ABANDONED Rare Lincoln Parked 22 Years! Will It RUN AND DRIVE 650 Miles Home?

a guy just traveled from Nashville Tennessee all the way to here middle of nowhere Iowa because I bought this 1978 Lincoln Versailles says sign on scene was the first time I'm seeing it right now that car has sat in that exact location and those blocks in that garage for 22 years so I'm gonna do the right thing try to get that running and drive it 650 miles back home best idea yet nope the garage isn't following me great [Music] [Applause] okay this thing is really socked in here so before I even attempt to get this thing running after more than two decades I got to get this car extracted this shed or garage or whatever this is quite honestly is really unsafe to be working in and you know if a guy is saying that heed the warning it's quite possible the car itself might be the only thing holding this thing up over here on the bumper I got to keep that in mind but the ceiling is just really sagging in it's very low as you can see and there's a bunch of clutter in here so I'm not going to be able to root around and work efficiently in the shed plus there's no lights it's dark I'm going to try to drag it out here in the daylight and do some work out here but first I wanted to take you in and walk around this thing and kind of show you how it's been sitting for 22 years and then I got my buddy Chad on the way and we're going to try to pull this out with some chains as delicately as you can without hurting the car and without taking this building down that would be that would also be nice you know so those buildings out on an old Farmstead and I believe this was a part of the original home structure but you can see this wall it's got a real bad lean on it and this is what I was talking about there's contact here heavy contact and I'm thinking we got to be cautious with this but if we were to move that car I'm wondering if that's you know the camel that stepped on the straw or whatever broke the broke the strong half of the back and this thing we don't want to do that and hurt this car but this thing was driven in here 22 years ago with suspected brake issues that's weird right and this is how it's been sitting the guy I bought it from did look in here for paperwork documents and we were unable to find a title but he's working on one for me that doesn't look good although that does look more like a GM starter not sure why the hood was opened but you can see it's it's very cluttered in here and I just don't think I would be able to work on it very well without pulling this thing out seeing what we got it looks to be in pretty good shape I've never I've never owned a Lincoln Versailles which is a midsize luxury car they only made these for a couple years three years I think maybe four years we're right off Road here got some lumber on this side we're gonna have to move looks like I don't know oh that's a that side of the car is clean looking good they only made 8 500 of the 1978 Lincoln Versailles so this is kind of a rare old cat this was the old timers going to town car unfortunately he passed away and here it's sat so one of our challenges is also going to be getting it off of the box here oh yeah I already see grape juice leaking over there on that wheel but we got to get it off these blocks and try to this Bumper's gone try to pull it out of here without hurting the building of the car well I walked around a little bit without being too noisy or intrusive looking for like a come along or something I'm just gonna try to you know like to strap the old barns you know what I'm talking about here down try to support this a little bit didn't find anything I can unfortunately I can move this whole shed so I got a jack under here I'm gonna Jack this car up and if the car starts to once it comes off the blocks move I'm just gonna have to stand back and see what happens uh the guy is gonna take the shed down anyway so he's not worried about this I am and I'm worried about this a little cream puff in here too but there's a nine inch under here I believe and disc brakes on the rear let me show you this so that's pretty interesting all right fortunately this car is just pretty roached the ears were not good to it but nonetheless we're gonna try to save on it so let's start jacking this up I gotta get ready to oh okay it's it's separated the building is not shifting I don't believe we might be okay I'll be dipped nice well I just need to crawl in there and get those blocks out guys got to be nimble here quick light on the feet good drive shaft okay nice little deep freeze here this plywood is probably worth more than a car good three-quarter inch stuff should probably get this out of here for that guy I wonder if I'll see any snakes oh come here snakey snakies if you bite me I'll bite you back I don't want to make cinder blocks like that anymore oh bear sign Got Me Nest bits soda Maybe not sure there we go now can a guy bring it this way see a brake line laying under there okay we might could pull on that now doubt this is gonna work got a little compressor hooked up here but I don't know maybe it's got a tube in it we might get lucky this old bias pie looks like old Goodyear let's see [Music] yeah she just ain't gonna hold wind all right we'll try the other side at least it's only flat on the bottom Once We Roll It if it rolls maybe we can fix her up they make fix a flap for this side that's got a little wind in it yeah wow well that's a different tire I wonder what the I wonder what this one will tell us the valve stem fought me on this one here but we got enough wind in that that should really help steer this thing out of here I'm gonna go over to the Drinker side front see what that one tells us so I ain't bad this one some air this one's gonna be a lot of work fellas we've done bit off quite a bit I wonder if these wheels will even roll that's a good question I wonder if the engine will even roll that's another good question [Music] oh my oh yeah oh we got keys oh boy that's the mice I've just really taking over that one thought I'd try this one again it's been running forever but it's starting to take a little wind it's coming up probably gonna leak down right away but if I could stay up for 15-20 minutes enough for us to hook a chain on this and drag her out that would be pretty cool start moving this stuff [Music] all right [Music] easy girl my buddy Chad's let me borrow is berbalife it's really nice to pick me up at the airport this is the one went on Power Tour with us but now it's got pipes and it's got vice grip garage clear coat he put heads and a cam and all sorts of stuff all right Wonder this would just oh it would okay I think we got to try to pull at an angle this big old chain was laying around that ought to do the trick I got a hook to this side of the frame and we're going to drive the Suburban this way kind of off and around to try to scooch a little bit that way but I got to thinking it's going to be hard to steer in a really I'm not looking forward to sitting in this one it's probably the worst interior to date I got to be honest it looks nice but the smell and the mice is just overwhelming so what I was thinking was I wonder if I could put a jump box on this quick and just see if I get this window to roll down then I can steer it through the window rather than trying to sit in it I got this jump box a battery some basic parts and uh Harbor Freight toolbox and that's it hopefully we don't need a bunch more than that but this is this is going to be a challenge tell you that much all right will this jump box be enough juice straight to the cables on I don't hear anything sizzling oh no man down there's no way the mice haven't eaten every wire in this thing okay let's see oh look at that buzzer dome light no no I can't be that lucky wow door locks work not the not the windows shoot I can't get it out of here our park I should say oh there we go all right Chad just pulled up so let's see if we can drag this out of here Chad brought chicken and bug spray that's 10 years old but it might work I don't know about this one but I'll probably use that one and soda pop savior okay you're on it nice and easy all right hold on [Music] tires rolling tires rolling [Music] nice [Music] perfect now we can drag it forward a little bit first time in daylight in 22 years [Music] that's cool we're blocking the road they are definitely blocking the road something's dragging probably exhaust [Music] [Laughter] [Music] you can finally see the whole car this little burp sounds good well here's where that car sat all those years well the car is out and we just got permission to actually rummage through this stuff and there's a couple other Barns and there's some old equipment stuff like that so all this stuff in here is getting scrapped basically we were told our vast majority of it and I bought the car from Chad's friend so his friend said we can come through here and find what we want and found a shop vac we can maybe use that to clean the car found some tools I found a nice Old Lantern a couple chainsaws and we're kind of just Roman the Old Timer obviously collected stuff this is really cool look at this that's neat make a nice center console old school flashlight that's really cool lots and lots of stuff we found this little super a back here behind the second Barn yeah there's this kind of giggling here the Old Timer had aspires and you gotta have an extra valve because you just never know I think I might throw a jump box on this see if we get this thing to pop off jump box engage look at that what is that mean I don't know get the fuel line well I don't think he's got a shut off on that no okay well just in full sound oh she's gonna go yes [Music] look at that Rod's good old tractor runs that was probably his good tractor I'm not sure when he passed but it doesn't look like it was sitting that long but oh it runs he can go cut some grass now whatever he wants to do back to the Lincoln we got to start with the basics we gotta make sure this engine turns over we'll pull the air cleaner off see if the fuel make it happen or stuck and just kind of start working our way through it that's an awful long time to sit thankfully it was kind of on concrete ish in there and that's the better of the scenarios when they sit but see if we get this thing fired up well we can finally get a closer look I don't the smell on this one guys is like a cast iron bathtub full of mold and mice I mean it's terrible I can't even we're just letting the doors sit like this it's probably as close as we're going to get to the interior but we can actually see the engine compartment and surprisingly this should be a 302 by the way this came with like 135 horsepower believe that or not and if you got the big engine upgrade the 351 yeah 138 horsepower so you know another 49 cubic inches get you three more horse that's pretty good solid upgrade but it doesn't look like much is been chewed on which is I don't I'm having a hard time understanding that you could probably get let me just delete on this I don't think we I think we need this where we're going so to speak oh okay as far as the body goes there is some Rust bottom of the doors there's some there starting got a little bit of weight reduction back here we got the angry wasp turtles or whatever they are mud Nest daubers paint faded this is too bad I don't know what this age I guess imagine that this side got some sun peeked into that garage you know same thing here this is that elusive sought after Barn dust see that that's thick automatically increases the value of your vehicle 37.4 percent I'm probably going to fill a coffee can full of that stuff we already saw the power windows power locks uh 72 000 miles I'm gonna go ahead and say right now that that's original pedal four-wheel disc that's pretty cool I didn't know that that was a thing basically the paint on this side is this shot it's very LTD ish looking as a whole unit there but it's gonna be interesting to see how well it cleans up obviously just washing this is going to dramatically change the appearance but I wonder if we can put some polish on it top might be in somehow decent condition there's really no dance or anything like that it's got a tarp in the back seat the old color that's some heartburn got the antacids just ripping 4 30 is when the battery finally went down but this thing was really nice back in the day Chad's doing a little rooting around he came back I said fixed got everything you need Pulsar super bright some grease some might even got the battery well we could test this right now that's better than Elvis unfortunately yeah but I got's a different one okay so we got to get going here on this well the biggest hurdle for a guy is always the first one is this engine even gonna rotate or is it locked up moisture easily gets in the exhaust and I see the oil caps missing on this it can get down through the carburetor a lot of different ways and gets these ring ridges in there sometimes the valves stick but it just rotates that's a huge victory Mouse nest in here it's not a good sign not a good sign at all eviction notice get out of here you little devils I don't know deal with that later okay carbs locked up that's not surprising I think it's the it is it's the accelerator pump not the throttle blades here's what we got again I don't see even though they were living in the air cleaner they didn't chew on any they just must have been full up with the interior soup cam anyhoose this is moving but you see there in the accelerator pump this is stuck so that's gonna have to come off unfortunately which I'm expecting that I'm also expecting we're gonna have to do brakes and bearings and who knows but she only needs what she needs I don't want to go crazy here I just want to get this car back home so what I'm going to do on this is probably just take a croissant wrench right off the charging where they're there apply some pressure to the belt and see if we get this engine to rotate and if that's not working then we'll jump down and put a wrench on it all right oh there it went yeah it's rotating wow I gotta be honest I did not expect that that is great news oh I just saved us so much time engine turns well the engine rotates that's a big part of the puzzle here and great news that it sponsor freely I have pretty good confidence that there's nothing in the cylinders themselves like rodents or water or anything like that hopefully eventually we'll come back and throw a battery in it and then hook up that lightning Cube and twist the key and see if it spins and how it sounds we may have to pull the plugs and lubricate it and do all that stuff haven't decided yet I'm going to move on to this carburetor get that off I can't get a kit for this right now this might have to be really delicate and just try to get it to function slightly and then we could put that back on we get a good look down the intake that'll also give us an indication on the health of the engine I can see into the valve cover baffle that looks pretty clean so we might have got really really lucky I just don't know why it was stored with the Hood up life's mystery I wonder what Garth Brooks is doing today it's probably hanging out with friends in little places okay yeah if you look close you can definitely see where the butterflies were welded with gunk but we got those cracked but I'm going to take this accelerator pump off gently try to get this moving and get this all lubricated back up squirt some cleaner in here it really doesn't look that bad so I'm being honest well a guy somehow got the accelerator pump out in one piece little trick I use for that when they're that dry and brittle so just soak them down with any sort of penetrating oil let them sit for a little while and the slowly start to get some flexibility tie back and I worked that off now I'm just soaking this down so I can get that pin moving freely once again and then I can put this back together sprayed it up a little bit cleaned it up a little that's looking pretty good over here on the intake equally good news that looks good looks really good while that's off I gotta clean up some of this stuff that could cause a fire well we got an oil leak or something weird and uh get this cleaned up just a little bit we'll get that plot back on and we can move on to testing spark this unfortunately has the legendary Ford never spark box and if that is bad we are in trouble I ordered one but I think it's a six wire and