One of the most incredible junkyards in the history of junk is Turners Auto Wrecking in Fresno
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MotorTranscript
00:00 This time on Roadkill it's a junkyard rescue of our latest project vehicle. We call it Pigpen.
00:06 We restore this thing in just four days.
00:09 That's like magic. That was like magic.
00:14 [Music]
00:38 Today we're rolling into Turner's Auto Wrecking in Fresno, California.
00:42 This place is run by Jerry Turner and I could not believe he's lived on this property since 1932.
00:48 And he's been in the junkyard business for so long that he's collected a bunch of property around here.
00:53 He's got 75 acres and literally thousands of cars.
00:57 We're going to pick one of them and make it run and drive.
01:00 This is absurd.
01:03 Welcome to Mecca, friend.
01:05 And according to the locals, inside there is stuff like a '64 Impala with only 1,500 miles on it.
01:12 Really?
01:13 Yeah, it's not junk. There is no junk here.
01:16 Except maybe the RV. The RV's pretty crappy.
01:19 No, I really like that storage unit right there.
01:22 All right, we need a plan.
01:24 Why? It's Roadkill.
01:25 No, no, no. It's 75 acres.
01:27 That's true.
01:28 It's tough to even get through this in one day, I think. So what do you want?
01:32 The goal is find a car or cars out of here.
01:36 We've basically got three days, right?
01:38 We have today, Tuesday, Wednesday.
01:40 Well, no. Today, what is today? Tuesday? Wednesday, Thursday.
01:44 We have two days.
01:45 Two days plus...
01:46 We have two days to fix a car and get it home.
01:48 Visit the ER.
01:50 Right.
01:51 Maybe find a drag strip.
01:52 We need a new project car that we can use either for the stock car body swap or the boat engine debacle or something like that.
01:59 I don't care.
02:00 I won't know until I see it, and I want to see it all.
02:03 So if the guy said we could use the Tahoe, I say we just drive 75 acres right now and pick what we're going to do.
02:09 All right, let's do that.
02:10 Okay.
02:11 All right, here's the gate to paradise.
02:22 There's a Mazda RX-7 over there.
02:25 Not that I want one of those, but there's a Mazda RX-7 over there.
02:28 And a Falcon.
02:30 The problem is I have so many different plans in my head for so many different kinds of cars.
02:35 Virtually anything I see here, I could go, "Oh, I've always wanted to do this, that, and the other with one of those."
02:40 Wow, there's a '66 Chevelle FF hood.
02:43 I've seen more rear ends.
02:45 They're falling down a little bit on the rear ends.
02:47 I've never seen as many naked rear ends before in one place, though.
02:50 Look at all the rotors.
02:51 Not even in Vegas.
02:53 You trust this bridge?
02:55 I trust the ducks.
02:57 You trust the ducks in the water?
02:59 It's very scenic.
03:01 Wow, there's a lot of '57s.
03:03 We've been prowling Turners here for probably only about 15 or 20 minutes, but we have a guy from the yard helping us.
03:09 And the discouraging thing is that we told him, "Yeah, we're looking for something we can make run and drive in two days."
03:13 And the guy paused for, like, a solid 30 seconds.
03:16 He was like, "Well, I don't think he quite gets our mojo."
03:20 But at the same time, looking around the yard, a lot of this stuff is really, really far gone.
03:24 No, no, he was going through the mental checklist of every car in the 75-acre large yard.
03:30 That's why it took him so much time.
03:31 We're fine.
03:32 There's stuff here.
03:33 Optimism.
03:34 There's something here.
03:35 Keep it up.
03:36 Yeah, yeah.
03:37 This side's got character.
03:38 There's a story to tell here.
03:39 I'm making it up.
03:40 I was going to point out the trunk key was there, but when I pulled it out, I got the whole trunk mechanism.
03:43 Does that mean it opens now?
03:45 Yeah.
03:47 Dead body.
03:49 You had one of those already.
03:50 Yep.
03:51 Sort of.
03:52 Not quite as good as that one.
03:55 Look at the, like, psycho house they have going on here, too.
03:58 [SQUEAKING]
04:00 Wow.
04:01 What's it say?
04:02 Montecito Sequoia.
