all on jack stands
for six months to going down the road by Sunday afternoon,
which was pretty cool.
So where my passion started actually it wasn't with trucks.
It was actually with old classic vehicles.
I drove '76 C10 stepside, and then I had a '62 Impala,
that never hit the streets unfortunately.
And right out of high school I traded my buddy my Crown Vic,
for his 1986, I believe 535i BMW.
Lowered it, put a BBs wheels on it,
and kind of just enjoyed it for what it was.
They're not fast, they're not powerful,
but it was a cool class of BMW,
you don't see 'em around a lot.
And then to fast forward I sold that,
and I didn't have a cool car for quite a while,
so I just like went to shows buddies.
And then I believe 2015, 2014,
I had a '96 Honda Civic that I modified.
I lowered it, put a stereo in it.
Lip, Si Wing, New Gen SII bumpers, pretty simple.
I mean, it was a daily driver so I didn't go crazy,
and it was stock motor.
After that I started getting into S-Chassis, like S13, S14s,
which was a lot of fun,
like I liked watching drifting and stuff.
I do not like working on them or anything like that,
with the S-Chassis.
And then fast forward again,
I bought a 2001 Ford F-250 73,
that I didn't do anything other than
paint some parts black, but I enjoyed it.
I loved having that truck that you could pull anything
you want with and hanging out with my all my buddies
that have trucks at truck shows.
Sold that, bought a Lexus, cue the B-roll right here.
It was red, it was white,
well It started out stock bodied on air.
And I'm not an air ride fan per say,
so I took the air ride out, sold it bought BC Extreme Drops.
Found out really fast that you can't go
from a bag lip flip car to (laughs),
static, it just doesn't work.
So I bought a wide body kit, wrapped the whole car yellow.
And that wasn't my first time wrapping a car,
first time going that crazy with a wide body, or that low.
And just made it work.
And I actually had a kid come to my shop
that I was doing work in his car, and he asked to buy it.
So I sold it to him, turned around like three days later
and bought an S13 that I bought
from a good friend of my car club.
And then I swapped out the coilovers,
and put on Work T7Rs.
And enjoyed it for as much as it would run,
which was not much.
But other than that I started getting into trucks
like four or five years ago.
And couldn't afford it,
and I sold all my fun little stance cars,
and realized building a trucks expensive
but not like it was doing the Lexus,
so it actually wasn't too bad.
So for sponsors I have McGaughy's, hooked it up
with a eight inch premium long arm kit.
Which includes you know, the springs, the shocks,
the Radius Arm Brackets, new radius arms, with heim joints.
It comes with everything you need to lift the truck.
Worked out really great, have zero complaints.
Midsouth LED hooked me up with my Morimoto XB headlights
at a discount which is nice,
'cause they're expensive headlights.
Trying to get one through Flight Fab Miles
don't love me enough.
So hook it up Miles, I know you watch these.
As well as ARKON OFF-ROAD, which is our wheel company.
I wanted a set of these really bad,
'cause they're clean and simple.
I'm not really a big fan of directional wheels
or concave for the 24s.
So I hit up Junior and Jeremy from ARKON,
and they hooked it up with
24 x 14-81 ARKON Triumphs in Chrome,
which I love.
I also have rock lights sponsored through
Black Label Lighting, who we have on our website
for my 20 piece rock light kit which is great.
I got mine in all white, you can get them in every color.
I just like how clean the white is
on my illusion purple suspension.
And lastly but not least, the general hitch on the back.
Need it for towing, getting in and out of the truck.
I've actually gotten quite a few cars out of snow
with them down the road from my shop before.
So I have no complaints of that either.
Until the golf cart (laughs).
So I want one of those, want the limited really bad
in Delmonico Red, so if you have one for sale,
and you wanna to trade for a Ford Gen
that's built up, let me know.
Other than that, if I keep this I plan on
getting a Fore Link for the front and rear.
And I'm torn on either going air ride,
or doing coilovers, and going taller.
And probably gonna do 26x16s, or 28x16s.
Other than that, and probably wrap it.
I like my grade but I have some flaws,
so I'm gonna probably re-wrap it,
and put my new bumpers on.
