On this episode of Roadkill
Category
🚗
MotorTranscript
00:00 This is a special collector's edition of Roadkill. Save it kids. We didn't fail this time.
00:24 This time on Roadkill we are going to take a '73 Suburban that we've never driven and use it to haul a '55 Chevy body 1,100 miles to Jim Meyer Racing in Oregon to build Finnegan's dream car.
00:34 California thinks we own a '55 Chevy.
00:38 This is the "It's legal as far as you know" state of California?
00:41 California says "You own a car!"
00:43 Is this a street?
00:45 Yeah. This is nice. He supposedly has like 30 cars here. I don't know where he's going to fit those in a track.
00:52 This must be the guy.
00:53 Yep, that's him.
00:55 This door is still full of water.
01:02 That'll teach us to wash the car.
01:04 Here at Sloshing.
01:05 Hey Don.
01:06 How you doing?
01:07 Good to see you.
01:08 I'm David.
01:09 It's been months but I'm ready to pick up the car.
01:10 Car's around back waiting for you.
01:11 Cool.
01:12 Let's check it out.
01:13 I've been searching for a 1955 Chevy Bel Air off and on since I was a teenager when I first saw the movie "Two Lane Blacktop."
01:20 I bought this car four months ago sight unseen and I'm really fired up to finally see this thing in person.
01:26 The roof's good. The quarters are...
01:28 Quarter? Not so much.
01:29 Yeah, the quarters need a little help.
01:31 Oh yeah, trunk's nice.
01:33 It's perfect for what we're doing.
01:35 It'll make a great race car.
01:37 Okay, yeah. This is going to be perfect.
01:47 We're going to take this up to Oregon and actually plop the body on a brand new chassis up there at Jim Meyer Racing.
01:53 Make a gasser out of it like that.
01:55 And what's really cool about it is that we're going to put a Chrysler 426 Hemi in this car.
01:59 And we have it in the back of the Suburban.
02:01 It's like gasser kit all right here with us.
02:04 Whoa!
02:10 You okay?
02:13 Yeah, I'm good.
02:14 I'm Steve Hemet, home of Don Edwards, the guy who sold me the '55 Chevy.
02:18 And it's all strapped down, or at least as well as we could strap it down.
02:22 So now we're going to drive a thousand miles up to Oregon.
02:25 Is it that far?
02:26 Yeah. Eleven hundred actually.
02:28 That's not good.
02:29 Is the Suburban going to make it?
02:31 Yeah.
02:32 We better find out.
02:35 Let's go.
02:36 Better start now while it's still daylight.
02:38 You drive.
02:39 All right.
02:41 [MUSIC]
02:44 I've only seen two '55 Chevys with Hemi's in them in my life.
02:48 I've only seen them with Chrysler early Hemi's in them.
02:51 I've never seen a 426.
02:52 Yeah. Both the cars I'm talking about.
02:54 Did you bring the stack injection?
02:56 Yep.
02:57 You've got to be real careful not to smash that box.
02:58 Yeah.
02:59 Am I going the right way?
03:00 Sure.
03:01 Am I supposed to be directing?
03:02 I think so.
03:03 There's an ostrich.
03:04 Holy crap.
03:05 I've never seen an ostrich before.
03:07 You never have?
03:08 I kind of want to stop and go look at the ostrich.
03:10 Make some ostrich McNuggets?
03:12 Oh my God.
03:13 Look, Buffalo.
03:14 Wait, is that a buffalo?
03:15 Those are buffalo.
03:16 Holy crap.
03:17 You're right.
03:18 Have you ever seen one in real life?
03:19 I've never seen that or an ostrich in real life.
03:21 I thought we killed almost all of these.
03:23 We tried.
03:24 Best day at work ever.
03:26 [LAUGHTER]
03:27 '55 Chevy, 426 Hemi, ostrich, buffalo.
03:30 Yeah. Best day at work ever.
03:32 Doesn't usually happen.
03:33 No.
03:34 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:41 The first stop we're going to make is at Rod's West in Ridgecrest, California,
03:45 because we've got to pick up some cool wheels that we're going to put on the front of the car.