04:05 This was like a hotel shuttle vehicle.
04:08 This thing is hammered.
04:11 That is a Cosworth.
04:12 No way.
04:13 Holy sh--.
04:14 This is a Cosworth Vega.
04:16 I wonder if he knows that.
04:17 The headers and everything.
04:18 That's a legit Cosworth.
04:19 Thing is, we never get this running, ever.
04:22 Are you sure?
04:23 Factory mechanical fuel injection?
04:25 No.
04:27 That's amazing right there.
04:29 That's roughly a 1930 Ford fire truck.
04:32 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:38 This one's pretty good.
04:39 It's a long bed.
04:41 It has no compression whatsoever.
04:42 It turns over.
04:43 See that?
04:45 Compression's overrated.
04:47 There's a starter on it.
04:49 Let's make this one run.
04:51 It's pretty cool.
04:53 We have all the parts we need right there.
04:55 There's our winner.
04:56 I'm not sure, but it's either a '49 or '50 GMC, I'm told.
05:01 It's missing one of the brake drums.
05:03 It looks mostly complete.
05:04 Needs some wiring.
05:06 Supposedly ran when parked.
05:08 We're going to find out.
05:09 We've got two days to make this run and drive back to Los Angeles.
05:13 So we picked out the car we were hoping to take home.
05:16 But we really need to see if we can make the engine run.
05:19 Because if that doesn't happen--
05:20 There's no reason in doing anything else.
05:22 This is not the car for you or me.
05:23 But it turns over.
05:24 Check this out.
05:25 I can grab the fan and actually spin the engine.
05:28 We'll have to go find another Jimmy Six in the yard
05:31 and maybe even pull the whole distributor out of it.
05:34 Because this is fairly jacked.
05:37 The engine we're dealing with here is actually a GMC in line six,
05:40 often in hot rodding known as a Jimmy Six.
05:43 These things were popular for hot rodders
05:45 because they came in a 302-inch displacement,
05:47 which was kind of a big deal for an inline six at the time.
05:50 I actually know guys who've gone 200 miles an hour and more
05:53 with these things on nitromethane.
05:55 This one's either a 248 or a 270.
05:58 And the thing that you need to know is this is completely different
06:01 than the Chevrolet Stovebolt Six.
06:03 We're going to be screwed when it comes to replacement parts,
06:05 but we do have a cool piece of hot rodding history here.
06:08 We're working on getting this engine running
06:09 after it hasn't been fired up in at least since 1988,
06:13 which is the last tag on the license plate.
06:15 So what do you do?
06:16 We're going to change all of the fluids.
06:18 We need to make sure that we've got fuel air and spark, obviously, for fuel.
06:22 We're not going to bother with the fuel tank or anything.
06:24 I've got my little clickety-clackety electric fuel pump
06:26 that we're going to use to suck out of a five-gallon jug to feed the carburetor.
06:30 So what do you want to do?
06:32 All right, just hit it. Let's just see what happens. Crank it.
06:38 Can you be somewhat prepared maybe to pull one of those off in case it sticks?
06:42 Yeah.
06:43 Okay, I'm hoping it's in neutral.
06:45 I'm standing off to the side just in case you mow over the valiant.
06:48 Ready?
06:50 Sure.
06:51 Nope.
06:53 There, it's stuck.
06:57 It cranked over, dude.
07:07 Yeah, it did. Cranked good. Starter works well.
07:10 We need a rotor and some oil.
07:12 Wire up the plug wires and we could find out if this thing runs.
07:15 I don't know where we're going to get a rotor.
07:17 Actually, that's what we can do tonight, is drive around and find a GMC with a rotor.
07:21 Well, there's still daylight. We should do that.
07:23 Yep. There's a few GMCs in the yard, not many.
07:26 There you go.
07:28 I see a coil. I see a distributor.
07:30 The good thing about being in a junkyard is everything you need is right here.
07:33 It's a virtual smorgasbord of free parts.
07:36 I can see us putting this engine in our truck later on.
07:39 Yeah, maybe.
07:40 So there, we found the rotor I broke in this GMC.
07:45 And we almost fell in love with this GMC right here and went,
07:48 "Wait, wait, wait. The 4950 we were looking at?"
