Brian Bourke : We wanted to build the trucks and bring them out at Mid-America, and at these truck show so that people could see what the new 589 was capable of. It’s a brand-new model, so when it’s released, everyone is like, “Oh no, they changed that truck.” People are unsure of what it will be. I think we did two different styles with these two trucks. Someone can see them and say, “Oh, you know what?” I like it. It looks good.
Brian Burke is my name. I’m Brian Burke, and I work for Semi Casual and Fitzgerald Peterbilt. This one, we added chrome. It has chrome shifter plates, shifters and pedals. Other than that, it’s pretty standard. These are all genuine factory Peterbilt accessories. This one was done so that a person could see what they would get if they ordered some Peterbilt accessories. We did a lot of work on the exteriors of the trucks.
We installed a hidden DEF-tank on this orange truck. We removed the sleeper bags, shocks, and pan hard bar to hit everything underneath the sleeper. The back looks very clean. You can’t see anything. We actually lowered our fuel tanks by an inch to make the truck appear lower. We painted them, and changed the boxes under the doors to a smaller one. We shortened the boxes from the factory, and added air tanks to the top. This is something the 389 doesn’t have. It made the truck appear longer by painting everything to match. We painted the chassis, with the base in clear, and then a flush-mounting deck plate. We also added Shift fenders, visors, and cab sleeper panels.
All of these parts were made only once when we built the trucks. These are the first 589 parts made, as they were produced before we could bring them to Mid-America. Now we have them available for sale.
565 Cummins 18-speed trans with 3.37 gears. Full lockers at the rear. The wheelbase of the orange truck is 295 inches, while that of the black and red truck measures 280 inches. The black truck has a 605, 2250 torque. When we first bought this truck, it had a standup cabin. The roof cap of the truck was much higher than it is today. We wanted to create a truck that resembled the old style. When this truck came in, it was like here’s the perfect opportunity, we could do it. Let’s do this with this truck, and it’ll probably be the first 589 done that way. Once we were done, it gave the truck an almost hot rod look. We changed the front suspension, got it lower to the ground, and then painted things black and red.
We basically removed the entire interior. We removed the dash and deconstructed it completely. All these panels are removed, so you can remove the wood grain, silver, and chrome.
We took them apart in the way we wanted, and then painted the whole thing. The texture was added to the tan or gray areas. We would sand it down, then apply a primer, sand it down again, add another layer of prime, and then paint it. It makes it look like the paint is on the truck’s exterior. We then made some new inserts with black and red stitching in order to carry the theme. We’re basically trying to make all the interior of the truck black and red, with a bit of chrome. We want to have 2 trucks to show people how you can make a truck in two different ways. The orange truck is a custom thing with a lot of unique features.
We sell these parts, but we did this one for those who didn’t want the boxes changed and wanted to keep the truck looking like it came from the factory. We made stainless boxes the same size as factory. We painted the fuel tanks, cab panels, and breather lights. We left the DEF tank uncovered. We changed the mirror brackets, but the rear chassis is still painted in the factory red. We haven’t painted the chassis yet. The black truck has a lot of bolt-on parts. So, the person can take these parts and put them onto a truck without having to do any crazy modifications.
The factory brackets have a brace running down the middle between here and there, so your mirror actually pivots this way. We took the mirrors from a 389, and made them smaller and cleaner looking. We wired the 389 mirrors into the truck. Some people may think you’re crazy. The factory mirrors of the 589s have a really nice feature: they can be adjusted up and down, left and right, from within. When you have a 389-style mirror, you only have left and right. But the traditional guys are used to it. It was as if we were trying to break some pieces.
Our website, semi-casual show.com is like our YouTube channel. Me and Tommy make a lot of videos about all the builds. We document how things are done, such as how to install advisor or how to change headlights. There are many different things that people can learn about trucks. Then we have full videos of the builds that we do. All of that, as well as some of the parts we make, are available on our website.