03:48 It's a place that's owned by Don Walden.
03:50 He's been here for decades.
03:52 And where we're standing at one point was covered by nothing but mag wheels.
03:57 He buys and sells them and refurbishes them.
04:00 And so there's a pallet of them there.
04:02 And back over here, there's a wheel graveyard of a bunch of rare wheels.
04:06 And now he's become the Willys king.
04:09 He's got a bunch of Willys parts here.
04:11 He builds gassers pretty much for everybody that wants one.
04:14 But there's also Austins and Anglias and all sorts of--
04:17 There's Henry Js, Austins, Tims.
04:20 This is amazing.
04:21 Stop talking so I can go look.
04:23 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:29 People would lose their mind if you gathered all this up and went to the Pomona swap meet.
04:33 Oh, my god.
04:35 Died and gone to heaven.
04:37 Just want to take it all with me.
04:39 Don is hooking us up with a modern interpretation of the old school Anson sprint wheels,
04:43 which will look perfect on the front end of our '55 Chevy.
04:46 When I first built the wheels, I had the wheels done,
04:49 I gave the option to the guys about putting the valve stem on the back side.
04:52 Because the wheel was originally a sprint car wheel, and it would go either way.
04:55 They flip them.
04:56 Right, drag race guys wanted this side, then the sprint car guys wanted the other side.
04:59 So you see the wheel with the valve stem on the opposite side.
05:02 That's going to look killer on the front of that thing.
05:04 You have to talk him out of putting smoothie steelies on the back.
05:07 They're the kind with no hubcap bumps.
05:08 No, no, no, it's got to have the other one.
05:09 Told you.
05:10 Yeah.
05:11 Visiting Rod's West here was just completely amazing.
05:13 I could easily spend a full weekend rifling around here.
05:16 I love taking pictures of all the old things that are sitting around.
05:19 But unfortunately, we need to hit it.
05:21 We burned so much time that we're going to have to cannonball in the dark.
05:24 How long do you want to drive, Finnegan?
05:25 Like 2 in the morning?
05:26 Till we're there.
05:27 Till we're there, because we've got to get to Oregon post-haste.
05:30 Let's hit it.
05:31 The Macho Grande has been doing excellent so far, but it does need some routine maintenance.
05:41 Spark plug wire kept falling off, and it only runs 7/8 as well as it should on 7 cylinders.
05:47 We're going to save that plug wire we took off, because it's still good.
05:50 We're going to put it right here with our spare dipstick in the fender where it belongs.
05:55 Yep, with the old man rag, maybe a couple wigs stuffed in there for quieting it down.
06:00 It's a good hiding spot.
06:01 Yep.
06:02 That's not short.
06:03 All right.
06:04 We can just run that way around the motor and come back twice.
06:06 You know what?
06:07 If you wrap this around this a couple times, I'm thinking that it might magnetize the inlet
06:11 and give us better fuel mileage.
06:12 Lines up all the molecules.
06:13 Right.
06:14 We're going to get at least 6 miles to the gallon now.
06:17 Pour fluid in.
06:19 Let's go.
06:20 We found a blown fuse for the accessory circuit, which is why all the lights just turned off.
06:36 So we replaced the fuse with one we found in a glove box, one of many, which tells us
06:42 this has happened before.
06:44 So now we're actually going to try and troubleshoot why it's happening.
06:47 Yeah, the used car forensics tells you that when there is four packs of 20 amp fuses in
06:52 the glove box, there's a frequent issue, for sure.
06:56 I can't say for certain who wired it, but whoever they are should be kicked in the nuts,
07:00 drug out in the street, and shot, because there's about nine splices to connect this
07:04 much wire.
07:05 So we just hacked a bunch of it out, taped up what we could.
07:08 I don't know if that's going to fix it, but we'll put another fuse in and see how far
07:11 we can get this time.
07:12 What time is it, and how many hours do we have until Oregon?
07:15 We need to be there Friday.
07:17 Today's Wednesday.
07:18 Oh, no problem.
07:20 Yeah.
07:21 Still got lights.
07:25 Well, we just made a nice loop in and out of the parking lot and blew the lights again.