07:51 Done!
07:52 I don't know. This thing's pretty awesome.
07:53 If it had brakes, we'd take it home.
07:54 Yeah, it's got a dump bed.
07:55 And mud tires.
07:57 So that's it for the night. We're going to come back in the morning and try and fire it up.
08:00 Yeah.
08:01 I really like that truck, though.
08:05 [Day 2]
08:07 It's day two wrenching on the GMC, and we didn't get it fired up last night,
08:14 and so we're going to work on that this morning.
08:16 We've already poured oil in.
08:17 We need to do some ignition system modification.
08:20 There's some weirdness about the distributor and rotor.
08:22 Okay, so let's recap here.
08:24 This is new.
08:25 Right now, that's the only rotor we're aware of that will fit this engine
08:29 after we cut it with a death wheel that's going to wobble.
08:32 [Day 3]
08:34 If that works, I will be very impressed with myself.
08:41 This never had a chance of working.
08:43 Why?
08:44 The rotor's way too big.
08:46 Look, it's sitting above, past the terminals.
08:49 Okay, look what I got.
08:51 Apparently, there's an early and a late distributor cap and rotor.
08:54 That's the one.
08:55 [Day 4]
08:57 Solved.
08:58 Is that cap on the ground over there?
08:59 Junkyard magic.
09:00 Here's where we stand.
09:01 We have spent approximately $700 to figure out whether our GMC straight-six
09:07 with parts robbed from a Chevy and another GMC will actually run.
09:12 And that will be the deciding factor on whether we abandon ship here or keep going.
09:17 So we're going to pump fuel on the carburetor right now
09:19 and see if it looks like an El Toro lawn sprinkler or not.
09:23 I hear it.
09:24 Hear the bowl filling.
09:25 Happy bowl.
09:26 Oh, there's our first leak, but I'm good with it.
09:30 I just have to simultaneously man the wire running the fuel pump and ignition,
09:34 the battery cable going to the starter because that's probably going to stick,
09:37 and the fire creator.
09:39 Do you have a hammer for the starter?
09:41 Oh, yeah.
09:42 I'm using all eight of my hands right now.
09:44 Okay.
09:45 That seems safe.
09:46 Yeah.
09:47 All right.
09:48 Hit it.
09:49 Okay.
09:51 [Hammering]
09:54 Ha ha.
09:57 That was funny.
09:59 All right.
10:01 Give it a shot.
10:02 Ready?
10:03 Yep.
10:05 Whoa.
10:06 That wanted to run, dude.
10:08 Did you see that?
10:09 Like that.
10:10 All right.
10:11 Hold on.
10:12 That wanted to run.
10:13 Yeah, it really did.
10:15 Look at that.
10:17 Running.
10:19 Full on running.
10:21 It ran.
10:22 Okay.
10:23 How can I cut power to the starter and not kill the ignition?
10:27 Is there a side terminal?
10:29 No.
10:30 Okay.
10:31 All right.
10:32 I got this.
10:33 I got this.
10:34 Yep.
10:35 There you go.
10:36 Exactly.
10:37 There you go.
10:38 Okay.
10:39 Are you ready?
10:40 Yep.
10:41 [Hammering]
10:43 Starting fluid.
10:45 Go ahead.
10:47 [Hammering]
10:53 I can't believe it fired up and it's idling.
10:56 Look at that.
10:57 Dude, it's alive.
10:58 That is like new.
11:00 There's no water in it, so let's kill it.
11:03 That is literally like new.
11:05 It's not even smoking.
11:07 It's alive.
11:09 This thing has three to one compression.
11:11 Son of a gun, we're driving home.
11:12 Wow.
11:13 I feel like we should be having a beer, but it's 8 o'clock in the morning.
11:16 Might not matter.
11:17 [Laughing]
11:19 [Music]
11:21 Okay.
11:22 Wheels are on.
11:23 We don't know if the trans works.
11:25 We've not put any water in the radiator or brake fluid.
11:28 Guaranteed the brakes don't work.
11:30 Come on, baby.
11:31 Hold water.
11:33 See no badness yet.
11:36 That filled it exactly how far it had to go.
11:38 Really?
11:39 For now.
11:40 Yeah.
