CUSTOM RIGS’ TECH TIPS
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NEW MIG GUNS FOR CUSTOM JOBS
Tregaskiss MIG guns meet demands of light- to heavy-duty applications

Options available for light- to heavy-duty applications
Complimentary value-added feature
180- to 650-amp models available
Air-cooled and water-cooled versions

WINDSOR, Ontario. May 20, 2010—To meet the demands of welding applications ranging from light- to heavy-duty, Tregaskiss offers two brands: TOUGH GUN™ MIG Guns and TGX™ [...]

The Chrome Shop Mafia is notorious for converting big rigs with millions of miles under their wheels into head-turning show-stoppers. Their big rig artistry is evident across the country and well documented in both print and video. Freightliner, on the other hand, is well known for its forward thinking designs and innovations. The company was looking for a way to turn the spotlight on their Cascadias and Coronados. Now here’s a perfect match….

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Do-It-Yourself

Custom KW Door Window Trim
Give your Kenworth’s cab the chopped look by adding upper window trim panels
A popular customizing trend  among KW owners is adding a painted trim piece to the top of the door window frame to give  the cab a chopped look.

The trim fits along the door lip at the top [...]

Winter’s fast approaching, so now might be time to think about starting work on your rig’s interior. Few custom upgrades give as much of a mental and physical uplift to the owner-operator than a cab interior make-over. When one spends the majority of their workday inside a cab those surroundings have a lot to do with the occupant’s state of mind and physical well-being. Here’re a few inside secrets…

Every new custom rig brings somgats2009bsmith_134ething special to the customizing table. Take interiors, for example. If you didn’t make it to GATS, or somehow missed looking inside the cabs of some of the first-time entrants, you really missed seeing some great craftsmanship.

There are several methods for installing a hardwood floor in a custom rig, among them going all do-it-yourself with products from a home improvement store. But more than likely you’ll start with a kit and either have a customizing shop put it in for you or do the work yourself.

Installing aluminum diamond-plate flooring brightens up the cab of any custom rig

By Bruce W. Smith
Ten years and a million miles do a wear-and-tear number on just about anything in a working rig. Just look down by your feet. The floor covering, which was once pristine, probably looks as if half those miles were driven over [...]

The wall around my desk is beginning to look like a travel agency. I have itineraries for events lined up across it and little Post-It notes attached to every one.
April 23rd finds me flying down to Orlando and then driving on south to be at our Overdrive’s Pride & Polish  event at Chrome Shop 75 in Wildwood, [...]

A couple times every year our research department sends out surveys to readers in an effort to help us editors figure out who’s reading our magazines. When I first came on-board back in October they came to me and said it was time to find out who was reading Custom Rigs.
So we sat down and [...]

HEADLIGHT LOW DOWN
I saw a 379 Pete [“Kwitcherbitchin,” March ’08] with the headlights mounted in the bumper. How were the holes laid out, cut, and the lights mounted? The low-mount headlights look like they’d be great in fog and rain driving instead of mounting fog/driving lights. —Ed Smith, Eugene, Oregon
Ed, what we do in our [...]

The latest creation from Outlaw Customs shows gangsta-style look gaining momentum
You gotta luv it! My buddy Andy Gobel at Outlaw Customs just sent me the first pictures of a Pete they’ve been conspiring on for the past couple months called the “Vigilante.” Various manufactures and custom shops pitched in to help with the paint and interior, but [...]

truck beauty show contestsants are probably the hardest working bunch of anyone attending MATS

It takes a lot more creativity to make a rig look super cool by minimizing than it does bolting on every chrome accessory known to man.

Somebody’s gotta
know the low down on whats goin on!

Several of my truck customizing friends have contacted me about the upcoming Mid-America Truck Show (MATS) in Louisville, Kentucky.

In a way customizing, in and of itself, is therapeutic.

In a way customizing, in and of itself, is therapeutic.

Who says fleets and big corporations don’t think much about customizing their rigs? We spotted this Continental Tire company LoneStar awaiting its turn to roll in to the Chrome Shop Mafia’s customizing shop in Joplin, Missouri.
CSM is a little tight-lipped about the mods, but one insider said “this rig’s gonna look mighty fine when we [...]