07:35 For some reason, when we're moving it blows lights, and when we're parked it doesn't.
07:38 So something is pinching somewhere, and by unplugging the trailer, we'll isolate it,
07:42 whether it's in the trailer or in the truck.
07:44 I was right.
07:45 It turned out that the stock wiring harness was jiggling in a little clip on the frame,
07:49 and I was able to crawl into the car, and I saw it sparking, and I just wrapped it with
07:52 some electrical tape, and we're done.
07:54 Now we're going to hit the road to Bishop.
07:56 Yesterday, we got our new project car, '55 Chevy.
08:03 Didn't get very far down the road because some electrical gremlins with our tow vehicle,
08:07 the Suburban, but after rewiring it on the side of the road at midnight, she's dialed.
08:12 And now we're in Bishop, which is one of my favorite little towns, and a local told me
08:16 where he thinks there's an abandoned '50s truck out in the desert.
08:19 So we're going to go check that out before we hit the road.
08:21 There's a lot of trash in the desert here, like old, old, old trash.
08:41 I bet we find something good out here.
08:43 There's a barrel.
08:44 There's a gas tank right there, dude.
08:46 Really?
08:47 Yeah.
08:48 So we're getting warm?
08:49 Yeah.
08:50 I hope that's not it.
08:51 Oh, hell.
08:52 That might have been a truck.
08:53 That used to be a truck cab.
08:54 Is that a fender?
08:56 That guy obviously had a greater appreciation of our skills than we do.
09:00 Wait, wait, wait.
09:01 What did he tell you was out here?
09:03 He said it was an old round pickup truck, and that is an old round pickup truck.
09:07 Look at it.
09:08 It's destroyed.
09:09 There ain't a round surface left on that thing.
09:11 I see a fender.
09:12 Or no.
09:13 Oh, my God.
09:14 Okay, there's good news and bad news here.
09:16 The good news is I have complete confidence that we could get that home on the back of the trailer.
09:21 The bad news is there's absolutely no reason to.
09:24 Oregon bound.
09:27 [Music]
09:29 [Music]
09:40 Okay, 230 degrees.
09:41 Let's turn on the air.
09:43 Why do you have the air on?
09:45 It works.
09:46 230, I can live with for a while.
09:49 How about 240?
09:50 Seriously, it's climbing that fast?
09:52 Shit, I'm gonna fall.
09:53 Don't floor it.
09:54 I'm not.
09:55 I'm over.
09:56 [Music]
10:05 That was bad.
10:08 Long grade, old truck.
10:10 We put a new radiator in the Macho Grande before we even left,
10:14 but it was no match for this big, long grade wide open trying to get out of Bishop,
10:20 and so we overheated, and overheated pretty bad.
10:24 We've been worse, though.
10:25 I think we'll be good.
10:26 Is it walkable down to the water place?
10:28 A couple miles.
10:30 Every road trip, the hood comes off.
10:32 I know, I know.
10:33 Let's strap the hood to the roof.
10:35 That would fix this.
10:37 All right, I'll walk down the hill.
10:39 [Music]
10:50 Better get a raise for this.
10:53 Oh, thank God.
10:55 That was the easy part.
10:57 Carrying this up that hill is gonna suck.
11:01 Suddenly I have to pee.
11:03 They could have put a bigger spout on here.
11:08 Just saying.
11:09 Up the hill.
11:12 Well, somehow this is Freiburger's fault.
11:14 I can't pinpoint how or why,
11:16 given that he was pretty much in a coma in the passenger seat when I drove us up this hill too fast.
11:21 But after hiking all the way down the hill to get the water and to come all the way back up,
11:25 I've decided it's definitely not my fault, it's all his fault.
11:29 And if that's not enough water, he's hiking down the damn hill to get the rest of it.
11:33 How much oil should be in the water?
11:35 I know how we can do a roadkill and never boil over once.
11:38 Don't leave home?
11:39 Get a Volkswagen.
11:41 What bugs me is we actually were proactive about it this time and put in a radiator.
11:46 New one.
11:47 Not even recored.
11:49 It's amazing it still has that much pressure after this long.
11:53 It just means the freeze plugs are still in there.