11:41 Hmm.
11:42 That means the rest of it's packed with dirt.
11:43 Well, the cap was on it, right?
11:46 Might not be.
11:47 The cap wasn't on it?
11:48 I don't know.
11:49 Oh, we need to fix the shifter.
11:51 It's unscrewed from the column.
11:53 I just need to find another truck that has the screw.
11:56 Okay, here's a truck like ours.
11:58 Already gone.
11:59 Actually, it's because it's a four on the floor.
12:02 There's another one.
12:04 Ah.
12:05 I failed because I have the wrong tool.
12:07 I found the part, but I have a Phillips, and it's a flathead.
12:11 This is funky in here.
12:14 Oh, this must be where the battery went.
12:16 Oh, my God, there's a battery in there still.
12:18 [Music]
12:21 All right.
12:22 Let's put the new battery in there.
12:26 Fail.
12:29 Win.
12:30 [Music]
12:33 Broke the screw.
12:35 That's genius.
12:37 How much time am I going to kill finding one tiny screw?
12:40 I broke that one.
12:41 Yes.
12:42 That's all I'm looking for.
12:44 Isn't it amazing that that can stop your vehicle from being drivable?
12:48 I want to drive this thing, but we don't know if we're fully committed to this truck yet,
12:53 so I think I'm going to strap our makeshift gas tank to the bumper here.
12:57 It's like factory.
12:58 It's in there solid.
13:00 Go right through the core support with the fuel line, electric fuel pump to our gas tank.
13:07 Ow.
13:08 Broke that one, too.
13:10 Done.
13:11 Zip ties.
13:13 Giving up.
13:15 Going to zip ties.
13:17 It's pretty clear to anyone watching that we should have just started here.
13:21 I like it.
13:22 See the action on that thing?
13:24 Might have to rubricate that a little bit.
13:26 Okay.
13:27 That's good.
13:31 Wiring's done.
13:33 Holding starter down.
13:37 That's easy.
13:38 That's almost too easy.
13:39 It's like new.
13:43 We're driving.
13:44 Yes, we are.
13:45 Yeah.
13:47 Let's slam the hood and cruise around.
13:50 Yeah.
13:51 Oh, yeah.
13:52 Jimmy runs.
13:53 It's perfectly good.
13:55 Wow.
13:56 Does that mean that gauge is working?
13:57 We have 40 pounds of oil pressure?
13:59 That's not possible.
14:02 Okay.
14:03 I'll feel the ignition and see if the gauge moves.
14:06 No way.
14:07 We had over 40 pounds of oil pressure, friend.
14:10 Wow.
14:12 And the door opens.
14:13 Dude, I'm so committed now.
14:15 I'm almost thinking clean out the bed.
14:19 Imagine the dust cloud the first time she gets on the freeway.
14:22 Let's see.
14:23 What is this, day two?
14:24 Not bad.
14:25 Sure.
14:26 Front brakes are together.
14:27 We toured the yard in our new truck.
14:29 Got a fuel system.
14:30 Yeah.
14:31 Nice cans.
14:32 Thank you.
14:33 Tomorrow we're going to have to put brakes on this thing.
14:35 The master cylinder is locked up completely solid, but we've got one coming in in the morning and four wheel cylinders.
14:41 We have to do that, wire up some tail lights, put a six volt battery in it, and all happening tomorrow here on Roadkill.
14:49 Nice out.
14:50 All right.
14:51 Let's go.
14:52 [Music]
14:57 Yeah, day three.
14:58 And we're doing pretty good.
15:00 We found a local place, A1 Electric.
15:02 Strange name because that's where we got all the brake parts we were missing.
15:05 Got a rebuild kit for the master cylinder, new wheel cylinders for all the way around this thing.
15:10 And today we're going to attempt to fix the brakes.
15:13 If that works, we just have to wire up some tail lights and hit the freeway.
15:19 I think we're going to make it.
15:21 [Music]
15:29 Hey, Dave.
15:31 Do you want the amazing news or the less than amazing news?
15:35 You got it off.
15:36 I did.
15:37 I did.
15:38 I got it off, and I actually understand how it functions.
15:40 And it's the wrong rebuild kit.
