March 2025 Restoration Blog | Jay Leno's Garage - video Dailymotion

Metatube

🚗💨 March 2025 Restoration Blog is here! Jay Leno and the team tackle one of their most insane restorations yet—bringing a 100-year-old steam car back to life! With 1,200 PSI of steam pressure, intricate repairs, and next-level engineering, this episode is packed with automotive history and innovation.  🔧 ALSO FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE: 🔥 A Legendary 1957 Chrysler Imperial Restoration! 🏍️ Jay’s Personal 1940 Indian Motorcycle Rebuild! 🚒 Jay’s Fire Truck That Became a Hero During California Wildfires!  Which project is your favorite? Drop a comment below! 👇  🔔 SUBSCRIBE http://bit.ly/JLGSubscribe for more classic car restorations, expert insights, and behind-the-scenes from Jay Leno’s Garage! 👍 Like & Share if you love vintage restorations!  Shop car care and detailing supplies from Jay Leno’s Garage: https://www.lenosgarage.com/shine  THE BEST OF JAY LENO'S GARAGE » Exclusive First Looks: http://bit.ly/JLGExclusives » Ultra Rare Supercars: http://bit.ly/JLGSupercars » Jay's Book Club: http://bit.ly/JLGBookClub  JAY LENO'S GARAGE ON SOCIAL Facebook: http://facebook.com/JayLenosGarage Twitter: http://twitter.com/LenosGarage Instagram: http://instagram.com/jaylenosgarage/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jaylenosgarageofficial  ABOUT JAY LENO'S GARAGE A new video every Monday! Visit Jay Leno's Garage, the Emmy-winning series where Jay Leno gives car reviews, motorcycle reviews, compares cars, and shares his passion and expertise on anything that rolls, explodes, and makes noise. Classic cars, restomods, super cars like the McLaren P1, sports cars like Porsche 918 Spyder and Camaro Z28, cafe racers, vintage cars, and much, much more.  #March2024RestorationBlog #JayLenosGarage #ClassicCars #VintageRestoration #SteamPower #RestorationProject #CarHistory #AutoEngineering #CarRepair #SteamCar #MotorcycleRestoration #RareCars

Transcript

00:00Welcome to the episode of Jay Leno's Garage Restoration Blog. This is where you go back and

00:04we take a look at some of the projects we've been working on for the last decade, for the last two

00:11weeks, whatever. Some take a little longer than others. This is our never-ending 1925 Doble

00:17Steam Car. One of the most amazing vehicles of all time. Exciting, frustrating, when it's running

00:23good it's unbelievable, when it's running bad it's unbelievable. You're dealing with as much as 1200

00:29pounds of pressure. Combine that with 100 year old metals that are constantly expanding and

00:34contracting. You get little leaks and once you have a leak then the whole system kind of falls

00:39apart. Plus internally it has to be literally hospital clean. The slightest bit of grit or

00:44dirt can just screw up the whole thing. So that being said, we got to run it again. George, our

00:52steam guy, George is an all-around mechanic but he's a self-taught steam guy and he's done a

00:57wonderful job with this. This is the throttle assembly here. This was just all just corroded,

01:02broken, leaked, whatever you want to call it. We managed to fix that, make some new pieces.

01:07We used a lot of 3D printing, things of that nature. You have what's called a steam generator.

01:12It's not a boiler. Stanley is a boiler where you light a fire under a tea kettle and you have to

01:17wait for it to heat up 15 gallons. This works on the same principle as a tankless water heater. You turn

01:23the key. This is just one piece of the coil stack. Now in here, as I mentioned before,

01:32a Stanley is just a big tea kettle. You heat up 15 gallons of water. This, as I said, works like a

01:38tankless water heater. You have 600 feet of coil. This is just the top layer. Imagine 600 feet

01:45crammed into there, how tight that is. A diminishing radius. The whole thing only holds

01:50about two quarts of water. And what happens is water goes around. Now when you turn the key,

01:59an electric fan, Scirocco type fan, spins, blows air through the venturi of the carburetor. It sucks

02:05up gasoline here from the float bowl, throws the gasoline into the coil stack, spark plugs, lights

02:11the gasoline. You'll see the fire ignite it right here. And then within about a minute, you have

02:18enough pressure to pull away because you're only heating two quarts of water and you've got

02:23basically a 3,000 degree fire. What happened with the coil stack was we had, once you get a leak in

02:30here, this split and consequently your pressure just disappears. It all goes out through the leak

02:38obviously. And Jimmy managed to fix it in place. We thought we'd have to take the whole coil stack out

02:45and it's heavy, it's thick. How you compress 600 feet into that, I don't know how they did at the

02:52factory, but they did. We're going to fire it up now. I'll show you how this thing works just to

02:56give you an idea. It's just so different. You see a steam car is the exact opposite of a gas car.

03:02Gas car trying to get the heat out. Steam car trying to keep the heat in. Any place you see a

03:07steam leak, you're losing horsepower. You're losing. So you want to go around and constantly fix that.