11:57 It's good news.
11:58 This reminds me of the Alaska trip.
12:00 This reminds me of the Jaguar trip.
12:02 This reminds me of--
12:03 Dewey?
12:04 This reminds me of--
12:06 Told you, deja vu.
12:07 This is every trip.
12:09 Any minute now, we'll cut to a clip of us driving with the hood off this thing.
12:13 One time I had a friend, Tony, who his 340 Duster did this,
12:17 and he leaned way back and got the cap off and nothing happened, nothing happened.
12:21 He goes like this, right in the face.
12:24 Like melted, literally, skin was hanging off.
12:27 It was pretty bad.
12:28 So go ahead and pop that.
12:31 Ah!
12:32 [LAUGHTER]
12:35 At least I didn't scream.
12:38 You put the water in.
12:39 [LAUGHTER]
12:40 [MUSIC PLAYING]
12:49 Cap it off.
12:50 Let's go before something bad happens.
12:52 Our tow rig is a '73 GMC Suburban.
12:56 And the guy I bought it from swore that it has 340,000 miles on it.
13:01 And it doesn't really seem like it.
13:03 It runs pretty good.
13:04 It's got a 454 and a turbo 400 automatic.
13:07 We put some brand new Mickey Thompsons on it.
13:09 The thing is, I paid $1,500 for this thing.
13:11 It sat for a year.
13:13 And we never drove it until the day we put the tires on it and left for this trip.
13:18 [MUSIC PLAYING]
13:24 Our route here is the 395 north in California, which takes us all the way up to Reno.
13:29 It's a great drive.
13:30 Lots and lots of wilderness and neat little towns.
13:33 This is Mono Lake, which is actually a salt lake.
13:36 And it's actually the same place we drove when we took that El Camino trip a few episodes back.
13:40 [MUSIC PLAYING]
13:45 Our overheating problem fixed itself once it stopped being 100 plus degrees outside
13:50 and once we stopped trying to full throttle it up big steep hills.
13:53 We're in the Reno Sparks area now.
13:55 And we were so close that we thought that we would come here and visit the scene of the crime
13:59 at Summit Racing, where we did our engine swap on the El Camino a couple episodes ago.
14:03 You think there's still a big stain on the parking lot?
14:05 That's what I want to know.
14:06 These people care too much about their facility.
14:08 I bet they street sweeped it.
14:09 Let's find out.
14:10 I spent a year in this parking lot one day.
14:12 Wow.
14:13 You'd never know we were here.
14:14 No, it's right there.
14:15 They did a better job cleaning it than we did.
14:17 Yeah.
14:18 I scrubbed it, but wow, impressive.
14:21 Summit Racing on the ball.
14:25 Oh, that was fun.
14:26 OK.
14:27 Let's go get dinner.
14:28 Let's.
14:29 [MUSIC PLAYING]
14:43 We are in Klamath Falls, Oregon.
14:45 Got up this morning, got pulled over by the cops.
14:48 And now I'm waiting on Fryburger to answer some emails, because he's kind of a big deal on the internet.
14:52 And we're going to head to Lincoln City, hopefully, today.
14:55 You'll note that the car is running, and we've been getting about 6, 6 and 1/2 miles to the gallon so far in this trip.
15:02 That's not helping our cause.
15:05 I can't turn the car off right now.
15:07 It's custom.
15:08 [ENGINE REVVING]
15:10 Oh, here we go.
15:12 Idling down.
15:15 Come on, baby.
15:16 Stall.
15:17 OK.
15:18 It throttles back all the way out, and it doesn't want to stall.
15:23 In gear.
15:25 And it won't die.
15:26 I'm going to have to reach in there and disconnect the power wire to the distributor.
15:30 [ENGINE REVVING]
15:35 We'll just have to do that everywhere we go now.
15:37 [LAUGHS]
15:38 [MUSIC PLAYING]
15:42 All right.
15:43 We got a full tank of gas, a radiator with water in it.
15:46 That's amazing.
15:48 Under 300 miles to go, and it's still daylight out.
15:51 You were supposed to turn on the 39.
15:54 OK.
15:55 Where was that?