15:42 And it's the wrong rebuild kit.
15:43 No surprise.
15:44 Yeah.
15:45 I have good news, though, which is all the brake lines and--well, not all.
15:48 The brake lines I've cleaned so far have been fine.
15:51 That's good news because I took this line off and ran a wire through it.
15:55 No issues.
15:56 Okay, good.
15:57 In fact, there was even a little bit of liquid in there.
15:58 So I trust those.
15:59 Right.
16:00 This means we're hunting the graveyard for more.
16:02 Yeah.
16:04 Going junking.
16:05 Yay.
16:07 Oh, I didn't see this one before.
16:10 That's why you got to walk the yard.
16:11 This one's a long bed.
16:12 Look at it.
16:13 Look at the linkage up here.
16:15 It has a bigger brake line going into it, like a 5/16.
16:19 Huh.
16:20 It probably means that that master's a different bore also.
16:24 How about that place near orange?
16:29 Yeah, they would have it.
16:31 What's next day?
16:34 I wonder if anybody's ever laid under a junk car in a junk yard and ordered parts for that car.
16:38 Thanks for calling Truck Shop.
16:39 How may I direct your call?
16:40 Parts?
16:41 One moment, yes.
16:46 I'm afraid all the operators are busy at the moment, but please hold and you will be transferred when somebody becomes available.
16:54 Because of commercial attention given to every caller, we will experience a brief delay.
16:59 Please remain on the line.
17:01 A representative will assist you on the daily.
17:03 We're giving up.
17:04 This is our third day of working on it, and we're not going to drive away first thing tomorrow morning.
17:09 We're going to have to put our FedExed master cylinder on first thing tomorrow morning, install it, bleed the brakes, and then hit the road and drive home with no issues whatsoever.
17:18 That's the plan.
17:19 Finnegan's on the phone ordering that master cylinder right now.
17:22 All right.
17:23 I think we're good.
17:25 It's the third day of our journey, and technically we've only made it about 300 yards around the junk yard.
17:32 But on the bright side, we've rebuilt almost the entire brake system, wiring, plumbing.
17:40 She's ready to rock.
17:42 Just need one more piece tomorrow morning, the master cylinder, and I think we'll be on our way.
17:52 We're on day four, and thank God for Classic Performance Products, because they had the perfect master cylinder for a 1950s GMC.
18:02 And this is the last piece of the puzzle.
18:04 Once this is in the truck, we can drive it out of the yard.
18:08 We might not have any lights, because we haven't really tested that yet, but at least we can drive out of the yard and get home to our wives, because we've been in this junk yard for almost five days, and they're over it.
18:19 We're not, but they are.
18:21 One, two, three.
18:26 Holding.
18:27 Hold on.
18:29 Ah, not good.
18:32 Way not good.
18:34 It blew out a line back here.
18:37 That's going to be two hours.
18:39 Here's the line that exploded right there.
18:43 We're replumbing the whole truck right now.
18:45 Fortunately, it's pretty simple.
18:46 I think overall line replacement is probably only going to take us about 45 minutes.
18:50 I'm going to go over to the left front and bend that one, and then we can bleed the brakes again.
18:55 And then leave.
18:56 And then leave.
18:57 We're leaving.
18:58 And drive home in three hours.
19:02 Okay.
19:04 Take two.
19:07 Open.
19:09 It's pretty solid fluid.
19:11 Okay, I'll move to the next one.
19:13 The thing of it is, after all of this, and we're anxiously trying to drive away to go pay Jerry and leave, we've never started this thing on six volts before.
19:24 So hopefully that works.
19:25 Coming down.
19:29 It's five o'clock.
19:30 We were supposed to leave roughly eight hours ago.
19:33 In that eight hours, we blew through the entire brake system of this truck two or three times.
19:39 We're good at it now.
19:40 Finnegan's ultimately solved the fuel system here.
19:43 We're about to fire it up, go see Jerry, pay for this junk, and hit the road.
19:49 Okay.
19:54 It rolls.
19:55 This is good.
19:56 Does it stop?
19:57 I don't care.
19:59 I'm going to find out now.
20:00 I'm going to see Jerry.
20:01 I worked really hard on that.
20:02 Let's find out.