Other than that, the stereo that's my only real gripe
is I have an SD stereo so it's not that great.
So I wanna put a stereo on it really bad,
for like music, hook your boy up.
I'm talking to you Wet Sounds, (laughs).
What was one of my biggest setbacks for the build?
Parts are expensive so I had ball joints go out.
You have to press 'em out and powder coat
the axles which is fine.
But with my truck having as many miles
as it does I can only imagine how many sets
of ball joints are pressed in and out,
So I had to buy super expensive ball joints.
They're permanent, they permanently alter the axle.
That was about $1,000 I did all my U-joints.
Found one that bound up so I was like,
"We'll just do all new ones."
That was more than I'd like to admit in new joints,
I got a one-piece aluminum driveshaft
just 'cause the center support bearing
just didn't seem to like the lift.
And time, the big thing was time,
I've had a hard time finding powder coaters
that either the price is right,
or their turnaround time was decent enough,
or having powder coat issues.
I ran into all three.
I did find a shop though that I'm very trusted in now,
and I think they do great work.
They did my axles, they did a couple other parts,
and they turned out flawless.
And it was one of those I dropped them off,
and he told me a week later come get them.
And yeah, other than the money's a big one,
and then just time,
it takes a lot of time to do stuff like this.
Patience is a virtue, and I don't have a lot of patience.
So what do my friends and family think about my truck?
Obviously, most of my friends are either working
at Custom Offsets, or are friends of people
who work at Custom Offsets, or are into cars and trucks,
or motorcycles or whatever that has a motor.
Majority of my friends love it.
Some of them think it's stupid just because it's big,
but you know, it's nice being able to pile sick people
in the truck and go down the highway
without it like rubbing or any issues.
So a lot of 'em like it, a lot 'em think it looks cool.
A lot of 'em don't want to drive it
or own it because it is so big.
It's long, it's tall, it's wide.
And it gets terrible fuel economy, but most of them like it.
My mom thinks it's stupid.
She thought it was stupid when I bought it
when it was lowered.
She thinks it's even dumber now, my sister loves it.
Yeah, I don't wanna show my grandma
'cause I don't think she'll like it, (laughs),
she's also five foot two, (laughs).
Am I part of any clubs or groups?
Not really truck related.
But back when I had my Lexus and my 240,
I got invited into VIOLENT Clique,
which basically it's really the cars and trucks really
aren't the big thing that brought us all together.
I mean, it was but it's not like what made us a family.
It was you know, like the mentality you have
at a car and truck shows.
We all go to the bars and like we're
from all over the world.
So like when you all get together,
you get a little crazy.
It's like when your whole family gets together
it's a mess, but it's you know,
someone's car breaks down you know,
you're gonna help him, you know stuff like that.
We just have each other's back
and being there for each other,
whether it's mentally, physically, financially.
I mean, everyone needs a helping hand every once a while
so VIOLENT Clique was definitely like,
one of my favorites to get into.
And they've really shown that like
family's family, through and through.
Other than that for just truck related groups, I am not.
Where did I learn to build and turn wrenches?
Essentially, it's one of those that you take it apart,
and if it doesn't go back together, YouTube it,
or ask someone to help, was my biggest one.
Mainly was asking my buddy Mitchell and Banker,
and Brent, you know, 'cause they've built tons of trucks.
And Mitchell's got pretty much the same truck as me,
just a generation older.
Just asking a couple buddies if it couldn't get it
other than that it was learning on my own, you know.
I took it apart once and I was smart.
I labeled every bag I took off,
which was the first time I've ever done it.
'Cause if this falls apart going down the highway
versus one my stance cars,
it's like a 20 inch drop to the concrete.
So I labelled every bag, threw it on my shelf.
And once it came time to put it back together,
there was an extra bolt in that bag.
Something wasn't put back together, right.
So you just take a step back, you know,
look at it and go, "Oh, goes right here."
Other than that, it's actually straightforward
as you can get because Booby did all the hard work
for me the first go around, (laughs) sucker.
Thanks for watching my builder episode
of my 2012 Ram 2500, bye!
(wheels scratching)
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