03:14This is oil. You fill this with oil. Since water is not a lubricant, about every 88 revolutions of

03:21the engine that shoots a dollop of oil to lubricate it. And this works on what's known as superheated

03:27steam. The difference between superheated steam and regular steam is with superheated steam, one drop of

03:32water expands 2,500 times. So that gives you an idea of how much power you can get in something

03:38like this. This car weighs about 6,000 pounds, but it needs no transmission because the

03:44steam is so powerful. You've got 1,000 foot-pounds of torque from rest. It's a four-cylinder engine,

03:50but what happens is the steam pushes on both sides of the piston. Steam pushes the piston up,

03:55steam pushes the piston down. So you have the same power impulses as a V16. A two-cylinder Stanley

04:02has the same power impulses as a V8 because steam pushes the piston up. There's no wasted motion.

04:08It's always working all the time. But I'm going to start this thing up. I want you to watch this

04:12window. You'll hear it whoosh. Let me do this. Now the first thing you do when you get in a car like

04:23this, you want to turn on the water pumps, which push the water into the coil stack. I reach down,

04:33I pull up the pumps. It's only two quarts, so I've got a full coil stack full of water.

04:41I now turn on the burner. Watch the window.

04:53That's pretty cool, isn't it?

04:54When that fire goes out, I'm ready to pull away. Now I always like to hold it for a little bit

05:00longer just to make sure everything is hot enough. Okay, now I can pull away now, but I just like to

05:09give it a little extra time just because it's a hundred to go. And now when you get a thousand

05:19pounds of pressure, the fire goes off. See, what happens is you have a metal tray with six

05:26glass crystals on it. When that metal tray gets hot enough, the metal expands, pushes the glass

05:31crystal, turns the fire off. When the car starts to cool, then the fire comes back on again as you

05:36heard it go on and off, on and off as you go down the road. So that's basically how that works. We

05:41got it all back together. The guy's done a great job. Pair is now painting the hood where it got a

05:45little scorch from the heat. Well, that's where we are. Let me show you some of the other projects.

05:50Come on, I'll show you what's going on with the Imperial.

05:59This is my 1957 Imperial. It has a 392 Hemi. It was second to the last year. 58 was the last year

06:07of this motor. It just became too expensive to them to constantly make, and they can't

06:13out with the 413, which replaced it, which was pretty good. But the Hemi, when you did a little

06:18bit of work, it breathed better. We're just doing this car back to stock. When I bought it, the

06:22original, I bought it for his wife. It was too big for her to drive. She got scared of it. So he just

06:28parked it. He put it away. The original chrome, we haven't touched any of that. We've upgraded the

06:33paint in areas. I had the hood blow open on me and it bent back, so we just decided to redo it.

06:40We did it in the original color. Vintage Air helped us out. The air conditioning was okay,

06:45but it ran on Freon, which you really can't get in California or just about anywhere else.

06:50So Vintage Air did a wonderful job helping us integrate modern air conditioning pieces into

06:55this system. Brassworks did the radiative force, but we just want to be stock because it was pretty

07:03fast. It was about 335, 340 horsepower stock, something like that. This thing actually goes

07:10pretty good. I think we've reached a point now where a classic that's all original is probably

07:16worth more than a hot-rodded one. 20 years ago, you'd get these hot-rodded 57 Chevys, $250,000.

07:24Now they're back down to 80 grand, 110. I think we made a lot of money doing this.

07:31I think we move on. You go from the 57 Chevy, now the nostalgia car is the Japanese cars of the

07:3980s and 90s, in the same way the 57 Chevy was when I was in high school. But anyway,

07:45that's what we've done here. It's almost back together. We kept it original. It didn't even

07:50upgrade the brakes. Brakes are okay, not bad, but they're just huge, boaty, floaty cars you get on

07:57the highway. And so they're a lot of fun. We're waiting for Iskanderian to send us a new camshaft.

08:02And again, we're putting it back to stock so it'll run exactly it did when it was new.

08:07Come on, let's show you what else we got here.

08:18All right, this is my 1940 Indian motorcycle. George has done a wonderful job rebuilding this.

08:25I had an accident a while ago, another stupid accident. Guy had a wire across the driveway.

08:33I went to make a U-turn, the light was in my eye. There really wasn't any flag or anything.

08:38Boom, it hit me. It just knocked me off, just literally totaled the bike. And it's probably

08:43the best thing that ever happened because once we started to rebuild it, it had so much

08:48filler and fiberglass. It was heading for-

08:52Thoroughly repaired all the way through.

08:53Yeah, it was not well maintained. You know, it was a time when you could buy these for $25

08:59and people did what they could to patch them back together. George has done a wonderful job on the

09:04motor, the clutch. And of course, Jimmy has built a brand new from scratch sidecar body. Look at all

09:11the work on this. We'll go over that in a second. Let's start with the engine itself. What were the

09:16problems with this, George?