that's probably a three wire could be a four wire who knows how many wires I don't know why they changed them but that's what's running this lightning whirler is that box so that could end up being a nightmare finally got these two separated with my hammer also known as a ratchet there's a bunch of corrosion in there and it's corrosion in here and what I really need is a file and I don't have one but don't panic guys just grab a needle nose pliers open it up and there's your file so I'm going to work this through here a few times clean this up a little bit and then lubricate this to make sure that the shuttle moves back and forth easily because the only return pressure it has is a light spring and that's pretty much it so we've got to make sure that it moves nice and easy in there again I don't have a kit so I'm being as delicate as I can just wanted to get in here and make sure that the needle is in fact moving and it is looks pretty clean in there too so we're gonna put this back together got a couple small tears in it hopefully that's going to hold up fine also I accidentally broke this off but we're just gonna run fuel line back over to the steel line guys getting ready to put the fuel making happener back on realize I'm missing a stud and some nuts and then you know I spent 37 minutes looking for that crawl on my hands and knees and backtracked and found it down in here I dropped them down by the lightning Cube here so I'm gonna go ahead and rip all this stuff off get this out of here toss a new one in we got to do it at some point anyway get that stud back and I can go back to get that fuel make it happen around we don't know if we have fuel delivery but at least we're 26.9 percent confident that if we get fuel there it should do something what's this now deleted that's what it is oh it's got it going an old never Start Extreme yeah okay there it is I knew it all along help stop extremely specific reason guys using this one here now it was quite literally the cheapest one available and it's got to go handle beep a lot more dainty but don't worry she's a superstar we can redo the fire test I guess oh yeah the tall doors are open buzzer works that's Nifty actually then I'll leave this off because the dome light works I don't want to drain on it okay what was I doing filmmaking happener brand new rejetted performance spec flow tested you name it and by that I manages did absolutely nothing basically just straighter now with some juice how hard okay Boop there I just went back on that's something this Lincoln emblem that keeps going right directly into my belly button is about to get deleted I wonder if that's hooked to the horn like some of the other fancy rigs I don't know I just know I didn't get any belts and these are rotted we saw it with AC worked wouldn't it what would be even better if the cruise worked well filmmaker is back on all buttoned up I don't think I broke anything believe it or not that's a first it's time we turned it over with hand it rolled very easily which is great news I'm gonna hook up the Lone Wolf 6000. got the steel me Junction right over here conveniently by the battery so here we want to hotwire one of these just pull out the plier piece of cake Dodge has something similar one to the start one to power theoretically when I pull this trigger it should fire the starter which I don't even know if it's in here and uh turn the engine over we could test starter relay all that stuff in one shot if this works I'll go on the car and actually turn the key and see if that works all right here we go okay I'm gonna do it again yeah I can hear we ripped the exhaust off Earl looks bad so that's good you know or pretend we didn't look at that for right now but there's no water in it or anything like that let me go in the cabin and turn the key be great if we didn't have to rub Rusty Spoons together or Jam a knife in the dash or something like that okay oh gotta unhook the steel me 200 here plug this back in don't bring the Thunder just turn it over yep all right we're making progress here now that she's rolling over good we can turn it with the key we can turn it with the Lone Wolf six thousand gonna move on to lightning gotta have sparkles to the sparklators to make combustion and all that stuff instead of testing everything in here we're just going to put a tester in line test the spark right out of the gate forgot Spark that's great you know nope not going to happen if we don't then we can start working backwards and eventually come to the conclusion that the never spark box is bad that's weird key is in you could probably hear it and on let's just hook back up this is in line here we should see some sparkles coming out of that see what we got nothing great here we go we're down a river looking for a creek with five paddles and uh it's not it's got we got Rapids could be rocks you know when you talk about Ford's ignition systems I'm going to start with the basics let's pop the cap off of the lightning whirler let's check the coil and then we'll start working maybe we just got a backflow let that be nice just a bad coil for once that's all I just one time just give me a bad coil ate a bug now a guy's got this bad boy popped off and yeah really clean I don't know I don't think we ain't gonna do nothing there she only needs what she needs you know I don't think there's any issues that the reason I always check these is I've had old timers parked or rigs they'll pull the cap take the rotor out put the cap back on anti-theft it's actually a really smart idea but you just got to look at these things we just got to work through it next is the coil and I noticed this remember the hood was out there doing something this is unbolted so did they already know they didn't have Sparkles and baywas starting to dig through this I mean it makes sense I guess but I'm gonna get that coil out and we'll meter that up we're going to take the digital meter here flip her over to Horseshoe mode put it on your lowest setting like 200 for example we want to see one and a half to three and a half across these and then through here we want to see you know six to nine ish for this old of a coil of course it depends on your vehicle there's oil leaking out of the Center there I want to meter this out quick see if it's any good okay doing meat or things with the with the light in the can I know give me a number give me a number hmm that's interesting 198 75 4 2. now it's holding at two well it was kind of weird there for a second twirler up to 20. 8.6 holding 8.67 that's pretty good I'm not totally convinced this is the issue so we're gonna move on and make sure that we've got power here I might clean that terminal up just a little bit I'm gonna make sure we've got some voltages there well we're definitely getting voltage there so that's not the issue either which leads us to yay yay good job forward well the guy got to rooting around in here you know and uh oh found a bunch of Dielectric grease on the connectors it's original Grease but it was there's so much of it I cleaned off some of those pins uh checked and now I'm getting a 12 volt and nine during crank so I think that was the issue hopefully but we'll test it here see if we go to Blink yes yes okay we have spark now guys got some true fuel I know it's just faster than mixing it up and getting a jugging on it it's 40 to one so basically it's got a little bit of two cycle oil in it I do not like just fogging these things down with brake cleaner or carb cleaner the absolute worst thing you can do to an engine especially when it's been sitting if it doesn't start you have all that stuff you could be washing the piston rings and all that this has some lubrication help out the top end and everything like that uh we don't have a fuel line hooked up yet but I'm just going to dump it right down the app that was way too much so I'm going to put a little more in there we go should pull this trigger if all goes well it'll light off for the first time in 22 years bringing the Thunder nothing yes something yes I was concerned there for a second tons of blow bars jump box time oh that's good news oh we might have a shot 650 miles ain't nothing to sneeze at [Applause] from there I try to do this I would probably