05.05.25 (MP3): Hefty Fabulous Shop Raid w/ Chris Hefty - The State of Off-Road Bumpers & Custom Fab, Market Trends, Four-Wheelin' Customers, Neighbor Shops (Keeping Each Other Going), + Bridging the Gap Between Bolt-On & Custom Goodness
Hank Watson's Garage Hour - Cars, Trucks, Beers & Guns
Release Date: 07/21/2025
Hank Watson's Garage Hour - Cars, Trucks, Beers & Guns
Got some gifting goodies for the gearhead in your day (a little late, we know...) - tap in while Hostus Maximus Justin Fort and The Walkin' Dude get together in BFE for a night in the garage and a list of ideas for your last minute shopping. Most of these are pretty easy, too, so you really CAN do it today. Everything from tools (themed upfitting, anyone?), training (welding, driving or wiring?), preparedness (ready for your next disappearing act?), lighting (but not blinding!), gifts made in the U.S.A. (easier than you think!), chemicals (is it empty?), period-correct movies...
info_outlineHank Watson's Garage Hour - Cars, Trucks, Beers & Guns
Got some gifting goodies for the gearhead in your day (a little late, we know...) - tap in while Hostus Maximus Justin Fort and The Walkin' Dude get together in BFE for a night in the garage and a list of ideas for your last minute shopping. Most of these are pretty easy, too, so you really CAN do it today. Everything from tools (themed upfitting, anyone?), training (welding, driving or wiring?), preparedness (ready for your next disappearing act?), lighting (but not blinding!), gifts made in the U.S.A. (easier than you think!), chemicals (is it empty?), period-correct movies...
info_outlineHank Watson's Garage Hour - Cars, Trucks, Beers & Guns
Wellllll... Don't blame we - holidays came quick this year and nothing's getting done beyond Christmas trees and gifts for Mom. There's a high-q Garage Hour for you right here, though (found time between wrapping and trimming), with a sleigh load of gearhead goodness. Subaru's trying to extra-distract you while driving by piping ads through the silly screen in the dash, Jaguar's trying to save itself from the 95% fail of their woketarded rainbow-sprocket rebrand by firing the guy who green-lighted it, the Trump administration is trying to save Americans from terrible and...
info_outlineHank Watson's Garage Hour - Cars, Trucks, Beers & Guns
Wellllll... Don't blame we - holidays came quick this year and nothing's getting done beyond Christmas trees and gifts for Mom. There's a high-q Garage Hour for you right here, though (found time between wrapping and trimming), with a sleigh load of gearhead goodness. Subaru's trying to extra-distract you while driving by piping ads through the silly screen in the dash, Jaguar's trying to save itself from the 95% fail of their woketarded rainbow-sprocket rebrand by firing the guy who green-lighted it, the Trump administration is trying to save Americans from terrible and...
info_outlineHank Watson's Garage Hour - Cars, Trucks, Beers & Guns
Some shows are just a pile of shiny stuff passing over the electrodes in the hosts' brains, and this one's some of that: a rant about how much damage your pressure washer is causing (your cars and your homes), the things living in the woods and what you're doing to be prepared for them (bears in Japan, more bears in Europe, wolves in Colorado, and rioters in your front yard), Vanagons, Synchros, Dude Food, the lethal levels of fail in statist electric car manufacturing and ownership (and the lethal levels of stupid in their owners' brains), and some pretty-far-into-the-Dead-Guy-ales history of...
info_outlineHank Watson's Garage Hour - Cars, Trucks, Beers & Guns
Some shows are just a pile of shiny stuff passing over the electrodes in the hosts' brains, and this one's some of that: a rant about how much damage your pressure washer is causing (your cars and your homes), the things living in the woods and what you're doing to be prepared for them (bears in Japan, more bears in Europe, wolves in Colorado, and rioters in your front yard), Vanagons, Synchros, Dude Food, the lethal levels of fail in statist electric car manufacturing and ownership (and the lethal levels of stupid in their owners' brains), and some pretty-far-into-the-Dead-Guy-ales history of...