09:18Well, my job was easy. Jimmy pulled the engine out and handed it to me. So that was easy. Pistons,

09:25valve job, bottom end was good. I rode it back after your crash and it was bent and

09:33the clutch worked. So put it all together, put the engine in, the clutch wouldn't disengage.

09:40So all back apart again, upside down, crankcase, crank and everything off to fix the clutch.

09:48What happened was the release shaft, this turns, lifts the pressure plate off the

09:58clutch disc. This just twisted and broke.

10:00Yeah, look at that. I mean, look at that. Look at it. It's sheared.

10:04This is going to be my first time riding a bike again since the accident.

10:08And when it just started, we couldn't get it in the gear.

10:11Just my luck it didn't break, pull it out and have another accident again.

10:14Yeah, we're thankful for that. I keep telling myself, oh, I always got one more good crash

10:20left and after that I'll retire. Well, now I'm thinking I got one more good crash anyway. But

10:25anyway, hopefully it won't happen with this one.

10:27No, that's all I did though, was the engine. Jimmy was just working on this 24-7.

10:34He bills me for 24-7.

10:36Yeah.

10:36But it's mostly working seven.

10:39Yeah, yeah, yeah.

10:40Billing for 24-7.

10:42It's worth it at twice the price. Look at the job. Look at the job he did here,

10:47making these pieces from scratch. I mean, it's just fantastic. It's stronger. This thing,

10:54well, you can put your foot through the floor and it had plastic filler.

10:57It had fiberglass on the bottom. A lot of filler. The whole bike had stuff. We fixed everything

11:03because once they had the accident, we started finding things out.

11:07Right.

11:07So we redid the whole thing from the frame up. Even the sidecar frame, we've repaired that,

11:12everything from the frame up on that too. So it's like you said, it's a good thing that we

11:16found what we found, you know?

11:17And this is just a wonderful bike to ride. These old Indian 4s, just bulletproof, all torquey.

11:23They're only about 40 horsepower. Can we fire it up, George? We haven't fired it since George got

11:28it all together.

11:29Well, let's hope so.

11:30Let's see what happens.

11:31These things are really weird in that when you kick it, it doesn't, you know, the engine doesn't

11:37just whip around. It's just kind of like stepping on a plunger. So you want to choke it?

11:46Choke it a little. I'll let you turn it on.

11:48Key on. Okay. Let's try it.

11:50All right. A bit of retard, right?

11:52Yeah.

11:55All right. She'll go.

12:01Choke on? Choke on?

12:13Nope. Choke. It wouldn't be dead if the choke was on.

12:16Choke it. One kick. Take the choke off.

12:20Water on the throttle.

12:24I should go into gear, all right?

12:25Yeah.

12:30It's not touching the ground, right?

12:32One is all the way back. You know that.

12:34Yeah. That's first.

12:43Very smooth.

12:52At 60 miles an hour, it's great.

12:57And you can lock it off like that.

12:59Downshifting with the wheel spinning.

13:01Yeah.

13:01And, you know, there you go. That's first.

13:07That's second, huh?

13:08Hit the brake. Hit the brake. Yeah, it's great.

13:16Great job. Well, this is going to be so much fun to get it back on the road again.

13:21And I like these colors.

13:23It's the same color as your 57.

13:2557, yeah. And Per, our painter, of course, did a wonderful job, too.

13:32It's fun getting it back. Of course, Mike Thomas.

13:36Yeah.

13:37A Kiwi Indian. He's a great guy.

13:39If you have an Indian, well, you know him already.

13:43You probably know who he is. But Kiwi Indian, he just has every part, knows all about him,

13:48just done a wonderful job. He put an electric starter on my 47 Chief,

13:53which I had bought from a guy 20 years ago,

13:58but had such high compression pistons, you could barely kick it.

14:00So when you stalled at a light, oh, he has an electric starter kit that just works fantastic.

14:06Well, he got us the forks. He got us a new set of forks for this bike.

14:09Oh, he got a new set of forks for this, too. That's right. That's right. Yeah.

14:12Yeah. Very nice. So cool.

14:14Let's go over to the sidecar. Tell us what was involved here.

14:16You made all of this, didn't you, Jimmy?

14:18Yeah. Pretty much all of it's brand new.

14:21We changed a couple of things, but mostly the old one was really beat, like I said, fiberglass.

14:25So we decided to make it over again. We kept it all the same.

14:28We changed the windshield a little bit, had a little fun with that.

14:31We kind of cut things off. We're not putting the spare back on it.

14:34We're trying to save some weight. The bike has a lot of extra weight as it is already.

14:37This thing weighs like 110 pounds alone. Yeah.

14:40So along with that and that whole frame over there, we're trying to lighten it up a little.

14:43And all these trim pieces. Look how beautiful that looks.

14:46Yeah, we put it back. You made this as well, didn't you?

