1,600 Mile Route 66 Road Trip In A Forgotten C20 - Day 1

my 10 year old son bentley and i are going to be making a 1600 mile cross country trip following the original route 66 and we're going to be doing it in this 1978 chevrolet c20 now in addition to enjoying everything that route 66 has to offer along the way we're going to be making daily repairs and upgrades on the truck here until we reach the end of our line in winslow arizona once there we're going to be selling the truck using hemming's auctions and those proceeds are going to be donated to the tech force foundation and of course we're bringing you along with buckland sit back and enjoy this is day one of route 66 in the forgotten z20 [Music] now before i get much farther here i do want to say a quick thank you to the partners that help make this possible hemming's auto peak antifreeze and coolant dei and of course lmc truck partners and i are thrilled to be helping out the tech force foundation which is a non-profit that helps out technician professions across all industries i'm talking automotive diesel marine motorcycles you name it so we got a few things to do this morning before we could take off if you've watched the previous episode we went through this thing bumper to bumper as quickly as we can i missed a couple small things let's knock those out quick throw the suitcase in the back and then we're just we gotta send it i should have been on the road early this morning we've got 600 miles to the oklahoma border today because i've got five days to do route 66 well that's when i'm supposed to be on the plane back home it's going to be a trip now the air cleaner that's on it i used well basically as a cover when a guy was pressure washing it the element needs changed and it's all rusty so i'm just going to throw this whole unit on here this rig's been sitting on the wall for a while 78 horsepower nope 82. this come with a sticker you might hear the exhaust still cooling down that's because we just blasted to the parts store and back and that's been our only test drive in this rig i forgot to check the rear diff here i had it on the list of stuff to do but you know how that gets we better take a peek though we got about 1600 miles definitely don't want this guy going out and it's a good thing we checked we don't have oil doing the old dipstick and that gear is hot i mean like 90s shania twain you know what i mean let me get some fluid juice whatever and that look over everything one more time i gotta tuck up a few wires here and there and then we got to get on the highway and start making up some time well the last second thrash here before we leave i think is complete got that rear filled up re-greased everything underneath put some white lithium grease in the carrier bearing got a bunch of parts and stuff loaded up we're gonna do throughout the week got the icy breeze set up on the inside it is an ac truck but it's missing the pump these work okay for about five minutes got a rear view mirror mounted up in there cleaned up the glass did some rain-x there as well topped off the power steering put a conditioner leak thing in there added a vice grip garage plate on the front as well speaking of i had really good feedback when we gave away the steering wheel to the cat farm crew cab so we're going to do the same with this 78 c20 you guys one of you can randomly win the steering wheel we'll throw it in a box for you all you got to do is go to vicegrip garage.com and pick up anything it could be a little keychain or one sticker or grab a shirt or hoodie or hat or whatever you want and we'll just randomly pick at the end of the route 66 trip someone you're going to get this wheel it's a little sticky but she'll clean up maybe i'll sign it for you too thanks guys for the support really appreciate it [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so okay we're all fueled up we got some beverages went back next few snacks we're gonna have a long day we're starting way later than we wanted to but that's just the way she goes to stay on schedule here and not miss our flight we've got to make it to the oklahoma missouri border tonight it's just shy of 600 miles and i have maybe 20 miles in this one that's fine here we go jamming it on the highway [Music] well we made her 170 miles on the dot into the trip got some bad mechanical news to report unfortunately but first we're going boot shopping little guy he's not so little anymore and he's kind of growing out of his boobs we're gonna go see what they got might pick up a going town shirt too see he's got the heel blowed out on these and i noticed he was walking a little funny don't want to hurt the little guy's knees and whatnot of course he's got his eye on these durangos right now but he's going to shop around a little bit first huh yep combo boops acquired he likes them so the transmission's slipping yep third gear is about 52 percent gone fellers i know we found a tag that even said overhauled or reman transmission but make no mistake third gear clutches there they left the building uh we are only 170 miles in like i said into 1600 miles so that's great fluid is topped off we just serviced it already smelling burnt so um i'm just going to try to save on it second gear uphill coast as much as i can definitely not going to be you know kicking it down or anything like that it only takes a couple times slipping it to glaze those clutches and i think it's happened to me about four or five times now accidentally knowing they were going hopefully we could still limp it to the border tonight we're going to be closer to oklahoma city and a bunch of other bigger towns that have some facilities but i'm going to start dialing as we're driving to see if we can get into a shop somewhere normally this would be a fun time just to do an old derrick drop transmission right here at boot barn rebuild but it's 105 degrees 10 year olds with me and i got non-refundable flights that was smart to get home so there's a whole bunch of stuff working against me i think i'm just going to try to find a shop that i can get in and do some wrenching with them and get this thing done as quick as possible and then we'll just have to burn midnight oil to catch back up so that's where we're at that's hit the highway at 54 because i can't drive 55 great [Music] [Music] first fuel stop kind of pushing on her a little bit did the math medicinals on it i got a 10.94 m to the p and the g's which that's the close listen that's the closest to 11 i've ever gotten in a big block it's always ten ten ten nine point nine nine ten ten it doesn't