COVER FEATURE - APRIL 2010
OVERSIZED HOT ROD
OREGON TRUCKER/FARMER BUILDS COOL PETE
By Daniel J. Linss - Editor
Farming and trucking have always gone hand in hand, but when you imagine a farmer with a truck, you don’t usually picture a young, soft-spoken, well-educated guy with a slammed hot rod rig – but such is the case with Jeff Houts of Golden Harvest Farms in Madras, Oregon. Jeff grew up on the farm, and farming was all he ever wanted to do. Even after going away and getting a college degree, he came back to work on the family farm. Until he started playing with trucks! Now, he spends more time brokering loads and trucking, and less time out in the fields. When asked about the future he replied, “I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up!”
At 43, Jeff might be a little old to still be pondering his future career path, but in these uncertain times, nothing is a sure thing anymore. Over the years, Jeff and his family have farmed various types of crops, but for the last ten years their primary focus has been alfalfa. Today, Jeff and his dad farm about 1,200 acres. Jeff spends most of his time marketing, selling and delivering the hay throughout Oregon and Washington, but he also does a lot of freight brokering, as well. He also hauls loads of aluminum and steel in and out of California on a somewhat regular basis.
Jeff’s grandfather, who was a Millwright (welder and fabricator) in Springfield, Oregon, moved to Madras to begin farming in the 1940s. He and Jeff’s grandmother bought 120 acres and started growing clover, garlic, onions, radishes, carrots, grass and mustard (for seed), as well as peppermint, wheat and alfalfa. Jeff’s dad Bob, who was five years old when they moved, helped on the farm. Some of his regular chores, much like Jeff’s when he was younger, included milking cows, planting crops, harvesting and taking care of all the machinery. Later, Bob and Jeff’s mom Regina went off and started their own farm.
When you grow up on a farm, driving is something you start doing early in life. At six years old, Jeff began driving his dad’s pickup truck all around their property. He remembers having to stand up on the pedals and tilt the steering wheel all the way up so he could look through it, but that’s how he did it. When Jeff was ten, his dad bought a swather (a machine used to cut and prepare crops for harvesting). Jeff has always loved to work, and he really loved to drive that big swather, which traveled at only about 1/6-mph. In the late evening, when the weather cooled, he’d spend hours in that swather, making perfectly straight rows, while his father napped in his pickup. At about 1:00 in the morning, Jeff’s dad would wake up, send Jeff to bed, and then work for the rest of the night.
After graduating from high school, Jeff went off to college in Portland. Not knowing what he wanted to do, he changed his major seven times over the years, studying subjects like exercise science, history, business and journalism, but he got his degree in advertising. After graduating in 1993 (he basically had so many extra units that the school forced him to graduate and then kicked him out), he returned home to the family farm. School was always easy for Jeff, but after all that schooling, it took him awhile to realize that farming (and later trucking) was what he really wanted to do. Two years later, in 1995, Jeff married his wife Pam, and then they bought 300 acres and went farming on their own.
Farming has never been any easy job – in fact, it’s not a job at all – it’s a way of life. While growing up, Jeff remembers his parents saying, “This is the last year were gonna farm,” every year. Life was always a struggle, but it never felt that way to Jeff. But once he started farming on his own, he fully realized how tough it could be. After struggling for a few years, he bought a used 1994 Freightliner FLD and a flatbed trailer and started hauling hay – mostly for his dad, but for other local farmers, too. Jeff continued to farm, and eventually put a driver in that truck. From there, he got on a truck-buying kick.
Not long after buying that first truck, he bought a second Freightliner and then put a driver in it, and then a third, and then a fourth. Eventually, his little fleet consisted of four brand new Kenworth W900s, each with its own driver. These trucks were pretty much stock, but Jeff made sure that the drivers kept them perfectly clean. As time passed, he switched to Peterbilts, and at one point, he had three new ones. During this time, he purchased a custom Peterbilt from Clint Moore at Kansas City Peterbilt, which was featured in our magazine (February 2007). This black truck with a red frame was super-low and featured many unique modifications.