14:48We made all that from scratch here, but the trim pieces are pretty much

14:51traditional like they would have been.

14:54So we put it back like Indy would have had it, as close as we could get.

14:57And we're about ready to mount it actually on the frame and then tie it up to the bike.

15:01So you'll be riding it pretty soon here. Yeah, we'll be riding it pretty soon.

15:04So very cool. We got to sync the break up on the sidecar.

15:08So it breaks at about the same time. Me and George will do that together.

15:11Then wire up also the brake and taillight on it. And she's done.

15:15Let's go over here to the barn special.

15:18So this is the barn special.

15:31If you go to the restoration blog from about four or five years ago,

15:37I think we went into depth a little bit of history.

15:40I got this from Greg Barnes, the son of the owner.

15:44Greg was one of these guys who had no money, but was a talented fabricator.

15:49And he made everything himself.

15:51Remember, this was built to run Pike's Peak in about 51 or 52.

15:55Al Unser was going to drive it.

15:58Aircraft brakes. These are all aircraft surplus stuff.

16:02Quick change rear end, LaSalle transmission.

16:05This is how hot rods were built in the late 40s and early 50s.

16:10It's the new quote back then overhead valve Cadillac engine.

16:14He built the radiator.

16:16Jimmy, you went through the brakes and actually look pretty good, don't they?

16:18He's built an amazing piece here.

16:20So, you know, you can be doing this kind of work your whole life,

16:23but you start working on something like this and you can be humbled real quick.

16:25Because the guy did such amazing work, you know, and the stuff he did

16:29makes it kind of hard to do, but we're trying to keep it all like it was.

16:32Rebuilt the brakes.

16:33Steering wheel was falling apart.

16:34We just cleaned it up and reshaped it and fixed it to keep it on there.

16:38So we're trying to just keep everything that he built here.

16:41Just clean it up, make it all work again.

16:43George is probably going to get it running here soon.

16:44So they had a broken throttle linkage, you know, stuff like that.

16:48So just going over a little at a time, getting everything back to functioning.

16:51And then hopefully George will get it fired up.

16:54That'll be fun.

16:55And we're thinking about maybe making some tin for it.

16:58Maybe make a clamshell body for it that might dress it up a little in the future.

17:01The original body was a stretched Austin Healy body.

17:04That got thrown away.

17:06Look at all the drilling for lightness here.

17:08And this is the hot rod set up back in the 40s.

17:11You get an old LaSalle transmission and you hook it up to this quick change rear end.

17:15Well, and a lot of the stuff he's done, people are doing nowadays, you know,

17:18driving the generator from off the flywheel, I mean off the shaft.

17:22Then you actually look at the brakes and the master.

17:24They're doing this in trophy trucks right now, modern day.

17:27So, you know, there's guys that come in and look at this that are building,

17:30you know, race cars and stuff that always come busy and they see this.

17:33Look at this throttle linkage.

17:34If you play violin, we'll do it.

17:37We got it.

17:38We fix that.

17:38So it all works.

17:39Okay.

17:39Isn't that great?

17:40Look at that.

17:40Yeah, motorcycle carbs.

17:43So, yeah, he had to figure out a way to have all these cars work in sync

17:46and be able to adjust and finite adjust here.

17:49And just everything he did was brilliant.

17:51The fuel is delivered by a chain drive in the front.

17:54That's the fuel pumps up front.

17:56George is going to have fun with this stuff too,

17:57but he knows a lot about this and he's been looking at it.

18:00So, you know, it's something we're doing, you know,

18:01little by little on the side between other projects that we're working on.

18:04So hopefully we'll actually maybe have it running.

18:06This thing will do a donut out front.

18:08You know, it works for me.

18:09Let's show you a vehicle.

18:10It became a hero doing those horrible fires a while back.

18:13Come here.

18:13Take a look.

18:24Well, this is my 1941 American LeFrance fire truck.

18:28This kind of made it name for itself.

18:30When we had those horrible fires here in California,

18:34I heard from my friend Todd Eves at Out of This World Barbecue,

18:38and he had an idea.

18:39Let's go feed the firemen.

18:40And I said, why don't we take my fire truck?

18:43And then I thought, ah, I don't know.

18:45It looked kind of show offy.

18:46Guys are working hard and you show up in some fancy fire truck.

18:50But when I got there, the chief thanked me because, you know,

18:53you're in an area where everything is gray and burned

18:56and everything's been destroyed.

18:58And the firemen got such a kick out of seeing this big shiny thing pull up,

19:02you know, that they had fun asking me questions about it

19:06and feeding them out of it and all that kind of thing.

19:09The reason we're able to do that, my friend Dave Kalanke, who,

19:15we lost Dave.

19:17You might remember he put the,

19:21help us put the power steering in this.

19:23Big guy, strong guy, strong as an ox.

19:27I guess an aneurysm or a blood clot.

19:32He died.

19:33You know, it was a tough time for all of us.

19:36He was just an amazing guy.