15:56 Back there at that sign that said 39.
15:58 Oh.
15:59 OK, we're going to turn around again.
16:00 Fantastic navigating, Mike Finnegan.
16:03 I told you what to do.
16:04 You just didn't do it.
16:05 You know I can't remember anything for more than three seconds.
16:08 I have the attention span of a gnat.
16:11 We were 3/10 of a mile from the turn when I gave you the directions.
16:14 I know.
16:15 I told you.
16:16 Gnat.
16:17 [MUSIC PLAYING]
16:21 It's really cool to be here in Oregon instead of in the desert, which is
16:25 where we normally do our road kills.
16:27 Right now, we're heading sort of northeast across the state,
16:30 and we're headed towards Lincoln City, which is right on the ocean.
16:33 [MUSIC PLAYING]
17:00 It doesn't sound happy.
17:01 I can pour some oil.
17:02 Yesterday, we got within 60 miles of Lincoln City, stopped for the night,
17:06 and when we parked the Suburban, it was running really good.
17:10 This morning, we fired it up, started heading for Jim Meyer Racing,
17:13 and the engine just started clattering really bad.
17:16 So we pulled over and checked the oil, and there wasn't any oil in there.
17:20 I don't know where the oil went.
17:22 But the camshaft and the lifters are not happy about our severe lack of lubrication,
17:27 so Freiburger's putting some more in,
17:30 and now we're hoping that we don't flatten the cam lobes
17:33 before we get to our destination.
17:35 Why was it perfectly fine last night when we stopped?
17:37 That's what I don't get.
17:39 Maybe guys that don't like your critique of the Lamborghini
17:41 drained the oil out last night.
17:43 Maybe guys who don't like your goatee.
17:45 Maybe.
17:46 That could happen.
17:47 [MUSIC PLAYING]
17:56 Oh, we're almost 15 miles away.
17:58 We are so close.
18:01 Are you excited?
18:02 Dude, I'm about to piss myself.
18:04 [LAUGHTER]
18:07 Please don't.
18:08 Truly the greatest thing about this project is by the end of today,
18:13 it's going to look like a car.
18:15 It's not just going to fester around forever, hoping that it's cool.
18:18 Ask me how close we are.
18:20 How close are we?
18:21 1.8 miles to paradise.
18:23 Yeah.
18:26 Let's stop for breakfast.
18:28 I'm hungry.
18:29 I'll push you out the car door and keep driving.
18:31 [MUSIC PLAYING]
18:38 Jim Meier Racing is like a gearhead paradise.
18:41 Right near the cool tourist area of Lincoln City,
18:44 he's got this great shop tucked away in the woods.
18:46 He's been here like 25 years just doing cool gearhead stuff.
18:51 He's got old motocross bikes, weird old hot rods,
18:54 but the main thing that they do here is they make complete rolling chassis
18:58 that you can just slap under your car.
19:00 I've heard of this place forever and seen their ads and stuff,
19:03 but it's always cool to show up and find out that it's a real place
19:06 with real, genuine hot rodders.
19:08 The better you can get the car to start out with, of course,
19:11 the better your build's going to be and the less expensive it's going to be.
19:14 For even the dents in the quarter panel the way it is,
19:17 it's not going to take much to put this thing back together.
19:20 We've got about, I don't know, 24 hours before we've got to hit the road,
19:23 so we should probably get to work and throw this thing together.
19:26 Yeah, we'll get a plan going here.
19:28 I've got five guys here today,
19:30 so I don't think we'll have any problem getting this thing going on.
19:34 Oh, man, that's nice.
19:36 Wow, that's way too good for you.
19:39 [laughter]
19:41 It's better than I imagined it.
19:44 I mean, I've been drooling over a photo that big on the website for a year now.
19:49 Way better in person.
19:50 Amazing welds, the construction's really nice.
19:53 These guys don't mess around.
19:55 We're going to roll the chassis out and back the trailer all the way in
19:58 and try and get it straight onto the lift.
20:02 [music]
20:04 [music]
20:27 So far it's happening really fast.
