Dirt Cheap Rat Rod! 1968 Charger Buildup and Thrash - Roadkill Ep. 23

[Music] [Music] it's yet another episode where we're gonna dig out one of my old cars that's been sitting around forever and do something with it this time it's a 68 Dodge Charger that I think I bought about five years ago and actually I didn't even buy it I traded it for a set of fill under heads go ahead and pull the wire that's yeah anti-theft system Wow last time I was here these weeds were not there it's been a while we're gonna burn half the morning just getting to the charger it's better than it looks but it has nothing in it other than a rolling chassis meaning no engine no transmission no driveshaft no wiring no brakes nothing that is disgusting check that out we have to get it out because if we move this and it breaks open in the car do you see what this is like movie parts this is a movie f-bomb fenders from Fast and Furious check it a touch they wrecked like five of these cars for the 30 seconds that thing was in the movie so we moved fry burgers crappy cheap we need to move fry burgers crappy charger but it's crappy trailer has a winch that doesn't have a crappy battery to power it so we're gonna take his crappy suburban to an auto parts store to get a battery to work the winch to get the charger out just so we can get to somebody's driveways so we can start working on this massive drivetrain swap and he has three days two and a half [Music] they never host I have a vision for this car and I don't think it's exactly what his vision is my vision is it sailing through the air and a bright orange ball of fire you know over canyon you want General Lee I know generally I want the general mayhem that's what this is gonna be the general mayhem man's good yeah as long as it's orange with an O one on you know the first step was to blow all of the rat turds out of the charger so we loaded it up on the back of the macho Grande and dragged it over to the coin-op car wash I bet a dollar that today we're the only ones hauling a 68 Charger behind a macho Grande through Burbank California that makes us winners I like the way you've really asked no questions about the condition of the charger what might be missing what I did or didn't order what the parts vehicle is I have really low expectations for this deal I'll say this episode will not end without us having it running and driving how's that movie magic you did leave yourself a good size out there yeah well it's difficult to see right now but this car is actually full of critters that want to kill me so we're gonna hose it out here at the car wash before we even think about working on this piece of crap yeah you're gonna get scurvy right now oh look here's a whole bag of Corona boy you're about to get Ghana her Pacifica's oh that stinks yuck oh oh so glad this is my car you broke the bottle this right here is what makes the charger cool go faster grooves in the doors like that just looks like speed happening right there [Music] first or now [Music] Wow you're going all out suds and everything I think the spender is probably giving you ideas dude telling you it's like it already wants to be a generally cars talking to you right now look orange suds are coming off of this side it's telling you it's bleeding orange it's saying come on jump me jump me keep in mind I've never seen the donor vehicle oh wow this is kind of nice and it's way too nice to rip apart nobody wants the dodges that's the problem especially a longbed 3/4 ton but Mopar people are strange and they're gonna be mad that you gutted the Mopar even though it's for a better Mopar I couldn't bring myself to tear up that dodge truck as it was so clean so the problem was we needed to find something that was a donor with a big-block Mopar in it that I was not gonna have sentimental attachment to and then Finnegan surfed Craigslist and came up with the genius idea what what engine is in this thing [Music] is it on fire I wanted a big-block Mopar really badly and one of the sources forum is old Dodge motor homes as this billion of them out there they're dirt cheap this is a Class A which means not based on a fan big ugly I think it's on an M 800 chassis and it has a 440 and a 727 it's got a battery we can use maybe some wiring and stuff like that and it runs good we just picked it up drove it three or four blocks and it's already leaking I know how to solve that it's overheating let's take the hood off you know it as a cooling problem when it comes with the return jug that they failed to install well you know they had they had good intentions at least didn't know this thing came with landscaping check that out I'm telling you that's like topiary right there we've never bought anything this nice I'm really surprised the brakes work that well or at least the front ones do we got the Brady Bunch edition shag carpet nicely discolored and molded the door does not stay shut so that sort of flaps in the breeze and there is this custom rope to hold it shut but we figure that's not really necessary for our purposes it's seriously making my eyes burned in here oh so bad I don't get why it's okay up here I mean not good it's fungus but from that point back literally it burns your eyes and you can't breathe I wasn't kidding right pot-a-porri we have a super tight timetable to make the swap happen so immediately after buying the motorhome we headed straight to my buddies at OSI driveline to trade them the generator out of the motor home before the driveshaft we need to connect the 440 to the Dodge Charger I haven't really checked