19:38Performance truck repair is his shop.

19:40His sons are running it for him.

19:42And he, that's what he does.

19:43He repairs the real fire trucks for the real firemen,

19:46not us phony guys that just show up with food.

19:49We'll miss him.

19:50This truck is dedicated to his memory because I'll never sell it.

19:54And every time we take it out and do it for a charity run

19:57or something like that, we'll think of Dave Kalanke.

20:00So yeah, it's too bad.

20:03Here's some pictures of it at work.

20:04Take a look.

20:05Now project, it's been finished for quite a while,

20:08but it's been, we've upgraded since then.

20:11The folks at Kinzer Chassis did the chassis for my 68 Bronco.

20:15And you know, it's a great company

20:18because whenever they come up with an improvement,

20:21oh, you got to put this on.

20:22We want to put this on.

20:23Oh, okay.

20:24So they could roll all the way out there.

20:25I'll follow out here rather to upgrade the chassis a bit for us.

20:30And coordinate the shocks and get everything all set up.

20:34And boy, they did a wonderful job.

20:35Here, here, take a look.

20:36This is my 68 Bronco.

20:38We kind of restomodified it.

20:40It's got the Shelby GT500 engine in it, five speed Kinzer chassis.

20:46This is Thomas Kinzer.

20:47This is his company.

20:48He built the chassis.

20:49Did an amazing job.

20:50Runs great, drives great.

20:51But you know, when you're a perfectionist,

20:53I get that, Jay, I think we can make a little bit.

20:55I go, Thomas, it's fine.

20:56I love it.

20:57No, I think I can make it better.

20:58So they've come out again to kind of go and change.

21:01Now, new shocks, right?

21:02New shocks.

21:03Teamed up with a new company.

21:04Who is that?

21:04That's Tractive out of the Netherlands.

21:06Okay.

21:06Yep.

21:07They've been the OEM supercar market and never really got into the off-road market.

21:13So we're partnered with them to bring it to the U.S.

21:16and get into the off-road market with them.

21:18Okay.

21:18Now this, she'll sit a little bit higher, right?

21:20It will sit a little bit higher.

21:21Yeah, yeah.

21:22Because I was kind of riding on the bump stops.

21:24You were riding on the bump stops, yeah.

21:25But it's a Bronco, so it's not supposed to be a Cadillac.

21:28It's supposed to be a Bronco.

21:29But I imagine it'll run a lot better with this.

21:31It will.

21:31And you're going to have some semi-active control touchscreen inside.

21:34Right.

21:35You'll be able to play with dampening front and rear and pitch and roll.

21:38Well, very good.

21:39This is just a wonderful vehicle because it doesn't weigh anything.

21:43I'm glad I didn't have this when I was 16 because it's got almost 800.

21:47It's 760 horsepower.

21:49Plus you play with a little bit.

21:50So you might even have a little bit more than that.

21:51But all right.

21:52Well, we'll see what she does.

21:53But I'll let you get back to it.

21:54We'll check back to you in a little bit.

21:55All right.

21:56Thanks.

21:57Thanks.

21:57Like the war.

22:58Hey, guys.

22:58I snuck it out last night.

22:59And boy, it drove great.

23:01It really a big difference.

23:03I kind of knew it, but I didn't know what it was supposed to be.

23:07I was kind of hitting the bump stops before.

23:09So just bam.

23:10I said, OK, well, it's a Bronco.

23:12That's what they do.

23:12But then I realized, no, that's not what they do.

23:15No, it's not.

23:16So tell us exactly what we did here.

23:19So we had the original suspension on here, the Fox shocks.

23:23Right.

23:24We took those off and put the tractive shocks on.

23:26It's a semi-active shock.

23:28And it has an in-cab display.

23:31So you can control compression, rebound, and pitch and roll.

23:34Yeah, all from a digital.

23:35All from a digital controller inside.

23:37Yeah, that's great.

23:37Yeah, and that all happens like six to 10 milliseconds,

23:40depending on how you have it set up in the cab.

23:43You know, it's so funny.

23:44You watch these shows where people do a car on a weekend.

23:46Uh-oh.

23:48And you can't.

23:48It's a real long process.

23:50It is.

23:50And you know, I'm not a suspension guy, obviously,

23:54but I thought lowering it might make it a bit more.

23:57Stable?

23:58Stable.

23:58And actually, it's the other way around.

24:00Yes, especially with tractive shocks.

24:02Yeah, because when I hit that bump stop, it's like,

24:04it's like a kidney punch every two seconds, you know.

24:06And now, although it's about an inch.

24:09Yeah, about an inch higher in the front,

24:11about an inch and a quarter in the rear.

24:12Much better, much better.

24:14So plus I can see over more.

24:17Yeah, so no, it's really great.

24:19And with 760 horsepower, it cures any problem you have.

24:23Right.

24:23So tell us about these shocks.

24:25We can definitely get Rob.