20:29 Got the body off the dolly on the lift,
20:32 and now what we're doing is trying to center it over the chassis
20:35 and eyeball what's going to happen with the rear tire fitment
20:38 so that we can cut out the quarter panels.
20:40 I've been looking forward to going to Jim Meyer Racing's place for a long time
20:44 because these guys know what they're doing.
20:46 They've been building hot rods forever.
20:48 Just being around mills and lathes and plasma cutters,
20:52 that just makes me warm and fuzzy inside,
20:54 so it's awesome to be here.
20:56 [music]
21:00 In a traditional gasser-style car,
21:03 the rear quarter panels on a '55 Chevy have to get radius cut
21:07 so that the 30-inch slicks will fit,
21:09 and then they stick out just a hair,
21:11 which is part of the reason why the cut is so tall,
21:13 so that when you drive the thing down the road,
21:15 if you hit a bump and the suspension compresses,
21:17 the tire has room to go up without damaging the body.
21:20 That is awesome.
21:22 I love the sidewall on that tire.
21:24 Looks like a truck tire.
21:26 Yeah.
21:27 We've already cut that side out, made a template of it.
21:29 Now we're going to transfer it to this side, cut this side out.
21:32 [music]
21:42 We really wanted to mock up the Hemi and the transmission
21:44 and the chassis, but we ran into a couple problems that prevented that,
21:47 so here we're just going to mock it up
21:49 so it sticks to the car on the way home on the trailer.
21:52 We're so close.
21:54 [music]
22:01 Break out the intake manifold.
22:02 Yes.
22:03 This is the key to the look of this car.
22:05 I have had this Enderly mechanical fuel injection setup on my shelf forever,
22:10 and when I knew we were going to build the car,
22:12 I knew I had to give it to Finnegan.
22:14 This thing looks right.
22:16 And I didn't get socks this year.
22:19 Woo-hoo!
22:20 [music]
22:30 The car turned out exactly the way I've always envisioned.
22:33 It's cool that we took just a bare body on a trailer
22:36 and showed up here, plopped it on a chassis,
22:38 sort of threw a Hemi into the thing,
22:40 and made it look like a complete radical gasser in a matter of hours.
22:45 I made it sleep in the car tonight.
22:47 I can already see myself at the drag strip.
22:49 This is the best day at work ever.
22:51 Once again, this might actually be.
22:54 I've got to agree with you.
22:55 [music]
22:58 The ultimate goal for this build is to have a kick-ass gasser
23:01 that runs low tens and hopefully does wheelies.
23:04 And I want the car to look a lot like the two-lane black top '55 Chevy,
23:08 except my car's going to have a Hemi in it just to piss off Chevy guys.
23:12 [music]
23:15 This is going to motivate us.
23:16 We've got to get this thing done,
23:18 and if we do, guaranteed that's the ultimate Roadkill episode.
23:21 [music]
23:24 We've had a lot of fun, but this might be the most enjoyable Roadkill yet
23:28 just because it was a great drive.
23:30 I love the Macho Grande, and we made an incredible car.
23:33 A lot of success.
23:34 Very few breakdowns that were speed bumps.
23:37 So, yeah.
23:38 We're pretty sure it'll be much worse and more violent
23:41 on the next episode of Roadkill.
23:43 Word.
23:44 [music]
23:49 I froze my nuts off in this parking lot.
23:51 Maybe you can find them and put them back on.
23:53 I know, right?
23:54 You do the speech. Go for it.
23:56 You're doing great, actually.
23:57 No, be funny.
23:58 You're doing great.
24:00 I'm number two.
24:02 [music]
24:04 Still rolling?
24:05 We completely failed again?
24:07 Get the front tires mounted on the wheels.
24:11 Cut the firewall and get the body bolted down.
24:15 I don't know, because I won't feed that, right?
24:18 You're going to punk out and leave early?
24:20 Thank you.
24:22 Huh.
24:23 [laughter]
24:24 I don't know why that didn't fit right.
24:26 Look, you've got lice now.
24:27 Yeah.
24:28 Merry Christmas.
24:30 Whoa, whoa, whoa, dude.
24:32 Dude.
24:33 Careful, all right?
24:35 Oops.
24:36 [BLANK_AUDIO]