the ROAD to SEMA

A huge treat for us this year at SEMA is working side by side with one of our customers - Jonn Farr - rebuilding one of the coolest mini trucks of the 90's. Some of you may remember this truck as the Ramster or some will remember it as the Pushster.  Either way you remember it. The truck was built long ago by Todd Wilt and then stuck away in Warsaw Indiana to die. Jonn was always a huge fan of this truck and got an opportunity to purchase this truck and jumped on it.  After the purchase Jonn contacted Donnie and came up with a game plan to get the truck to debut at SEMA.

After several weeks of intense planning Donnie got on the phone and started contacting SEMA participating manufactures that would place the truck in the show.  It only took a few phone calls and our good friends at Air Zenith Air Compressors agreed that this truck would represent their product perfectly. Make sure to show them some love by visiting www.air-zenith.com.  After Air Zenith agreed to place the truck it was off to the races for the next 6 weeks for a complete face lift of the project.  We have set up an entire web site for the truck at www.project6pack.com. Make sure to join as a friend and follow this project thoughout the 2010 Show Season..

The rest of this article will show you what it takes to get a truck to this level in just a matter of weeks. Follow along as we show you the road to SEMA 2009. -DB

Jonn Farr's 1980 Dodge D-50 appeared on cover of Minitruckin Magazine April 2000 as the Ramster.. Time for a modern Face Lift.

Jonn bought the truck in non running half motor converted condition in 2007. On the way home the truck tried to commit suicide and jumped off the trailer, ruining his day.  A lot of sheet metal was mangled but nobody got hurt and no the truck wasn’t insured

Jonn got it off the trailer in to the garage and started to look at the damage the accident caused.  An old hot rod buddy Bobby Leak started coming over and helped him rescue it in the garage.  The motor a 1996 LT1 seemed good but the never finished motor conversion needed finished.  After looking at the work that was done he decided to cut the frame at the doors and start over

Jonn made a lot of calls and asked a lot of questions, and ended up with a Mustang II front end with tubular upper and lower A-Arms. he also ordered a rear steer unit from a 4X4 so he could have reliable right hand drive rack and pinion. They pied the cross member to clear the oil pan and Derrick Leaf, Dave Elza and Jonn made rigid motor mounts and cleaned up the rest of the front end

The Guys  8 linked the back end, double notched the frame to lay out on 20’s and plated the sides of the frame.  They  also filled all the excess holes and blended the frame, mounted the fuel cell built the bag bridge and welded on all the shock tabs.

With the frame pretty much done they turned to the body.  They cut out all the old work and original firewall and started from scratch.  Then fabbed it up and made a new cowl with enough room to squeeze out the distributor if necessary.

While fabbin in the new firewall they made room for the Kugel reverse mount master cylinder.  It uses a stock 1980’s corvette master cylinder and boy are they gangster! The brackets and hardware were all modified to make it work with the right hand drive.

The frame had been z’d earlier and a stock floor body drop had already been done, but the damn thing wouldn’t lay out so….. they stocked floored it to get the last inch we needed we stuffed the old hollow frame rails with 3/8 wall and plug welded it to make sure it was good and strong.  They also made new body mounts and a bolt in trans cross member