24:26He's the owner of Tractive.

24:27Right.

24:28To tell us more about them and go in more detail.

24:32Rob, come on in.

24:32How are you doing, my friend?

24:33Good, thank you.

24:34Hello.

24:35You guys are more in the Netherlands?

24:36Netherlands, yes.

24:37See, most Americans have no idea what that is.

24:40Somewhere in Europe.

24:41So it's somewhere in Europe, but no, no.

24:44Just a tremendous reputation in Europe and here as well.

24:47So tell us what we have here.

24:50We noticed that we could do a plug and play

24:52with the BMW motorcycle, the GS models.

24:56Right.

24:56So you remove the shock, put in our shock,

24:59connect it to the original wire harness

25:01and you get no fault error in your display.

25:05Oh, that's nice.

25:05Yeah.

25:06And we could make the shock special to customer request.

25:11Make it longer, shorter, heavier spring.

25:15And then a couple of years later, we found out

25:17we could do the same with Porsche and BMW cars.

25:21So the 997 had PSM and the newer cars also.

25:25So we could remove the shocks, put in our shocks,

25:28hook it up to the wire harness.

25:30And you're fine.

25:30And we could use the original button.

25:33And European standard is much...

25:35In America, you can put anything on anything.

25:38But in Europe, it's very, very strict, isn't it?

25:41If you, like in Germany, where you can go 200 miles an hour

25:44if you want, you can't change a part

25:46unless it's absolutely approved.

25:48So that's like a little extra

25:50that kind of gives you a vote of confidence.

25:52Yeah, correct.

25:53And the other thing is we supply to OEM.

25:57Right.

25:57We supply to BMW.

26:00In the 1000RR, XR and R is our valve.

26:04Right.

26:05We supply to Ducati.

26:08Right.

26:08And to Bombardier in Canada.

26:10Yeah.

26:10So all our production lines are OEM approved.

26:14Yeah.

26:14Otherwise, it's not possible.

26:16We have also now some small OEs.

26:19We supply to Pagani.

26:22Right.

26:22Dallara, Hennessey, Klickenhaus.

26:26And then there came some Porsche guys, Mr. Mods.

26:31They said, yeah, I have an old Porsche.

26:33Can you make something there?

26:34So we have for all the models from the 3, 5, 6,

26:38till now, we have standalone systems.

26:40So here inside this car is also a standalone system.

26:43We developed our own control unit with a G-sensor

26:47and that measures what the car does

26:48and reacts on the input from that sensor.

26:51So with the controller, now Rob can hop in the Bronco

26:55or Jay, you can hop in the Bronco

26:56and you can make it perform the way you want it to perform.

26:59Right.

26:59Or Rob can make it perform the way he wants it to perform.

27:01I guess the biggest problem was translating Tennessee to Dutch.

27:04That's it.

27:05Dutch to Tennessee.

27:06Yeah.

27:06So you've got to go to English.

27:07Then when you get English, you've got to go down to Tennessee.

27:12It's a long and involved process.

27:14So it allows a lot of flexibility from customer to customer

27:19to gain what they want out of a vehicle.

27:21So you do motorcycle, car, truck,

27:24all basically using the same valving, but obviously adapt.

27:28How does it work exactly?

27:29Inside is a coil.

27:31Right.

27:31You get a magnetic field.

27:33Right.

27:33And we have a small slider

27:36and that opens a hole or close a hole

27:39or every step in between because it is proportional.

27:43So depending on the input from the control unit,

27:46there goes a certain kind of current to the valve

27:49and that defines the position of the slider.

27:51Right.

27:52Okay.

27:52And because we use a bleed,

27:56so we can make it very soft in low speeds.

28:00Well, you know, it's interesting.

28:01I've got my 32 Packard over there.

28:03It's completely stock and it has a shock control,

28:05a very simple version of it.

28:07You have the shock and there are holes in it

28:09and you click it this way.

28:11More air goes through, shock goes.

28:13Yeah.

28:15Tighten the whole shock.

28:17You can compare it with when you have a one-way shock.

28:20Right.

28:20You can adjust it with a screwdriver or with a turning knob.

28:23Right.

28:23You must see this as a very quick screwdriver

28:26that is inside the shock and do it by himself.

28:28Right, right.

28:28Yeah.

28:29Oh, very cool.

28:30And that's static too, right?

28:31Like your Packard static.

28:32Right.

28:33So once you click that, it's in that position

28:36until you get back out of the vehicle.

28:37Yeah.

28:37And this is reacting every six to 10 milliseconds.

28:40Right.

28:41The whole time you're driving.

28:42No, a fascinating gentleman.

28:44Really, it's fun to see this technology applied

28:46to a pretty primitive vehicle.

28:49I mean, this is about as basic as you get.

28:51This was primitive in 1968.

28:54Right.

28:54So, you know, so to put this much horsepower through it.

28:57And you know, a lot of guys do it with the stock chassis,

29:00which is just an accident waiting to happen, you know.