info_outlineHank Watson's Garage Hour - Cars, Trucks, Beers & Guns
How about a high-Q blowout from Other Ryan's garage, where the ongoing parade of attempts to get a junkyard manifold to align with a junkyard 5.9 (hey, $400 with a set of equal-lengths can't be all bad) turns into a great piece of show. From tales of how the usually dependable 5.9 lump could go from power to just POW, Freiburger's motorhomes and Péwé's Jeeps, professional drivers and drifters, and tanks buried all over Europe, to Nayr Zedlav and Nutsij Trof's thoughts on getting the dissimilar surfaces in an engine to mate up... You'll probably learn something - sorry about that....
info_outlineHank Watson's Garage Hour - Cars, Trucks, Beers & Guns
How about a high-Q blowout from Other Ryan's garage, where the ongoing parade of attempts to get a junkyard manifold to align with a junkyard 5.9 (hey, $400 with a set of equal-lengths can't be all bad) turns into a great piece of show. From tales of how the usually dependable 5.9 lump could go from power to just POW, Freiburger's motorhomes and Péwé's Jeeps, professional drivers and drifters, and tanks buried all over Europe, to Nayr Zedlav and Nutsij Trof's thoughts on getting the dissimilar surfaces in an engine to mate up.. You'll probably learn something - sorry about that. ...
info_outlineHank Watson's Garage Hour - Cars, Trucks, Beers & Guns
Between so many interruptions - the politicking and the Chinese food, phone calls from friends and parts percolating in the garadtch - White Mark the Diversity Hire and Hostus Maximus Justin Fort were lucky to get through this one at all. What's in it? Skyrocketing values of old 911s and the cost of our buddy the Doc's new pistachio GT2; strange new clunks in the new Grenader; comfortable old clunks in a 300K 4Runner. Then it's all about the sauce: the Real Dill's Bloody Mary mix, Pizza Port's Chronic Amber Ale, Stone Brewing in Pt. Loma, and the return of Gilark Bourbon with...
info_outlineHank Watson's Garage Hour - Cars, Trucks, Beers & Guns
Between so many interruptions - the politicking and the Chinese food, phone calls from friends and parts percolating in the garadtch - White Mark the Diversity Hire and Hostus Maximus Justin Fort were lucky to get through this one at all. What's in it? Skyrocketing values of old 911s and the cost of our buddy the Doc's new pistachio GT2; strange new clunks in the new Grenader; comfortable old clunks in a 300K 4Runner. Then it's all about the sauce: the Real Dill's Bloody Mary mix, Pizza Port's Chronic Amber Ale, Stone Brewing in Pt. Loma, and the return of Gilark Bourbon with...
info_outlineThe Garage Hour does good interviews (whether or not Hostus Maximus Justin Fort is any good at interviews), and we did a semi-sneak beer attack on Chris Hefty at the eponymously named Hefty Fab last month. Unfortunately, with the hillclimb and about a gajillion client to-dos on the front burner, we're a little late with the upload. Sort'a sorry! No matter: it's worth the wait - we puzzle out the doin's of keeping a serious shop going when times get tight (as our hero Hunter S. once opined, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."). Chris details the art of shifting the lift when retail production took a hit post-Scamdemic, the intense and varied demands of the "Please make my truck work" customer, and what it takes to chase the market when the market takes a left turn at Albuquerque.

Because it's the Garage Hour, we've got more: bicyclists who just don't get it, whether cleaning soap is a procedural singularity, Nate's efforts to reinvent the Brady Bunch, how you can ruin a good message with too much creativity, the Hefty Internet Café, and dropping $40Gs for serious parts that don't get serious use. There's also shock rebuilds, F-150s, Cherokees, an F-350, 80-Serieses in a big pile, Miatas versus S2Ks, and of course, 4Runners.