- You ever do uncomfortable things to make stuff fit?
Now, you guys know what I'm talking about here, right?
You're like there, you're holding a couch,
trying to fit it
through the door of like your first apartment
and you absolutely refuse to take the legs off of it because
that would take like an additional five minutes
and then you'd have to find a screwdriver and, you know,
you don't like to be wrong so you just like finagle it
until you absolutely decimate the $14 white door
that's now worth like $400
because wood prices are insane in 2021.
You get it eventually and, you know,
your mind is out of the gutter,
but really if you would've just done it right,
we wouldn't be mad about
our security deposit getting revoked
because it's like all of a month's worth of rent,
and that really sucks.
I'm Dustin, dusti.co on Instagram, if that's your fancy,
and today we're talking about just that whole concept,
but for wheels.
We're talking about how to chop up your truck the right way,
the suit and tie way,
the full on return security deposit way,
and dare I say, the Custom Offsets way.
Now, if you're new to the channel, then hi, hello.
Don't forget to subscribe.
And if you're looking for wheels, or tires, or suspension,
be sure to check us out over at customsoffsets.com.
We've got tons of stock on things
like ARKON OFF-ROAD, TIS, Fuel,
Venom Power, Nitto, and more that you can get to your door
in 10 days or less, which we love,
but we're probably a little bit biased.
Also, drop a comment down below,
and what do you want us to talk about next?
And while you're learning about things like the NorCal mod,
stay all the way through the end
so we can not just tell you how to do it,
but how to do it the right way.
Jumping into the typical approach of a NorCal
for your truck, let's get started, right?
The first thing you're gonna want to do,
you're gonna want to get the truck off the ground.
Whether you have like a lift, if you're fancy,
or if you just have jack stands
and your do it in your driveway,
you know, it doesn't really matter,
but the more appropriate clearance
you have on the underside of your wheel wells,
the better you can be.
You just wanna be able to get in there
and get at all of that stuff as efficiently as possible.
Now, depending on the truck,
it's going to be a little bit different here, right?
Some are gonna have caps that you're gonna remove, or,
you know, some are gonna have like little trim pieces
that you pop off, but either way,
you're gonna want to get that out of the way.
And after you've done so,
you've gotta pull the fender liner out.
Again, this is gonna vary, right?
Things like the 16-18 Silverado are gonna run
a T25 Torx bit, you know,
but other trucks have smaller sizes,
or like my Cateye, for example, has one screw
and then a bunch of those little plastic poppit tabs
that always seem to break no matter what you do,
and they just (inhales loudly) (beep).
Now, you don't have to remove the entire wheel liner, right?
But typically if you're a rookie,
you're gonna want to pull all of that out
because it's gonna give you the most space
to play around in there.
If not, right, you can always use like a bungee cord
and just tie it back to the coil spring
or some other part of the suspension and, you know,
pull half the liner back so you can get in there and work.
But again, it's really up to you guys.
Now, all NorCal mods are trying to accomplish
the same basic principle, right?
The ability to increase the total area
that you can turn your wheel when you look at it vertically.
As the tire turns,
what gets in the way is the actual body of the truck.
So the most common rubbing point is
the bottom most portion of the wheel well
on the front of the cab.
If you can push that back,
you allow the wheel more space to turn.
You know, in certain General Motors trucks,
like the 16-18 Silverado,
you're gonna have a pinch weld, right?
You separate the pinch weld, remove it
and then bang the living out of the metal
with a big fucking hammer and roll it back.
Now, the key here is that you focus on the inside point
and work your way out towards the front.
Now, in some other trucks,
you don't need to cut all the way forward
and on some you do.
What you're gonna wanna do here is take a Sharpie, right,
and mark that cut line so that way you'll know
where you're actually cutting
before you do it with a saw because, you know,
measure twice, cut once, kind of thing.
And then make sure that it comes in underneath the truck
so you don't see the cut
when you put all of that back together.
Then, grab your cutting tool of choice and just lop it off.
After you've made the cut,
you're gonna be able to bend the metal back
to give the wheel greater clearance, again,
you wanna start from the inside out.
Now, again, there's typically a second cut
that's gonna occur vertically, right,
to cut out the portion that sticks out in the front.