just come right out to the bottom of the bowl there way too much it's definitely flooded [Music] yes title it yes well we're gonna go isn't she a cute little thing tons of blow-by but don't worry dumb Rings will come around maybe yes oh wobble pop celebration I think well the car's a runner the big challenge is out of the way I think this is where I'm supposed to yell let's go but I don't really know where everyone's going if I'm being honest Plus shouldn't it be getting full where everybody's going so I think I'm gonna stay let's stay so anyway we're gonna move on to a fuel system here of some kind now normally I would just pipe in a jug or something like that off here on the side but we need fuel capacity 650 miles home in this boat you know we need a lot of fuel I'm going to go straight to the fuel tank in the rear we're going to dump in some gasoline hope that it comes up okay-ish up here you know what I mean and the tank is empty it's bone dry so there's a good chance that it might just have some sediment in it and not a ton and uh I'm gonna put on just a stick of line up here and we'll fire the engine up again and see if the pump's gonna pump and we'll just pump it off to the side and flush that line until we get some fresh fuel assuming the pickup screen isn't plugged or rotted off or broken and then if it works we'll plug that in and away we go got some good Iowa Corn gas here hopefully the tank doesn't have a hole in it I didn't even crawl underneath this thing yet so or the fuel line exists that'd be nice just got this plumbed in here and we're going to let it lay off the side if we're lucky it's going to Pump Fuel we need that tank hopefully fuel pump is way down in there of course somewhere if we need to splice in that's that's Dandy here's my gatorade bottle popped a hole in there there so I think we should be able to bottle feed this thing if we can get her fired up again keep it running long enough to try to pull fuel all right see if we get this thing fired again huh [Music] foreign again I think it was this connector again let's try this [Music] oh for Pete's sake a loose spark it comes back I lose it comes back foreign [Music] Spark [Music] well I've tried and tried and tried to get fuel from the tank through the original pump down there it's not working I even tried to prime the pump and everything it's just it ain't gonna go so I think I'm going to put this clicky clacky in line just over here somewhere where there's electricity so we can add fuel to that and we'll run it out of a gas jug for now just so we can get you know we got to get this thing idling for more than a few seconds at a time we got to worry about head gaskets and rear main seal and intake gaskets and you know thermostat is a rad gonna leak or I think it's got juice in it but yeah I could see some down in there but it hasn't been pressurized in two decades so I want to get this running here and idling and we'll do it that way it may end up being permanent we'll see clicky clacky that's clicky clacking off the Milwaukee battery down there and it should be filling bowls we'll see if we can write this thing off again and hear the ball filling see if we get any squirter action that can't be hearing anything look at that It's Gonna Catch maybe yep wow [Music] it's a little more a little more help maybe [Music] sounds pretty good sound crane isn't cracking but boy there's a lot of blow by paid a lot [Applause] [Music] brake lights on of course oh we got radio that's a first window came around I gotta get this down now which I also noticed the uh driver's busted can't get out of it right should see if it's charging [Music] it's not really charging a little not much let this just sit here and run for a minute just trying to determine if there's any you know major mechanical issues or anything else that we need to address for part 70 to order while it sits here and run so far it sounds great I do got to order belts for this thing um fuel pump is still not pumping so we got an obstruction in the line or something like that I'll show you in a second and also I want to get this oil warm enough you get all that sludge and stuff from the top of the edges down into the pan the best time to change it because it's nice and pipe and hot unfortunately but if we could be sure to get more of that stuff out when we change the soil but while I was in there is old but well it just doesn't lose viscosity overnight as long as it's not contaminated sure you know that should be just shoot Fuel and it's not so there's an obstruction somewhere or something now that we got fuel in there we're gonna have to cap that off now check the shift Machine juice see what the bloodstick says whoa fall but it's like watery varnish that's not good not good at all yeah we're gonna have to service the transmission we uh let me just throw a drive see what happens Rivers nothing Drive nothing reverse again not even a not even a wince Drive nothing oh no right now we've got no transmission it's fine you don't always need them I think that's a first for us when I think about it it's one of the benefits to trying to find manual transmissions as long as the clutch is it sees usually in pretty good shape however this automatic transmission is not Auto magical so I'm going to shut it down right now because there that fluid didn't look good we're just pumping it all through that thing now we got to start thinking is this even worse if it goes that far pulling the transmission on this I don't know about that I just don't know good news is it runs pretty good you know that's neat wow Sun's getting ready to peek behind the hill here we had a really good day though I mean part of the challenge I thought I was just getting it out of the shed Barn garage thing without that falling over and at the end of the day we have a running Lincoln but transmission issues oof so I got about an hour drive to my buddy's house I'm gonna go throw my wrist Pounders up Let the back neck throw some groceries down the neck be back tomorrow morning early we'll change the oil in the engine so we can run it longer and then we're gonna have to pull the pan on this transmission and maybe a fluid change and a filter will help unlikely very I don't know you ain't getting 650 miles with four neutrals I'll tell you that much see you in the morning [Music] well it's the following evening unfortunately that's when I could get the filter and the gasket and the accoutrements for the shift machine and the 1978 Lincoln Versailles here and that's where I've decided to start is with the transmission fluid and filter hopefully that resolves our shifting issue right now we've got four neutrals it runs but I it ain't going nowhere I got a long way home you know what I mean and I think I've decided if we don't have a transmission that's probably the end of it for the Lincoln now could we spend a day or two finding a good used transmission at an okay price and going to get it and coming back here and spending another day tearing this out and putting it in and crossing our fingers and hopefully that works sure of course absolutely but I just you know it just you know what I mean I just don't think that's in this car's future for me personally but it runs it's out of the shed whether it goes on and lives in our life or someone uses the 302 and a nice rear and the disc brakes I don't know I don't know what what that chapter holds yet but I've got her jacked up here we've got jack stands underneath of it this corner needs to drop this pan we're gonna go ahead and put a new filter in we're gonna put some fresh fluid in I think while we're at it we're going to put brand new clutches in the sink because it's got water in it and by clutches I mean stops slip yeah I knew that yeah uh lubricates valves for proper shifting you know I need that too renews Warren bands I need all that so there we go and I'm not sure why but I ordered rubber brake lines for the front I guess that has been optimistic okay well anyway let's get on with this get this pan off see what we got not quite sure but that was fun thankfully it just rotted off also some more Ford engineering you know I just hang the head off of that that'll fix that anyhoose I've got the bolts off on the other side now