20:03 Ready?
20:04 Yeah.
20:05 Yes!
20:06 Brakes!
20:07 All right, let's go see Jerry.
20:08 I never cared about brakes in my entire life, but after you suffer for two days on some, you take a little bit of pride in that.
20:15 Well, what do you think?
20:17 That is utterly amazing.
20:18 Is it?
20:19 That vehicle sat there with the license plate on it.
20:22 1988.
20:23 We fell in love with it over the past few days, for sure.
20:26 Just tinkering with it.
20:28 Let's go inside and make it ours.
20:29 Yeah.
20:30 Yeah.
20:31 Pay you your money.
20:32 So what do we owe you in total?
20:33 I think $2,000 is what I owe you.
20:35 Yep.
20:36 That's right.
20:37 I think we owe you a little bit of change on that.
20:38 We stole enough bolts and stuff from you.
20:40 I know.
20:41 It's closing time.
20:42 Yes, very much.
20:43 Thank you.
20:44 A lot of fun.
20:45 [MUSIC PLAYING]
21:00 It's getting dark, and we'd never figured out how to actually make either headlights or taillights work on this thing.
21:06 So we figure we can probably live with no taillights.
21:08 We're not going to live with no headlights.
21:10 So the plan is we're going to sort of make a bed here out of some scrap that we found,
21:15 strap our generator in it from our video crew, and run an extension cord out to the front
21:20 and put our work lights on the front of the thing.
21:22 So we'll probably get pulled over for having our lights too bright, honestly.
21:26 That's really impressive.
21:28 Fire it up.
21:31 Wow.
21:32 [MUSIC PLAYING]
21:35 That's really good.
21:38 That is awesome.
21:40 It's overheating.
21:41 Not good.
21:46 Look at that.
21:48 The rear main seal's puking pretty good.
21:51 Yeah, the clutch can's all wet.
21:54 I would be truly impressed if this works.
21:56 It will.
21:58 I'd say roll on and don't drive that fast.
22:02 All right.
22:03 Good shot.
22:04 About 20 miles from Turner's, Pigpen finally told us why she'd been parked for 30 years.
22:13 We've been beaten.
22:18 Unfortunately, Pigpen has probably seen its last mile with this motor.
22:25 This is probably why it was originally in the junkyard.
22:27 The thing idles around really great, but you get it up on the highway and it's starting to rod knock.
22:32 This right here is basically crankcase pressure.
22:35 It's not overheating.
22:37 It's not overheating.
22:38 It's oil coming out of the valve cover.
22:41 So we're going to leave it here and probably go to the trailer and drag the thing home.
22:47 Hey, we'll rebuild it.
22:51 Yep.
22:52 It's an awesome truck.
22:53 We still rescued and recycled that truck.
22:55 They make speed parts for that engine.
22:57 They do.
22:58 We can put a GMC 302 on it and turbo it.
23:01 See?
23:02 See?
23:03 There's a reason for everything.
23:04 It's hard to declare a big win in this episode of Roadkill.
23:09 A win would have been driving this thing all the way home.
23:12 But I'll go with a half win.
23:13 The thing had been sitting for 30 years and we did make it run and drive.
23:17 And we did make it leave the property where it had sat forever.
23:20 Eventually, we'll probably make this truck run.
23:22 And by eventually, I mean another 30 years from now.
23:26 This is Roadkill.
23:27 We know how to make junk live.
23:29 We know how to make junk run.
23:31 We don't necessarily know how to get it all the way home.
23:34 This time on Roadkill, it's the clapper.
23:39 Fail.
23:42 You don't have to touch.
23:44 There you go.
23:46 See? Look at that.
23:47 Wow, that was awesome.
23:52 Fixed it by driving backwards.
23:54 Do that with a 30-year-old Toyota.
23:56 I'm going to remember that.
23:57 I do.
23:58 Yeah.
23:59 Tomorrow, we're going to show everybody how to turn a 3-hour drive into a 2-day adventure.
24:03 I'm going to make my wife thrilled.
24:05 Or bang for the buck.
24:07 You know what I'm getting guaranteed on this trip?
24:10 A sunburn.
24:11 Oh yeah, for sure.
24:13 [BLANK_AUDIO]