Once the cutting is finished,
you're gonna wanna take a grinder, right,
clean up the edges,
make sure there's not any burrs or anything like that.
And then, paint the cut
with some sort of black undercoating to prevent any rust
if you're up here in the north,
and then get that bottom fender bolt back up
to sandwich your horizontal metal
and your vertical cut together, and then grab a big hammer
and start gently tapping the bottom of the fender up
to bend the metal inwards.
Again, gently, don't beat the snot out of it here.
Again, a little bit of paint with a rubberized undercoating,
throw the fender liner back in, put your caps back in place
if you had 'em, and you are good to go.
Congratulations, you've done a NorCal.
Know that when you put that fender liner back in,
you may have to do a little cutting and/or bending,
and that almost always that last bolt
that keeps things tight is gonna be a self-tapper.
Then, you just whoo, in it goes.
And just like that, you're done.
But there's a lot more to a NorCal, right?
See, when you do a NorCal mod,
you're allowing the outward most part of the tire,
typically the shoulder block, or that big little side lug,
to clear a greater area than before.
Now, one thing to keep in mind here is that
each platform is different,
even the generations within each of the big three, right?
Chevy, Ram and Ford.
Chevy is notorious for square wheel wells
What actually makes these wheel wells difficult
is the inner structural integrity of
the (beep) damn square wheel well to begin with, right?
Like it's just, they're built heavy
and it's cool 'cause they don't bend,
but also they take a lot to like cut it
and fold it and stuff. (sighs loudly)
Now, Fords that are 2015 and above
are gonna require cutting portions of the front crash bar
to make your bigger wheels and tires up front fit.
That scares a lot of people.
But if you've got poking wheels and tires
then a crash bar is really probably not the biggest thing
in your priority list anyway, right?
The lawyers require me to say that
we do not condone this per the regulations, okay?
We can't tell you to do it.
But, anyway, Ram on the other hand is bare bones,
their fender liners screw to the edge,
which makes them perfect for a NorCal
and makes it a lot easier to do.
The problem here is that not only is it easy to do,
but it's easy to see.
Now, no matter which platform you have,
the number one way people mess up their NorCal mod is
rushing the entire thing.
If you wanna have a good NorCal mod
that actually looks good and,
you know, is not like a third grade cutout snowflake
with the little plastic scissors,
you have to take your time.
It's a fabricator-style mod, if you would, right?
You can do it in 30 minutes or you can do it in three days.
As you're cutting things up and test fitting your wheels
and tires, you'll find opportunities to do things right
and to do things easy.
Heating the plastic liners, for example,
to mold them to the new shape
will 110% make your NorCal mod look better,
but heating and bending plastic takes a lot of time
and a lot of patience
and when you gotta do it on both sides,
people tend to just get impatient.
When you cut relief lines for the brake lines and such,
it's gonna help ensure that the liner fits comfortably
and it looks proper.
But again, if you wanna do it fast,
you can just cut into it without grinding it down
and it's gonna look like a ten-year-old,
again, grabbed the scissors.
Not a big deal until
you put some Black Label Lighting rock lights in there
at night to show your art class style wheel wells.
Remember to do the front and the back,
depending on the severity of the wheels.
Anything can fit, right?
But doing it right can be seriously tedious work
and no one really likes it.
Most of the (beep) NorCal mods come from people
rushing to fit their wheels and tires
for a show the same weekend and then
they ultimately ended up ruining their entire truck.
Undercoat, mold the wheel liners,
spend some time using the right hardware,
and take your time with measuring because
you'll have to do both sides of the truck either way.
The old trucks are easy, less is in there to make a mess,
but as trucks continue to get more complex and more fancy,
there's a growing amount of (beep)
that hides in those little crevices that needs to be removed
and/or cut or relocated and out of the way, right?
Just be ready, be patient and above all else,
it's going to be okay.
And when you do decide to pick up wheels and tires,
don't forget to snag them from customoffsets.com
and get the tires packaged, right?
That's mounted, balanced, and shipped to your door for free
so you can avoid the judgment at the local tire shop.
Let us know what you wanna see from us next,
I'm Dustin with Custom Offsets, adios.
(upbeat music)