I've got to take this side off and then figure out how to get front side off because that's where you want to run the exhaust right up against you know and we can get that pan down and see what we got going on under here is what you would expect also this might be the fuel line right here and uh that just fell on my forehead quite literally so you know there's the issue with that now we know well we have our answer let's the transmission is she is gone I mean there's no way and any planet that that it survives us this song but I mean we're still going to put a filter in it and fill it up because there's always the you know because there's a mini ax in a horse trailer so it might work well I dumped out my muffin pan and uh cleaned it up a little bit in vain but I did out of that thing now we're gonna throw a new field tray on this puppy and top her off with those brand new clutches and give her a rip anyway because you just never know well looking at the pan and the filter there is a 36 point four nine percent chance that it was just fluid starved however well 22 years sitting the ATF turned into a chocolate pudding and you know it's just sitting in the pan plugged up the filter as well so really there wasn't anything circulating so with the good flush here I am hoping maybe we can get some wine pressure out of this thing and we get Gears wouldn't that be something 650 miles is really starting to create this getting it's coming up that lawnmower is looking pretty good at this point well as you can see a guy is out of daylight but nonetheless I'm still putting some blood juice in this thing got to see if the shift machine shifts technically tomorrow not only should I be on the road I should be about halfway home so everything's fine okay but it would be nice to know what's going on with this machine tonight so I can make preparations and how I'm how I'm getting home I guess also I have found all three Barn cats some butterscotch one black one here without a tail and this cool looking multi-colored one with one eye I think they sleep in this car actually so that's pretty neat anyway just waiting for this to drink up we'll fire this thing back up and what's a little luck we'll have some gears that are fired up again that's that spark tester [Music] got a lot of warm up a minute and then I'll project gears well she's warmed up a little bit songs I can't believe that accelerator pump works all right Gotta Throw in reverse the grabs neutral take a break throw a drive hope hearing again is so much pudding wasn't making line pressure let's see what happens I actually have a pretty good feeling about this reverse yes oh it grabbed I threw it neutral try to drive the more important they're one there I went reverse Drive reverse Drive reverse if there were concrete steps I would dance up them and do the I don't know what he says but he gets to the top thing in the world or something I'm not quite sure anyway well that's pretty neat we have a transmission but we have no daylight so that's going to do it for this day unfortunately it was kind of shot but all in all a victory I'm gonna pack up for tonight figure out a way to feed these cats load up the Suburban I'll be back bright and early tomorrow morning hopefully I guess we're on the brakes trying to figure out breaks and unfortunately I can't get any hardware so I don't know hopefully they can get one of them working nice hard to say well good morning once again from beautiful Iowa weather's been fantastic today's the day we got to figure out what to do with this car I've been scrambling trying to find brake parts and it's it's all special order so I'm gonna go ahead and just pop the cap off the brake master cylinder over there see what we got it's probably empty fill it full of juice hope the pedal moves and see what happens now remember we were told when this was parked and up on box there that was parked for break reasons oh maybe they had the same issues finding Parts I don't I don't know okay let's dig in Captain salad bar salad bar actually sounds pretty good right now it's been a long time since I went to a good old-fashioned salad bar this was already halfway cracked off by the hoose oh yeah I just went well there's some juice one and a little juice and the other even well see what happens here well we got a pump to break I guess we should see if the power seat works because if it doesn't I don't even want the car oh that means the power locks work the power windows work power seat works oh it even goes down it's a crunching something my skeletons oh this one is bad fillers it's real bad brick pedal nothing some more it's still nothing was it pumping fluid or is the master cylinder just not working I don't know what it's doing or not doing I guess we might have to get tires on this so see if it actually rolls because then if it rolls we could try to stop yeah what I mean yeah nothing could have changed how about the master cylinders probably junk guy's gonna fire it up here even though it's on Flats we'll throw it in gear and see if we can determine if the brakes are doing anything I'm not quite sure where the pedal's supposed to be cold start he's not on I knew that I was just seeing if you guys are paying attention three cold starts come on look at that you need more fuel [Music] oh just like a sewing machine that's taken apart see how it rolls so what I'm gonna do is hold the brake and I think it's stopping it okay neutral Drive I think there's a hit to break this is unbelievable come on now you're telling me you're gonna sit there and tell me something's on fire isn't it blank twice if there's a fire there's a lot of smoke [Music] shift foreign I think I got front brake but no Rears horn works this is crazy this is crazy 650 miles we may be attempting it here shortly oh good screwdriver it's a standard well Fellers I gotta be honest I woke up a little discouraged this morning because I thought for certain there's absolutely no way the brake system was going to function that's actually trying to think it's probably a first for us right especially sitting this long 22 years Wow Let's go ahead and change the oil obviously it's earned that transmission is Shifting the engine fires right up we've got just front brakes but that you know that's 50 percent you know that's pretty good let's get this front end up in the air change the oil and while we have that up we'll go ahead and pop these front tires off I've got four tires here that I had shipped ahead and we'll try to figure out somewhere there's a bunch of small pop-up towns here and there getting those mounted then we can get the rears on and I think there's a town called Tipton or Tiffin Tiffany Williams Petersburg some they gotta have a tire shop so I'm thinking so we've run this enough now everything should be in the bottom of the pan there we go get this changed definitely get that thing out of there I also cut the fuel line right here just in case magically it starts pulling fuel while we're driving we don't want that spraying all over the engine up there so I cut that to prevent that from happening pretty wild steering set up here it's a kind of a racking early rack and pinion kind of system pretty cool got the Fram out from below there and we got uh of course a Wix now right the Dayton mileage on them fortunately I didn't pack a marker maybe the odometer Works nope anyway up here we need a specific oil for this 302 and that's this Shell Rotella diesel oil T4 it's got all the vitamins and minerals and zinc phosphorus we need you know and then for the fifth Court we're going to use this here uh it works with the worn engine high mileage stuff yeah so I'm going to pour that into this jug shake it up and then it'll go down the Yap here a little bit easier don't just try to squeeze this stuff in you'll be there for 36.7 minutes here boom garbage pile we'll shake this up like Shakira I'm just kidding no one can do that but well depends this one's Sun faded what's been laying there on the floor in the parts store for 38 years oil change complete here and got two front tires off and down to the local tire shop unfortunately I had to destroy the hubcaps because there's screws that held them on there's no oils are coming off so I'll smash it off with