29:03With this Kinzer chassis, everything,

29:05it's meant to take the horsepower you're putting through it.

29:07A lot of people modify cars and just put five, six, seven,

29:11800 horsepower through a system that's

29:13designed for 115 horsepower.

29:15And you just get everything twists and turns.

29:18Yeah.

29:19Very nice.

29:20All right.

29:21I'm here with George Swift, our mechanic.

29:23This is my 63 4CAM Porsche 356 Carrera.

29:28You know, just an amazing car.

29:29When I found this car, it belonged to a father.

29:33The son called me.

29:34He passed away.

29:34Did I want to buy it?

29:35And I said, I got a Porsche for sale.

29:37I said, yeah, I'm not really a 356 guy.

29:41It's a Carrera 2 4CAM.

29:43OK, that was the racing engine, more or less.

29:47That was the one to have.

29:49That was the hottest Porsche you could get in 63.

29:52I went and I looked at it.

29:53I was amazed by the condition of it.

29:54And I thought, well, let me find a 4CAM Porsche guy,

29:58because that's not my area.

30:00I don't know that much about it.

30:02So I asked him, who's the closest and the best 4CAM guy?

30:05He said, this guy named John Wilhoite.

30:06I said, so call John Wilhoite.

30:08John, I found this car.

30:09Could you take a look at it for me?

30:10Whatever it costs, I'll be glad to take care of it.

30:12Just wanted to check it out.

30:14He goes, yeah, well, it's a license plate.

30:15And I told him.

30:16And he said, that's my car.

30:17I restored that car myself.

30:19So when I heard that, I said, why don't you meet me at the house?

30:22So I went over there.

30:23I bought the car from the son, blah, blah, blah.

30:25Now, John is one of the premier 4CAM guys in the country.

30:29Plus, he does a lot of updating on Porsches.

30:32I put his short shifter kit in it.

30:34Great, changed the car.

30:36When I got this thing, you turn the key,

30:38there'd be a lot of smoke because the oil would come back in the line.

30:42And it would just blow a lot of smoke.

30:45So he had a ball check valve system we put in to keep that from happening.

30:49So now it doesn't smoke anymore.

30:51So I trust any innovations that he has.

30:54This is his latest thing.

30:56He came up with his own.

30:57Well, here, these are some brand new SPACs, shock absorbers.

31:02I'm seeing them for the first time right now.

31:05OK.

31:07Let's take one out here.

31:08Now, SPAC shocks are usually yellow, as I remember.

31:11These ones, he had them painted black.

31:13And then he does his own valving on them.

31:15We're going to put these on the car.

31:17You know, I trust every modification he's done to this.

31:20It just made the car better, faster.

31:23And I'm anxious to try these.

31:24It handles fine now.

31:27But I'm just curious to see what a difference these make.

31:29So if you're interested in this from the man who developed the car,

31:34these are the ones to get.

31:35So here's his website.

31:38Here's how to get in touch with him.

31:39Let's put it up in the air, George,

31:41and put these shocks on and see what difference they make.

31:46This is a wonderful car.

31:48The Carrera GT is a perfect successor to this car.

31:51This is what you had before you had the modern Carrera GT,

31:54which is now 20-something years old.

31:57But just a wonderful driving car.

32:00Keep that tach at seven grand all day long.

32:02It's just fantastic.

32:03Wilhite built this car back in the 70s,

32:06and he was going to keep it for life.

32:08But at the time, I think a guy offered him $16,000,

32:11which was just crazy money in 76 for one of these cars.

32:16You could get them for $3,000 or $4,000.

32:19So he sold it, and I think he regretted it.

32:22And that's the guy I got it from.

32:24He held it for like 30 years, something like that.

32:27And then I bought it.

32:29And then I bought it.

32:30And so I think John was thrilled to know the car never left the area

32:34and was still around.

32:36And it's got the racing seats in it, and it's got the sunroof.

32:40And it's just a fabulous, fabulous driving car.

32:43It's almost hard to relate.

32:46Well, we did a whole video on this car.

32:48Take a look.

32:49You can go back to Jay Leno's garage and see the video.

32:52A little bit more in-depth than this.

32:54This is just about the shock.

32:55So we're going to change those and take it for a ride.

32:58And the next time, we'll give you an update about how they feel.

33:06It's hard to believe I've had this car for 14 years.

33:08That's right.

33:09We upgraded the wheels, too.

33:10The magnesium, old magnesium wheels are scary.

33:14These are aluminum replicas, and they're perfect if you actually want to drive the car.

33:18We put Konies on it, and they handle fine with those.

33:21Never had a problem with it.

33:22But I trust John, so I'm curious to see how it is with the new shocks.

33:28Back up.

33:52Well, 17 minutes later, we are done.

33:55That's the nice thing about well-hoid stuff.

33:56It just bolts right up, and it fits fine.

33:59I'm going to take it for a test drive.