But in 2007, as business started to slip, Jeff began selling off his trucks as he lost the drivers. Later that year, he had just two trucks left – the one he had just bought from Clint, and a 2005 Peterbilt 379 that was painted orange and white. He put them both up for sale, and the black one sold first, leaving him just the orange one. The black truck, which is now painted dark charcoal grey, was sold to Chris Thornhill in Washington (Chris still runs this rig today). Then, to make matters worse, Jeff hurt himself – again.
Jeff has a long history of serious injuries. In 1988, he crashed while riding his bicycle and broke his collar bone in three places and his arm. Then, in 1992, he was working on a combine with his dad, making modifications to the machine with a grinder, when it broke loose and kicked back at him, nearly cutting off a finger and breaking two others. A few years later, while strapping down a load, his winch bar slipped and he went down pretty hard – so hard, in fact, he ruptured a disk in his back. Then, in March of 2007, Jeff was playing outside with his son and ruptured his Achilles tendon (a painful injury). Jeff said that it felt like somebody hit him in the back of the leg with a baseball bat. After surgery was performed to re-attach the tendon, Jeff, who now has a huge scar that runs down the back of his leg from his knee to his ankle, was on crutches for several months. Then, late last year (2009), Jeff fell off his motorcycle and tore up his shoulder.
In December of 2009, Jeff had his shoulder repaired, but he is still going through therapy and rehabilitation, hoping to someday soon be back to normal (whatever that means). Maybe he should have studied to be a doctor! Needless to say, these injuries have not made life easy for Jeff and his family. But, the one thing that he could do while he was laid up was talk on the phone, so Jeff became quite the freight broker (yes, he even has a license). This brings us to the trilogy of Jeff’s current truck project – the hot rod Peterbilt featured on our cover/center this month and on the pages here.
What started out as a typical over-the-road truck with a 246-inch wheelbase, bought new right off of the lot, is now a unique “hot rod” Peterbilt that can darn-near drag on the ground when its air is dumped. Jeff, who was just coming back from his Achilles injury, thought it might be nice to fix up his rig a bit (since it was now his only truck). He called his friend Jeff Battler (we’ll call him Jeff B. for clarity) at 12 Ga. Customs in Ontario, Canada, and the two decided to spend ten days working on the truck, with the original intent to simply air-bag the front, lower the rear a bit, paint it, and install a flip-up bumper. One thing led to another, and before they knew it, they were building what they hoped would be the baddest, lowest, hot rod rig ever! In fact, Jeff B. decided that he wanted this rig to be his “calling card” at the upcoming truck show in Louisville, Kentucky (2009), so the two were looking to complete the entire project by then (March 2009).
Over the next three months, Jeff B. made three trips to Oregon to help Jeff with the truck. Much was accomplished on those visits, but not nearly enough. It seemed that the build just got bigger and bigger, and they got more and more behind schedule. Once they realized that the truck was not going to be done in time for the show, Jeff B. lost interest in the project and didn’t return, so Jeff, who’s budget was already past the breaking point anyway, decided to finish it himself. He worked on the truck full-time for many months, while brokering loads on his phone headset. This was the first time he had ever done a project of this magnitude, and he wasn’t even sure if he had the skills to do it, but the final product turned out to be something really special.
The truck’s suspension is both a work of art and engineering. After air-bagging the front end, a car-hauler axle was installed and then the frame was C-notched, making it one of the lowest working trucks we had ever seen. Both the front and rear suspensions were completely modified, in every way, to facilitate this change. After the frame was notched, which gives the axles a place to go to let the truck drop even lower, two inserts were added to strengthen the rails. Specially-made notched crossmembers were fabricated to accommodate the driveline, the engine and everything bolted to the frame was raised two inches, and the oil pan plug was shaved for more clearance. Chris Wolfe of Wolfe Truck & Equipment in Madras, helped Jeff with the air lines, brake modifications and fittings. The entire chassis was then sent out to be sandblasted and painted a dull black color.