out the engine yet oh man stinks yep this is the chrysler 440 big-block you can always tell the big blocks and the small blocks because the distributor's in the front and small block hasn't come back and whoo there are more quad that is a Carter thermo quad the famous carburetor with the plastic body that's genius that's gonna run really well on the charger it's time to take the hood off roadkill style oh yeah that's gonna be way more efficient and it's attractive next I look at the flow yeah I think that's good you know what I'm thinking though is it burns your eyes so bad in there I'm we're gonna need some ventilation you're picking up what I'm putting down [Music] one on your side [Music] if the engine covers off will get flow through the grille across the engine and out the back this was really unnecessary but fun yeah I want people to look at my calves while I'm driving here's what I was thinking ready [Music] [Laughter] [Music] thermocline the only carburetor that one who sees you we tried going to the war that's the sound of power I don't sense quite enough fear in all these people I don't think they know you mean we need to show them when the pace arrow is capable of [Music] if I canna fix the door and there a piece of rope in here okay let's see worried this thing's gonna hit a motorcycle of splitting lanes here hold that open ah wait got it okay now I got rope you got the screen okay you believe our temp gauge this thing is running ice-cold upon closer inspection she's puking coolant all over the ground so I don't believe the gas gauge either so we put gas in both the main on an auxilary tank which didn't move the gauge at all and they both only took 10 gallons but it's running fine and I honestly think we're gonna make it door oh I wasn't coming off it's fine it's just this ah it's just the guts with no tools on hand we just decide to started ripping the door off and that only got us so far I'm a human can opener right now when all of a sudden the LA Department of Transportation shows up and they've got an axe need to get that hat off they're perfect thank you state of California saves us [Applause] we spent all day getting the motorhome here and it's out in the street but it won't fit down the driveway and it's too late for us to hack out the sawzalls right now so we're gonna get to work on the charger let's start right here and work our way back and remove everything we don't need just to get it out of our way starting with the hood that's a good idea how they play to make a statue start with a big block of stone and chip away everything that isn't a naked woman we're right now chipping away everything that isn't a badass charger gross looks gross in here by the time we got back here to actually work on the charger it's so late at night we can't make any noise so we'll pick this up again tomorrow I'm jacking up the back of the car so that I can rip out the gas tank cuz that'll probably be the quietest job I can do right now and since it's 8 a.m. in the morning the neighbors probably don't want to hear me plastic ball joints loose with a hammer and a fork where they jumped it some bowing Luke Duke stuff right there the thing I love about roadkill is we're gonna put nice shiny aftermarket parts on that crud right there because we don't have time to do any better and we always go oh yeah I'll take it apart and fix it later I don't I never say that I say you'll never take it apart and fix it I always say that there's no brick Trump's and there has it there's no springs there hasn't been anything back here for a really long time are you swapping 2 discs okay no I had no clue this is all road-killed look that's gonna put a damper in her schedule that destroyed us at this point the episode felt a complete disaster and it was obvious we weren't gonna get it done we had to run off and shoot something else and so I took the Hulk of the Pacer a motorhome shoved it back into storage abandoned the charger at Rob's house and walked away for a month and a half before we started working on it again they were considered dusting in this car it's the light Swiffer right here on the dash you can see the gauges we've got an excellent job of keeping your area clean if you buy a Supra - no this isn't even a good Supra people always park here and block my spots I've had vehicles that I've sold that I can't sell because junk is in the way so we got this guy worse since the last time we were here looks like someone messed with the spare tire let's see if it runs whatever that funk was in the back the last time we drove this that's gone but I think it's been replaced by spiders and other things I don't want anywhere near me just pour a bunch of that on there so it blows up right in my face that's good right that's enough Oh [Music] I thought I was gonna be able to find a junkyard to just take this thing it turns out we're gonna have to pay to have it hauled away and they won't take it complete no one around here so we're gonna have to solve a whole body off of the motor home we ordered the dumpster to throw all their junk in and then we're gonna have to have the frame hauled away separately this is a reciprocating saw and it's my friend my good friend see that ready action on that baby it's gonna turn this into butter right now look at that like butter and our warped and twisted minds we decided we'll rent a dumpster cut the entire thing up by ourselves in one day and throw it all away oh cool is there a guy all right perfect oh he's given the Supra guy at least half a day to move his junk so times up