the hammer I found over here and once we get those two on we'll do the rear right now trying to get this fancy dancing shop vac going you know the old mouse sucker this one's a 3000 it's a 20 gallon we're gonna run this through here but we got a bad extension cord kind of was nice enough to lay out some cords here that go back to an old house and I think we got a bad cord but I looked in here earlier this is one of the trunk let's see if that one works normally I start in the trunk but I was terrified when I got here to be honest right there grab her yeah it's nice let's go the Old Timer insulated the slate of the floor we'll probably pull all that junk out of there definitely some heavy Mouse smell in there as well okay there you go we got free jumper cables Don't Mind If I Do really nice Rock oh 58 000 pounds my species oh [Applause] he must have got cold easily at the trunk floor just insulated the mothballs really worked no oh yeah original spareage I gotta get a mask on I'm gonna I can feel it entering my body let's see up in the corners there yeah I'm gonna scoop it into the smell crate and then run the vacuum through here try to get some of that out anyway there we go [Music] dude those big dogs [Music] look how well the trunk turned out that ain't bad and with some actual shampoo or cleaning stuff I think I would come all the way around working my way into the cabin starting on the captain's side and just gonna get it as clean as I can and try to wipe some of these seeds down I got some cleaning wipes I've got the seat move it all the way forward you know showing off the electric seats right now get this done back here kind of got cleaned out pretty decent there and hopefully we can keep this from cycloning going down the road over here digging through the glove box found one of them might be some more up there we'll see that guy's been working on her for quite a while look at the difference it's just wild seats are going to have to come out and carpet's going to need to be shampooed at minimum are preferably replaced to get the urinal cake smell out of here but let's just go back in time here a little bit when I first cracked this door open and peeked in and look at the difference oh it's looking pretty good smells still terrible but at least I could sit in here without vomiting in my mouth three times this is going to be my fuel setup here when we run back into town I'm gonna get some duct tape or something and basically we're just gonna run some fuel line here and gotta find a way to get it in to the engine compartment here it's literally taken half a can of brake clean to get this Paint clean so tape will stick to it but man this thing is going to clean up pretty good I think I got the hose route it through here I knocked out the cold air intake thing pipe still going to bring wind in but we'll run it up underneath tape it like three times here pinch it between the mirror and the pillar we'll put the pump in here they're better pushing field and pulling and then also I could try to figure out how to wire it in and I can control it right here on and off I might just I might just follow come off the battery and just follow this or we might pull it in there not sure Chad got the rears knocked off for me that caliper piston is shot you can see all the old fluid in there stained but I got the front two done so we're gonna go down and drop these off grab some duct tape I might get some leather cleaner for the seats just so we have a different smell in there and we're getting there we're getting close to maiden voyage time after 22 years we're back with tires we got uh hand cooked uh Kenner just I don't know it's they're pretty cheap see if we get these mask on let's get this thing rolling seats are looking great I just hit them with some uh it was like Justin boot leather care about it cleaned the seats even more smell is still terrible that's fine anyways working on the fuel system here one of the problems we're gonna have is when you buy this stuff on a roll well anytime there's all these shapes right well we're not hose goes in the strugg it curls up and from experience having done this 419 times that's not good you're not getting the full capacitize so I rode it around outside here a little bit and I found a broken piece of uh fishing pole here perfect so I'm going to zip tie this to my fuel line like this we're gonna keep it nice and straight and I'm going to make it to where the fishing rod is just a little bit longer than the fuel line so we could drop this straight in the fuel line's not going to get stuck to the bottom of the tank or anything like that then we can maximize the capacity that way we're scraping eyesights in the rear window so I can see what I'm going to pull over here fuel system is done we're going to run that on a drill battery the plan is to get over the Chad's house he's like um it's like 50 miles and then we can work on it a little bit further cut the air cleaner assembly all back together put a new air filtration element in there almost forgot this got the ignition hooked back up should start by a key but that battery I think is dead from cranking on it so much we'll see here and a second okay pretty much everything packed up got to just clean up the site a little bit more some of my parts and pieces and whatnots fuel lines taped up zip tied to the Mirror front windscreen is nice and clean by the way not a rock chip in this thing that I could see so far that's pretty awesome getting close to driving this thing by the way check this out that's a factory option it's a RPO u55 but anyway here we go come on oh I gotta run the fuel pump an hour now we're cooking look at that [Music] must have been parking though the winter it was on hot steering works wow well it is officially time for this car to move the first time under its own power in 22 years what I'm going to do is try to back up out of here it's a lot of stuff that are dangerous for tired danger danger and then uh we're gonna Cruise the back roads to say over to Chad's we can it's like we're going to pressure wash those guys before we take off because right now this says pull me over you know what I mean Here We Go reverse we're moving oh I forgot about the exhaust dragon in the last we are moving I wonder if that would just delete itself if I go forward breaks nothing to write home about forward I think I'm gonna have to have to Jack this up and cut that off go pump off there we go this is what we got going on here this big thing laying down here I think I'm gonna cut it probably right there just because it's easier to reach and then I got a rubber hanger back here I gotta delete on that and then there could probably hear him loading a trailer of scrap metal in the background we'll just go toss this on there and help them out a little bit okay exhaust off here we go one more brake check sure while we're rolling we're doing the same there goes second gear how about a second year now there it is wandering pretty pretty good but it's good man speedometer works close to the right pretty good there's something wrong with the alignment anyway we saw that with the tires let's turn the AC on nothing happened we ain't got no fan motor all right we're going to crawl through this little town jump on the interstate no we're not we're gonna cross through this little town find a gas station fill up this five gallons I got another drug right here now we better just take some back roads take it easy shake the stick down and then we'll access it look at that boat Sea Spirit I wonder if it's for sale [Music] foreign stop cars you know it's running it's messing a little bit I did dump some Airmen and not jog in there so it's chewing on that while we drive that'll help clean up the speculators combustion chamber on that what I really need to do is give this an Italian tune-up or get it out on the highway and just let this thing rip look at all 130 horses galloping uh brakes pull super hard to the left and one off and it serves you to the right radio still works wipers were working get this the cruise control works however brake switch wants to defaulty a chance follow me I said I don't have a brake light and it's coming up to the stop line back there it's hitting the brakes