Motor City Motors Episode 3

Motor City Motors Episode 3 Challenge: ‘Corn Harvester’. Turn a military truck into a corn picking & cooking machine.

Opening: All-in-one corn harvester & cooker. $5K in tools up for grabs if they complete the task on time….as always.

Hot dogs for breakfast for Jamie & Dave. Propane is gonna be used for cooking the corn in the bed of the truck. Dave wants Jamie to be the head guy on this job. Dave is taking it easy on this one to force Jamie to take the reigns.

Day One: Here comes the truck, 1969 Jeep 6 wheeler. Corn harvester is in the shop now, it’s huge. Ron is there to help with the harvester. Ron is a farmer who works 1100 acres. Seems like the right guy for this job.

Mike Loudermilk, Mitch, Dewey Santoro, Carlo (did I get that right?), are helping on the job.

First task, take apart the harvester for the parts they need.

Dave is working on a bike to try and stay out of the way. 4 hours later the harvester corn head is detached. They’re trying to move it, but it’s huge & heavy, so they’re trying to see how to move it.

The guys are arguing about how to move & attach the harvester head.

Jamie says the guys are ‘hard headed’. Wow, day one is already toast…that was fast and it doesn’t seem like much got done.

Commercial break. Looks like there might be some infighting on this job. What happens when you take 5 or 6 fabricators and choose an artist to lead them? Hmmm, doesn’t sound like a great idea.

Day Two: I’m trying to get last names in, kinda tough as I’m also typing. They just showed a car of Dewey’s, 1935 Mercedes I think, but I just got a glance, that could be wrong.

Jamie is an hour late….on his own build. Ouch. He came cruising in on a bicycle, asking the guys what they’re doing. Now he calls a meeting. He’s trying to take the lead again, but I doubt the guys have much faith in him as his leadership skills are weak to say the least.

The guys have been working on attaching the harvester to the truck, looks like they have it done now.

They’re showing some of the Detroit Bros bikes, they really are sick. I’ve seen comments talking about their bikes, some saying stupid things like “the bikes aren’t practical”. Practical isn’t why you buy a custom bike like theirs. If you want practical, get yourself a Yamaha Road Star. But, don’t expect to turn any heads either.

The guys got a little more work done today, but…whoops, Jamie is yelling at the guys to get back to work as they’re headed home. Uh oh, Jamie says he’s gonna head in 6 hours late tomorrow…to try to prove some sort of point I think. He’s totally taking the wrong approach.

He’s pretty stubborn and doesn’t even realize the problems are his fault. Jamie is not a good leader, doesn’t set a good example for the guys. In the blue collar world, a good leader shows up before everyone else, works harder than everyone else, and goes home after everyone else. That’s no knock on Jamie, it’s just not who he his. Creative, artistic types generally aren’t. It doesn’t mean he’s less of a man or a not a good guy, it means he’s the wrong guy to lead a group of guys like this, guys who are used to taking the lead in their own businesses who are being forced to follow someone who isn’t. Clearly Dave needs to jump back aboard before this job goes down the toilet.

Day Three: The guys are working on the conveyor that will bring the corn from the harvester head up the front of the truck into the back where it will be cooked.

Jamie left them on their own and the guys are doing things on their own. They’ve got a conveyor from a salt spreader on it’s way. This is a pretty big decision they’ve made on their own, we’ll see if any backlash from Jamie comes, if and when he ever shows up for work.

1:00, the salt spreader is in the warehouse now. Dave is starting to find out whats going on and asking some questions about the status of the build. Jamie is still awol.

Haha, Jamie thinks he’s teaching these guys a lesson about who the boss is…by not being there.

“Who the hell are these guys to be questioning me”? Jamie asks. Now he’s threatening them, will kick them off the build if they don’t follow his instructions.

The guys are updating Jamie on the changes they’re making. He seems ok with the changes. Guys are working, sparks flying. Things might be getting back on track.

2 days, 7 hours remaining. Testing the conveyor & hydraulic pump that powers it. Not working. Jamie is calling it a day.

Day Four: Two days left. Hydraulic lines reversed? They test it. Yep, that’s the problem, now it’s working. Now they’re getting it attached to the corn husker head. Working, but it’s too slow. They’re coming up with a plan to speed it up.

New motor and chain drive for the conveyor.

The guys aren’t happy with taking a working motor and trashing it for more speed. The guys have $5K in tools riding on it, and Jamie doesn’t care. As a fan site I hate to say this, but truthfully he’s coming off as a pretty selfish dude. I understand where Jamie is coming from, go big or go home. But, he also has these guys committing their week to this project and those guys have something on the line. IMO, he should be thinking about those guys more than he is.

Day Five, Final Day: Still working on the new motor for the conveyor, still haven’t heard them talk about the cookers. Dave and John (Dad) are riding bicycles around looking for something…not sure what.

Jamie is working on ‘teeth’, another thing that has nothing to do with making the machine work. It’s to make it look mean, but does nothing to help get the project done. What’s worse is that he has two of the guys helping him, further slowing down the build.

Now they’re finally working on the burners. Testing the new motor for the conveyor. Wow, that sucker is moving now! It’s fast. The front of the truck is done.

Burners are now installed and working. They only showed about 7 seconds of the rear getting built. It looks fairly simple, but still seems odd. All of a sudden the thing is all done & working. Jamie is making changes now and the guys aren’t real happy with that.

Commercial break. Dude, next weeks show looks like the best so far. They’re taking a little car and sticking inside a ‘hamster wheel’. It has two huge wheels on each side, with the car elevated in between them. Should be better than a pothole filler or a corn husker.

Final minutes: Back to the teeth that Jamie wants to put on. Since they have time, no big deal, might as well have some fun with it. The guys don’t like taking power away from the motor to move the teeth. Gonna fabricate an arm to power the teeth, to make it look mean when it’s running.

Teeth are done, it does look pretty cool, lol. The machine is ready for a horror film. I see bloody children running & screaming through fields in Nebraska.

The boys win a variety of tools, some nice ones. $5k value.

Jamie got the job done…who knew?

Gonna test the moster now, by going ot a local corn field. It’s working, and pretty funny actually. Corn is being cooked, not sure what anyone would do with this machine though. Haha, Jamie makes a call to Dave telling him the build was successful…”maybe we don’t need ya”.

Right.

See ya next week.

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