he's getting blocked in this is my level of concern that was impressive now that we've got the side open our plan is to cut the whole floor out so that we can just get directly to the engine [Music] [Applause] [Music] almost liberated this should have been a factory option I really thought that was coming back either through all I wanted was the big block Chrysler for my charger what a fiasco this is debacle setback on six here we just went not even a circle back to the beginning this is a figure eight back to the beginning but this is a 440 those other ones are only four hundreds it makes it all worthwhile it's all worthwhile it's like all about the Motorhome so how much is it $1,200 okay I show up it's a lady and her husband and I'm driving it around it runs okay not great and I'm I'm trying to bargain with her and like hey you know 1200 seems kind of high how about a thousand no I'm pretty firm on 1200 all right so I drive it around the block a few times come back home shut it off and it Diesel's for no jokes about 30 seconds straight and it finally stops and I go so you'll take a thousand huh she's off yeah and what a deal you got look at this way I got an entire house for $1,000 engine in out for the first time for the last time oh you knew that was gonna happen why couldn't we get a hoist with childbearing hips this isn't gonna work looking pretty solid to me there we go okay can you try and bucket that too late it's done yeah it was a lot like a recreational vehicle archaeological deke to get the 440 out of this thing but finally we liberated the glorious big-block Mopar best part though is that we found a guy who's gonna take this thing so we don't have to cut it in a million pieces and throw it the dumpster I'll be honest we had to pay in particular yeah but don't care so tomorrow I'll go get the ramp truck I'll load the fury on it I'll come here we'll put this in the trunk of the fury on the ramp truck return to $400 with a sawzall blades drive the whole mess to the charger and then and then make a bigger mess there pillaged the fury and the engine for the charge up now that's perfect everybody got that [Music] I'm already stripping part ah the fury my old friend I'm here scavenging parts off the motorhome and Finnegan just showed up with the fury she's a little overloaded right now breaking through the floor oh I know so right now what we're gonna do is roll the fury back a few feet swing the engine out of the motorhome up into the air and into the trunk of the fury and then tow the whole circus over to the charger unload everything again why we make things so difficult no one's ever parked a 440 in the trunk of a fury on the back of a ramp truck and driven through Burbank let's say I start setting it down with force that could happen put a hole in the fuel cell and yeah this world's only rear motored 73 fury there I solved that problem it's through I'm gonna ask what that was oh this isn't going anywhere probably not coming out either the donkeys not going to the junkyard that's going back in my living room [Music] we're doing the car dance right now we had to move the charger out so that we can get the fury in so that we can work on it more easily so it'll be charger out fury and charger back in charter out fury out to the junkyard charger back in got that okay all right I didn't get that at all what are we doing let her rip anywhere bottomed out on the driveway we're wedged against the inside of the trunk like we are predicting what that car ever do to you okay pushing your way it's gonna yep slice those two plug wires the fury is gonna donate the transmission the front accessories the seats some of the wiring maybe the rear brakes most of its soul just you know things we need the little things I thought we honestly we're gonna be able to get this whole car running and driving in three days but my three days means six I like it when I show up and you're already working it's like when you come back from the bathroom at a restaurant the food's already there I decided to go ahead and take the engine out separate from the transmission basically so we don't just bloodbath the driveway that sounds messy sit here and watch you work for a while makes me all warm and fuzzy inside time to relieve the donkey of its duties well I can't believe that I'm scraping grease off of an engine so we can clean it so that Freiburger can paint it an engine that came out of a Motorhome that we bought for $1,000 that's gonna get stuffed into a charger that probably cost $1,000 driven once on roadkill and then stuffed in some back lot later like everybody buys a Motorhome they're like whoohoo travel the country with our family then they find out their kids hate them and don't want to spend that much time in a car with them so the motorhome sits in the driveway and accumulates a total of 38,000 miles over a 30-year span so I'm gonna dunk this thing and they had three different things at Pep Boys original foamy and heavy-duty gel so I'm gonna find out which one I like best true story when I was in high school and I didn't know anything about cars my Camaro leaked a lot of oil and my Friday night ritual was to take my paycheck head to the local auto parts store buy gunk and clean my engine before going out that was it never fixed the oil leak I just cleaned it every Friday because roadkill stop dude let this game dry for a couple of hours and it actually came out pretty good I think I like the gel and foamy gunk better than the original they kind of stick to the thing better and they're the heavy-duty