34:00George, you can get back to watching your real housewife shows.

34:02I know, George, he lives for those, whether it's Beverly Hills or New Jersey or somewhere.

34:07So you enjoy your housewife shows.

34:09I'll take this thing for a ride.

34:12George has put the shocks in.

34:13I've got John Wilhite with me, the man behind the shocks,

34:16and the man who built this car 50-something years ago.

34:22You know, it does feel better.

34:23I don't know whether it's psychological.

34:25Yeah.

34:25But it feels planted and a little more firm.

34:29Well, and the beauty is you can adjust the stiffness to suit you.

34:35And the adjustment is in on the compression and the rebound.

34:38So it's not like a Koni, where you're only adjusting the rebound.

34:46This is such a great car, isn't it?

34:48Oh, man, it is.

34:50Did you ever get yourself another four cam?

34:52I have three four cams.

34:53Oh, okay.

34:54Oh, I've got three.

34:55Oh, excuse me.

34:56Some people only have one four cam.

35:01You know, you're a real four cam committed guy if you've got three.

35:06Boy, it takes that nice and flat.

35:07The shocks now that we're having made by Spax in the UK,

35:11we have tried a couple of different valving setups.

35:15And the way the Spax shocks work is really neat.

35:19It's got it's it's crypt on gas, but it's got an adjustment feature.

35:24And it's a dial on the bottom of the shock housing.

35:29It's got clicks that you can click it either harder and you can click it lighter.

35:35Right.

35:35And what what those different settings do is they make

35:40they restrict the the oil passing through the shock and it

35:44it changes the rebound and the compression.

35:47So unlike a KONI where you can dial in, you know, a rebound setting,

35:51this actually changes the rebound and the compression together.

35:57And it's a standard 60 40 ratio, which.

36:00Now you keep them the same side to side, correct?

36:02Yes.

36:03Like I'm driving by myself.

36:04So that means there's almost 200 pounds more on this side of the car.

36:08Would I do an extra click up and one less there?

36:11I mean, I'll tell you, I haven't gotten that far into it.

36:16Don't think you'd probably want to do that because then

36:18every time somebody else got in the car, you'd have to get there and change the setting.

36:23But but it's a really a neat setup because it

36:26enables us to have a shock that works on a speedster.

36:30And then we can use it on a coupe and like on the Carrera,

36:33where it's got a little more weight in the back.

36:35We may want to up the setting in the back a little.

36:38Why is the Carrera weigh a couple of hundred pounds more?

36:41The Carrera has the oil tank.

36:44The engine itself is a heavier engine.

36:47The exhaust tend to be a little bit heavier and bulkier on the Carrera.

36:51And then the Carrera had a lot more padding in the rear of the car to kind of.

36:57It was a touring and the Carrera 2 is a, you know, it's a luxury touring car.

37:03Right, right.

37:04Well, I love this thing and it loves to rev.

37:07Yeah, it's a great car.

37:08I mean, I didn't tell you about the time I ran from the police in this car.

37:13Well, what happened now?

37:16I was taking it out for a test drive when I first got it done.

37:19And I went down this street where there's always these cops.

37:23And I saw them on their motorcycles.

37:26The one got, you know, hopped on his bike and came after me.

37:30And he had those damn one of those new Kawasaki Ford cylinders.

37:33Yeah, yeah, yeah.

37:34Really fast ones.

37:36And so I made a quick turn and then another quick left turn.

37:40And I turned down the wrong street.

37:43It was a dead end street.

37:44Right.

37:45And so when he got down to the end of the street, this guy was cracking up.

37:52He said, thought you could get away from me.

37:55Well, I love that you said, so I went down this street that has a lot of cops.

37:59I mean, the fact that you didn't go, oh, wait, a lot of cops.

38:02I'm going to go down another street.

38:04I think you deserve what you got because you got to get, you know.

38:08You're probably right.

38:09In my lifetime, I've gotten three tickets on that street.

38:12I'm embarrassed to tell you that.

38:14But yes, obviously, I haven't learned my lesson.

38:17There you go.

38:19Well, there you have it.

38:20Let's see what else we got going in the garage.

38:22This is an area of the shop you haven't seen for a while.

38:25I don't know if you've seen it all.

38:26Actually, this is the upholstery area where we do all the upholstery.

38:32This is my 1986 Countach.

38:34Come on, let me tell you what's going on here.

38:39We thought we'd just redo the upholstery.

38:41Of course, being Italian, well, the turn signals weren't working.

38:46The flashes went out.

38:47And long-suffering Jim, he went through here trying to find, of course,

38:53the reason for some of these problems.

38:55And I think he discovered them, some bad Italian diodes.

38:57So he's replacing those.

38:59The seats are done.

39:00They're up there.

39:01You can take a look.

39:02And we should have this thing running, oh, another week or two.

39:06So we'll see you guys then.

March 2025 Restoration Blog | Jay Leno's Garage

Category

Transcript

Recommended