10-4 Magazine September 2022

12 10-4 Magazine / September 2022 that. The truck already had a 300” wheelbase, an Ultra Roof cab, and a 70” standup sleeper, but it needed a new drivetrain, an interior, and some other pieces. Wanting to do it right, Tyler found a recently wrecked 2007 Peterbilt 379 and bought it to be a donor truck to the 1995. Swapping out the drivetrain from the donor Peterbilt, the rig is now equipped with a deleted 770-hp Acer t Cat with a single turbo, a 13-speed, and 3.36 ratio rear ends. They also used the doors off the donor truck, as well as the entire interior, which is why this 1995 truck has a newer-style interior inside. Once the drivetrain and chassis were dialed in, the VDZ team went to work on the paint, spraying everything with a nice metallic maroon. Everything underneath was either repaired or replaced, and then the task of reassembly and the fabrication process began. Tyler has a local guy named Josh Borman of Borman Custom Steel Works in Rock Valley, IA do all his fabricating. This guy does amazing work and gets the job done fast. With a two-tone paint scheme featuring metallic maroon on the bottom and off-white on the top, the truck has double square headlights with shaved blinkers, LED headlights from J.W. Speaker, VDZ polished stainless steel mirror brackets, and lots of one-off pieces made by Josh, including the cab and sleeper drop panels with hidden lights, visor, painted custom box lids with billet step plates from Lifetime, a square bumper with mitered ends, and a painted smooth deck plate. The truck was also fitted with 8” Dynaflex pipes, Hogebuilt half-fenders mounted on new-style VDZ brackets (redesigned to be extra strong), an integrated rear light bar with a quilted stainless filler panel, and a steel “I-panel” between the fuel tanks with a quilted stainless inser t and hidden lights, also made by Josh. Covered with hidden and under-glow red lights, the rig also has custom engraved plastic lug nut covers made by Lifetime, chopped air cleaner screens, painted tanks with polished ends, stainless breather light panels (blanks with no lights), and a stainless filler panel in front of and between the rear fenders. The words “Spare Par ts” are written on the back of the sleeper, just above the stainless air line connection box, which is the name of the truck. Originally just a joke, because at first the truck was going to be built on a small budget, but since it ended up being pieced together from various trucks and using “spare par ts” from here and there, the team thought the name was still fitting. As mentioned before, the interior was completely gutted and replaced with the interior from the 2007 Peterbilt donor truck. But it wasn’t just swapped out, it was completely customized. Featuring a one-piece painted aluminum floor made by Josh and the VDZ crew, the cab also has custom glitter shift and brake valve knobs with the VDZ logo embedded in them (made by Twisted Shifterz), refaced white gauges done by NT Lites that now light up in red, custom painted dash panels, painted aluminum door panel inser ts and headliner panel, and a billet steering wheel from Forever Sharp. The soft vinyl dash pieces were all painted maroon (they accomplished this by adding a flexing agent to the paint). The final touches include Legacy Lo black leather seats, billet foot pedals, and custom billet door sills with the VDZ logo, made by Lifetime. The stereo is nothing fancy, but it is hooked to an amp and a pair of 12” sub woofers, which are mounted under the bed in the sleeper. Besides building the engine to have 770 available horses and 2,650-ft. lbs. of torque, not too much was done to the engine compar tment. However, the engine is painted maroon to match, and has some painted tubing, a stainless steel radiator/fan shroud, made by Josh, and a few tid-bits of chrome sprinkled here and there. I also noticed a pair of Hood Skinz, which are constructed of high-quality durable material that is designed to stretch and fit perfectly over the upper hood suppor ts and stop that annoying hood squeak. Tyler loves his, and says they really work – especially with his heavy fiberglass aftermarket hood, which came with the truck. After six months of hard work, the truck made its debut at the Wheel Jam Truck Show in Huron, SD in June 2021. I was at that show, and that is where I saw this truck for the first time. I was impressed, but when Tyler told me it was going to work the following week, I was skeptical (I have heard that before). However, this one actually did. Fixing up a 2014 Utility reefer trailer by painting the upper and lower rails and the reefer unit to match, polishing the wheels, and painting the tanks to match the truck (maroon with polished ends), it was all done in about a week. And once it was done, Tyler’s driver Trevor Coufal (28) of Oakland, NE, hooked the truck to it and headed west. Since then, he has run this combination every day, taking meat from the