nope Cruise didn't kick off at all it just said oh we got a hill and tried the downshift which is meant it was wandering between three gears you have to flip the crews off manually so the brake switch is that which is probably why the brake lights are but it's driving okay a little concerned about the transmission style because the one to two is soft and the two to three takes four ever and you got a delicate the pedal it to get it to shift in the third but hey it's going down the road at this point we've got a victory any farther than this is just the cherry on top of the pie cherry pie with cream on it on the top okay let's keep going yeah well let's pull out of here batteries dead ain't charging good a little spark again chasing and chasing and chasing and trying to figure out yep so here we go that's we made it you know nine miles great there's a little part store just south of here about six miles closes pretty soon actually I think it might be the ignition coil I'm getting some really odd and consistent readings across the primary coil so we're gonna Buzz down there and thank goodness God was following me we're gonna Buzz down there check that out see if we can get one quick throw that in see what happens well replaced a couple fittings took that terrible plastic thing off fittings there and uh I guess your control module when you know it we're gonna see if we can head home I'm just not gonna shut it off at this point we're not home I guess the Chad's house is what I mean oh and do coils then [Music] all right [Music] well Sons getting pretty close to going down but we made it back to my friend's house turn it off try to start it again sure enough no spark I don't I don't know I'm gonna have to do some flanking but till then we got the pressure washer drug out we're gonna go ahead and give this things first wash 22 plus years let's see what we got going on underneath all of this actually I should scoop this off put in a bucket you know put it on evil Bay that's a Ridge barn dust right there well I'm interested to see what's gonna look like so fired up get some soap on this thing some high pressure probably gonna lose some paint but that's okay I just want to clean it up enough to travel basically [Music] [Applause] [Music] I've never used one of those foam you know Canon shooter Hunters I'm gonna let this soak for a minute it's already unfortunately it's going to take a lot of this paint off it's just there's no way to avoid that try to minimize it I think this top somehow some way is going to survive [Music] [Music] so we just got the [Music] I got to show you something brake lights started working out of nowhere on the way home cruise control works and check this out you're not going to believe this so I just had to show you 52 degrees Ice Cold Air in this old car that is crazy it's the coldest AC I've felt a long time I'll tell you that so I wanted the try address this fuel capacitized situation if I could got so many miles I really really want this tank but I don't think we're gonna get there I cut this line here and I ran air through the line forward and sure enough no restrictions there everything's fine so when I ran it right here and I can't get anything through here which tells me the pickup tube and there's a sock on it full of varnish rust this tank is bust basically another cool thing this was part for brake issues over here on this side that's what we suspect through the sun of the Old owner and I think he might have fixed them I gotta be honest look at this brand new line up over new soft line I mean obviously it was installed years ago but he might have been in here and was it just a leaking line or is the actual caliper bad now I'm not seeing any new brake juice from our drive here so is that now resolved and he just never got it off the blocks I don't know I really don't we got a transmission pan leak pretty bad one I don't want to get a fur on the way back that's just from sitting here for a couple minutes so I'm gonna get up here and see what I did wrong I don't know if I got the gasket in incorrectly it doesn't look like I did but did this in the dark last night so I'm just doing some warranty work on myself that's always fun not really exhaust is good I don't see anything wrong anywhere there floors are solid on this which is all right you know what I mean I just okay got it okay we've been working on the fuel system here the Ecto one back to the future look it's perfect this is perfectly executed with the service loop I'll have you know I fish this up here I use one of those reflector poles jammed it down there taped on pulled back got her you know put on with special fittings here both seem to be holding now we insulated The Sod cable actually I'm going to do this the other way I'm going to tape up the positives and we'll be switching the sad cables so that'll always be connected then we'll just connect and disconnect this when we need and when we don't need the pump I'm going to run two cans up here I'm going to run the left one first so when I see that getting low I could pull it on my fishing pole stick it in the other one and should be good to go as long as it's intermittent weird digital lightning Dura spark box stuff hangs in there we might could got a shot I don't know but like I say it runs that's probably a winner in itself it's out it's clean we drove it down the road that's pretty awesome something else I did here tonight just kind of preparing for night driving because I'm thinking if I get this started in the morning we can't shut it off once it runs we shut it off that's when we lose spark for whatever weird reason so I've got this jumped into the headlights here and that's how we're going to get our headlights on and off I don't know if it's a foot switch or the dash switch we just don't have time or the parts to figure that out so I do this pretty regularly just jump it over and get you home and do the thing I did pick up a charging whirler that one's pretty weak and if we do night driving with all the lamps and everything running I have a feeling that is not going to cut it but I guess that's going to do it for in the shop tonight I'm going to get a little bit of rest we're going to pack up get the luggage in the car and hit the road tomorrow morning 650 miles we're going to start waving through some back roads at first if the car is performing well we might start eventually getting on some faster highways and maybe even the interstate I'm not quite sure hopefully this thing is going to make it I have no backup plans whatsoever we'll see you in the morning good morning beautiful day in Iowa Lincoln no spark about to fire it up this morning not only does it have the same intermittent issues as yesterday and the day before and the day before that I believe today before that but it's more worser now and it's doing this weird thing where you try to crank it when you let off the key it fires for a second then stops I'm not sure if it's an actual addition tumbler if it's a rack in the steering column if it's some sort of sensor or ECM or PCM or UCM or DCM I I don't know we're gonna try a few different things here see if we can get this fired up if I do get it running basically that the challenge is can we go 650 miles without ever stalling or turning this car off including when fueling somehow out of jugs sweet well we got it fired up I uh tickled buyers coil back in even all that owned out not correct kind of fired up wondering if the new coil doesn't require a resistor but there's one in line with the old one does require resistor and there is one in line and I'm not sure because I can't find a wiring diagram for this vehicle of course you can find them for Dura spark but they're just general Dura smart that's not the Mercedes which has a bunch of computer boxes and other stuff in it so I gotta let it warm up so it doesn't stall when I put in gear we're going straight fuel station we got to keep this thing running at all times also with everything going on I forgot to put belts on this they're in terrible shape that's good you know you know just uh just the usual nothing nothing to see here there's an O'Reilly's about 40 miles from here and I called ahead they do have an ignition coil and they have a belt