Not wanting any bright, shiny chrome or gleaming paint, Jeff had the entire truck and several accessories including the headlights and pedestals, drop visor, pleated air cleaners and custom-made fuel tanks, painted GMC Medium Blue with 40% flattener added to the clear-coat to “age” the paint. All of the bright stainless on the bumper, rear fenders, mirrors, air cleaner lids, tank straps, lug nut covers and hubs, exhaust brackets and five bullet cab lights was sanded to a dull silver finish. The air tanks were moved to the inside of the frame rails, and stainless boxes, made to look like large air tanks, were installed below the doors. The rig also has an 18-inch flip bumper, fiberglass front fenders, shortened battery boxes with billet step plates, shaved door handles with electric poppers and a billet grille with painted fins. The passenger door was also re-skinned without a peep-hole window, the mirror brackets were moved from the cab to the doors, and the wheels and 8-inch stacks were powder-coated a dull black color.
For Jeff, the ultimate truck is a Peterbilt on the outside and a Kenworth on the inside, so much was done to the interior of the truck as well. The dash features wood panels made by Rockwood, extensive gauges and switches, a wood steering wheel and a nice DVD player and satellite radio, hooked to lots of hidden amps and speakers, putting out about 2,000 watts of power. Seattle Interiors covered the door panels, the overhead console, the headliner and seats with brown and black diamond-tuck upholstery, and then Jeff installed an aluminum floor that is part black and part dull silver. The rig got a lot of attention when it finally made its debut at a show in Southern California in October of 2009.
After that show, Jeff started traveling to California a lot, so he decided that he needed a sleeper. In December of 2009, Jake Koolhaus helped him stretch the frame. Wanting to keep everything in proportion, they stretched it 39 inches, just enough to accommodate a small 36-inch flattop sleeper Jeff had acquired and completely rebuilt. He even found a use for his old passenger door peep-hole window, installing it in the back of the sleeper. When it was time for paint, Jeff turned to local painter Dennis Rudy. Having no color codes, Dennis had to match the dull blue color of the truck because the Chevrolet dealer that originally painted it had gone out of business and tossed out all of the paint codes. To complete the job and give it that final touch, Jeff flew in pinstriper Tim Vandevanter from Spokane, Washington, to lay down some cool “old school” pinstripes all over the truck (Tim also painted the retro-looking logos on Jeff’s doors).
Now that the project has been completed, Jeff plans on hitting a few “local” shows this year, but he really just needs to get out there and start working. And although this project may have got out of hand, Jeff is very happy with the final product. Jeff doesn’t think that he has the talent or patience to grind on trucks all day long for a living, but he did enjoy building his truck. He wanted to thank Jeff Battler of 12 Ga. Customs for all of his help – he setup the suspension and helped Jeff brainstorm many of the overall ideas, and built many of the custom pieces – Jeff said that he couldn’t have done it without him. He also wanted to thank Clint Moore for helping him out with wiring diagrams and moral support, and his dad, Bob, for all his help and support with everything, throughout the years.
Besides farming and trucking, the two real constants in Jeff’s life are his family and his faith. Jeff and his wife Pam, who just celebrated their fifteenth wedding anniversary, have two sons, Greyson (10) and Joey (8). The two boys go to a Christian school in the next town over, so Pam keeps pretty busy shuttling them back and forth several times a day. The boys like their dad’s truck, but they really like their video games and electronic gadgets.
Greyson was able to “ditch” school and hang out with his dad (and us) the day we shot the pictures of the truck at scenic Smith Rock State Park. What an awesome and beautiful place! Joey would have come out that day as well, but he had a field trip that he didn’t want to miss, so he and Pam joined us later in the day. In fact, it was Pam’s birthday that day, so we’d like to thank her for letting us play with Jeff all day.
Jeff and his family are very involved in their church. As Jeff put it, “God plays a central role in our life.” Jeff enjoys working with his mom and dad, and spends time with them every day. He also has a sister, Jennie, who lives in Portland and owns a computer graphics company.
Jeff’s entire family, dating all the way back to his grandfather, has always had the hot rod disease – that’s where all of this really began. Jeff Houts might not know what the future holds, and he might not know what he wants to do when he grows up, but there is one thing he knows for sure – with family and faith, and a little hard work, everything will work out fine. Farming and trucking do go hand in hand, but this farmer, with his hot rod tractor, has the coolest piece of equipment on any farm around - and, if needed, it can also be used as a scraper. Now that’s what we’d call smart and efficient farming!