matter if you're pulling a horse trailer we're going 45 it's 10 we almost got 11. we might get it now that i got to go 45 grab some ice some more soda pops what not gonna jump back in and see if we get some more miles down got the word out for transmission or shop or parts or something not quite sure what we're going to do there easing towards springfield missouri let's keep going [Music] [Music] well we made it to a small town called canet nice little place uh the truck's running great it's got phenomenal oil pressure it doesn't get hot at all doesn't even try to get hot charging very good third gear still not not good however i will say if i could reach i'd give myself a pat on the back i have not slipped it once since boot barn i'm just manually throwing it in the second whenever we need to accelerate you know coming on on ramps or off of intersections or anything like that or if i see a big hill coming i'll desell until i could throw it down in the second right second gear over here when it's flat or i'm going downhill throw it up a third we can get a little bit of speed i need to save that third gear because we still have well over 300 miles but our destination is changing from joplin missouri to bella vista or kansas which basically we go through springfield anyway but we somehow end back up in our kansas because we found a guy that's going to help us do an r r on the transmission bright and early 7 30 tomorrow morning i put it up on the installator and the face space and you guys are tired of hearing this but the car community and our community the vgg community is just overwhelming the amount of support and responses and phone calls and emails that were sent and made and we found somebody so thank you very very much normally i wouldn't be that concerned but with my little boy with me it means a lot to me so thank you very much trucks doing great other than that we're just going to keep on cruising we're kind of enjoying a sunset right now well it's sundown ish almost stair time we're going to find some place to chew on some red meat pretty soon just enjoy the trip we're probably not going to get until about 1am but it is what it is so i've had to make another change of plans here third gear is getting pretty bad we were able to cruise 5560 for a while but now it's just intermittently just starting to slip and i can't really control it as good it's likely we're going to need a tow truck at some point here so i don't want to drive all through the night when getting to tow is you know it's unlikely or going to be really really expensive so i'm going to try to shut it down earlier tonight gonna be staying at my friend john's place and um and then we'll get up uh we'll probably leave around 3 or 3 30 in the morning and see if we can push this thing the rest of the way to the bella vistas hopefully and we might even leave earlier than that actually that way i can give myself some time if we break down we can get a toe there and whatnot but that's kind of the plan the sun as you can see is right on the horizon right now so we're going to be losing light shortly [Music] you [Music] so i didn't tell bentley where we were staying i'm going to see if you could figure it out wait is this the place that we were just talking about you remember what it's called no but i remember it's fun little talladega yeah actually does that sound pretty cool yeah all right you want to ride some go-karts yep play some video games play some pool jump in the pool sure maybe ride a razor i don't know what that is but side by side oh yeah all right buddy so i was here a few weeks back and was telling the boys about it and bentley has not stopped talking about this place and it happened to be basically right on the route so i got a hold of john and he said yeah come on out and stay the night have some fun this place has everything arcade pool foosball air hockey the drifty carts actual racing go cards couple of them are super zippy four wheelers dirt bikes racing quads electric moto scooters razors you can fish there's a pontoon pedal boat saying and i'll have to show you in the morning maybe i'll show you tonight they run drift cars and stuff out here in fact i actually did a burnout with independence out here you know i wonder if the marks are still there not sure i think right now we'll probably take some of these uh cart things out for a little rip how's that fit good yeah now normally this place is fully staffed and they help you with everything and get you all set up with whatever you want to do whatever you want to ride next and stuff but he's out of town and we're good buds so this isn't the normal process but you guys can actually book this place and you stay in a house up there which is crazy i'll show you in a minute all right you take the little guy i'll take the big guy hey i think you got a weight advantage they just got some awesome new lights out here [Music] there's the house you get to stay in oh going on the inside [Music] nice i'm gonna get you downhill though see [Music] oh [Music] he's having so much fun already watch the pole man [Music] you gotta come in closer late apex buddy there you go [Music] here but we're gonna go back in the trees [Music] we found the baseball field and the golf but we're gonna keep uh never been back that way farther so we're going to head that way somewhere these are the burn out marks from the chevelle how tight them hooks are goodness pretty much all these that was a fun day i got really close to the grass i mean we were on it trimming that's what we was doing oh you got me all right this time yes [Applause] [Music] there you go oh yeah it's the only way right around the corner double tap two wheels yeah hit a car head on and double tap right before you do [Applause] i mean i had to pick this room little man's doing a swimming and slide thing and i'm starting the editing thing here that's gonna do it for day one of route 66 such a fun day tons and tons of memories a little bit slow going but yeah no big deal tomorrow though we've got 200 miles to go with the slipping transmission we're gonna make it i i really don't know i guess you're gonna have to wait and see for day two that's gonna do it for now thanks for watching guys appreciate it very much we'll see you very soon [Music] you

Channel: Vice Grip Garage

Views: 962,549

Keywords: motortrend, roadkill, vice grip garage, vise grip garage, vgg, road trip, route 66, abandoned, will it run, will it drive, father son, restoration

Id: rOdIbzxPR-A

Length: 22min 36sec (1356 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 16 2022