so that's going to be our first destination there's also going to be fuel in town it's a little bit out of the way south but we got to get that stuff just make sure we have it on board take off from there [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] that's gonna do it for me today anyway it's about 10 and a half hours in the car we didn't cover a lot of ground there in the beginning Carr kept quitting just randomly and stuff like that and I was taking back roads but they're starting running better engine wise so I jumped around the interstate we just clipped 70 for a good good bit there transmission is still extremely questionable air conditioning has faded power steering is still working I will say that the engine is much more responsive it is running much better I always say he's gonna get around the road blow the cobwebs out of her filler you know what I mean it works I ain't kidding you it's getting about 16 miles to gallon I can't even tell you how many times I stopped filled up today but we're doing pretty good I wanted to also stop because 10 and a half hours today that means that car has not shut off for 10 and a half hours meaning I haven't checked the oil or the coolant or any of that stuff so I'm gonna get a break for Sally I asked us it's going to get a break in the morning hopefully it'll have spark I'll check some fluids we'll fire this thing back up and we'll push on home we're pretty close we got like 200 miles left or something like that I'd have to look but anyway we'll see you guys bright early tomorrow morning good morning Day 72 12. whatever it is early nine or o'clock eight whatever it is early in the morning I can't believe it but I guess it got to him looking right at it no one stole their Sally's and obviously that's hard Steel around here no luxury it's a mid-sized luxury car everybody it's a power seats and windows anyway today's the day see if we get back I did the mapping on the digital clock computer box 227 miles on the intro States to take the back roads well it's more I don't know what's going to happen today no leaks underneath the rig that's okay I'm gonna pop the hood we'll go through a couple things here I did disco this yesterday this poor little battery first of all it's undersized second of all it's the economy not you know heavy duty by any means and I beat on this thing like a bullnose Ford trying to get the radio to work you know the old Dash boom boom so hopefully it's still got juice this morning fuel lines working this is I left that in there because I figured we'd have issues on the way everything else yep there's an engine oh there we go clutch blew it out on the on the AC completely blew out you can see Rubber and debris going under there so I'm actually going to cut this belt which as you can see I have no idea how it even stayed on any of these belts I didn't touch them I've just been waiting for them to come off I do have a charging wheeler belt I don't really care about the power steering but everything else is look yep check okay yeah it's cold so we can just look at the stick oh hasn't even Barely Used any oil that's incredible it actually doesn't smoke to be honest unless you really feed her the onions that does have a little bit of blood but actually I don't know now we ran it all day yesterday let's fire it up and see what the blow-by looks like see if the Rings are sealing up we're also check on this ice cube juice Plum full it ain't eating that either okay well let's fire it if it starts it runs all day once again NASCAR fuel system running let's go two and a half okay please have spark nope oh here we go oh no I need to save some battery we might be in trouble here Fellers oh boy [Applause] well this this is what I was afraid of hindsight being 13 12 maybe I should just slept in the car actually I didn't think about that but on account of the exhaust being rotted off with my feet are I was a little worried about the carbon monoxide poisonings oh boy this battery ain't gonna last much longer great well I think I got Sparkles back changed out the coil again for the old one then a new one a super streak uh accelerator pump I think is dead this really pains me I'll have to use some of this to fire it off well I know it's a running driving car it should take right off and I don't have to sit there and fog it down with this I like this is an emergency guys it's so hard on these engines see what happens here come on yeah should be able to get it [Music] that was a little scary but I forgot to take off that belt oh my goodness I thought I was gonna be stuck over here in Kentucky or wherever we is see if I can get that thing off somehow got that off I just holding this on there alternator sounds terrible this morning oh that belt's starting to go see that there it went right there so alternator is well I guess we're putting a belt on I got to shut this off again you know if you've never worked on a car in a hotel parking lot I strongly recommend it especially if you want to make new friends because you know pretty soon here there's going to be about 30 people standing around and go what are you what are you doing here fella is that a Lincoln Mercedes so yeah they're gonna say it says luxury yeah this one's a good unit I ain't going to need is these two we have a nine forward slash one six what a beautiful thing western omelette sounds good hope it doesn't rain though ain't got wipers guys got some old school 50 Cent plan anyway I barely got this belt on here the size was not correct but loosened up at all the way to the end of the adjustment got it about halfway on the pulley and then use the rotation of the engine held my finger on it bumped the trigger not recommended gonna walk to the arm I mean it's not it is topped you could walk between buildings on that thing but I ain't got it adjusted don't need to so I'll just snug it down hopefully fire this thing back up find my wing nut get to a gas station we're at business time to pack by the way that blow by all but gone so I knew I could feel it and hear it running better as we drove it yesterday and there's the proof the Rings have sealed it's got more Gusto it's a lot more Snappy than it was we're charging pack up get back on the road all right first fill up of the day the weather I think I'm gonna jump on the interstate try that out today again everything seems to be going good lucknuts are staying on these Cheapo tires are not bad actually gotta be honest [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] well this should be a familiar sight the golden loxes of Rusty Acres we made it somehow some way the 1978 Lincoln Versailles this is after 22 years sitting in that garage drug itself 650 miles all the way down to Southern Tennessee and it quite honestly did great if you think about it we didn't put bearings in it or a brake pad for that matter I kind of just forced it along the way and I teased this car a little bit and forward a little bit maybe I don't know but I gotta be honest Lincoln made a really great product if you think about it what I typically drag cars out it's been sitting 20 30 years I have to go through air it's a lot of work and we really didn't have to do that to this one and it needs some stuff a fuel system fuel lines and we still got to put brake lines in it and it needs an AC pump and we got to figure out this electrical issue and yada yada but the most important thing for me is the car is on the road it's proven it could be a classic it could be a cruiser it could be something I just don't want to think parted out so you guys let me know what you want to do with this car maybe we just pass her on to somebody else and they could continue the restoration Rusty Acres is getting pretty full I'll tell you that thanks guys for watching another successful Revival here at vice grip garage appreciate you all very much and remember your project won't work if you don't we'll see you soon [Music]

Channel: Vice Grip Garage

Views: 2,079,741

Keywords: motortrend, roadkill, vice grip garage, vise grip garage, vgg, ford, lincoln, mercury, ltd, revival, rescue, barn find, garage find, will it start, will it drive

Id: V2jTwDMXkR0

Length: 111min 34sec (6694 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 23 2023