stuff the gum will see the grease falling off hope our guys are gonna be all over me for not painting it either Hemi orange or Chrysler turquoise freshly rebuilt Wow Fonzie all black huh yeah if I painted it orange it would have been way worse I think you've talked yourself into this yeah I think it was a valuable use of our time and resources you know it was blue it couldn't be blue it's going in a black car so now it's black now we have to pull the engine out of the fury and then take the transmission out torque converter sort of coming out with the motor but it wanted to now let's decide where this is gonna fit for six years Rob's front lawn the transmission in the motorhome had a companion flange on the back of it instead of a slip yoke so we couldn't use it so that's why we're using this transmission how's that even possible we just made a bloodbath of epic proportion over here there's a triple homicide under the fury this is unbelievable you know the thing is ATF is mostly a detergent so we're really cleaning your driveway so in a twisted way you owe us this fury was a factory towing package model which is kind of like a cop car package and it has a factory limited-slip in it so we're gonna pull out the whole center section out of this rear end and put it in the charger so that we have positive and it also has 11 inch drum brakes on the back which I'm going to take off and put on the charger which has back to 10 in phrase so the fury once again the gift that keeps on giving we're like the Native Americans you know we're not just out there hunting Buffalo for sport you know we're gonna eat every piece off of this fury so there's nothing left that anyone can use [Music] we started off our morning sending the fury to the junkyard which is a roadkill first usually we take cars from the junkyard or we have cars that should be there it's opposite day but now we're gonna pull the pan off the motor put on a new oil pan that will fit the charger we're gunning the transmission and we're gonna bolt it all together and hopefully have the engine in the car in about 15 minutes then you're getting close if by magic it's like it's already done we could just start drinking beer now look how close we are now okay I've probably had the charger for about seven years and it's just been a rolling home the whole time so this is a pretty big moment and wanting this for quite a while [Music] Freiburger and I have worked on this car off and on for the last three months we've wired it we plumbed it we put the shifter in put a drive shaft in it so it's got functioning gauges for chrissakes this thing is probably nicer than most anything we've had on roadkill just because we were the ones that worked on it it's actually wired properly a proper fuse block that's right if something goes wrong the fuse blows the car doesn't burn to the ground or once it's not a fire hazard I wouldn't go that far this thing is finally ready to crank to life and we could probably go off-roading in the next 24 hours I've been keeping it as cheap as I possibly can doing stuff like reusing the thermal quad using two sets of spark plug wires to make one good set this has got one set off the fury and a couple wires off the motor home and look at the zip tie wire separators which is always a good tech tip right there and here's where all the science happens start button ignition fans headlights and for Johnny law that turns off our tail lights okay so we got to get away really fast push the start button he's in a flinch whoa you're gonna puke tranny fluid everywhere oh you're just startled that this piece of crap actually cranked over after three months oh this is the real reason to own a 68 Charger is for the flip open gas filler I love this thing I actually bought that new reproduction for like forty seven dollars because I love it so much yeah I think Dodge Chrysler stole that from boat guys don't care it's cool I plan on firing the thing up today but we still have some things to do there's a brake line that needs to be made need to put the push rod in there of course finnegans installing the tack that's crucial I want to hang the fender also crucial put a bumper on it and stuff like that what else do we have to do that's getting down to shortlist rub some awesome on it and go hit the road I have a 69 fender that we have to modify just a little bit to bolt on to it zero insurance and registration fact you know we don't even know that the car isn't hot I traded the thing for a set of cylinder heads it might not be registerable yeah this might not even be your car that's right we might have just put the thing running and driving for some guy we don't even know right now Freiburger is pouring some gas down the carb and we're gonna try to fire up the charger for the very first time since 1983 go stop let me know if you have the ignition on I did can you make sure the box is lit up the Box doesn't have a light on it trying to fill the float bowls of the carburetor by pouring gas down the vent tube okay [Music] Wow it sells a week ran out of gas that's 75 pounds yeah it runs but there's only a couple issues one of which is it sounds like an absolute turd this thing makes two hundred or power second of which is it has not picked up gasoline out of the tank yet I can't just keep feeding it gas into the carburetor so I think I'm gonna fill up the float Bowl and see if we can get it to run long enough that it'll actually suck it up out of the tank as far as I'm concerned a charger should sound like the General Lee and this does not sound like that [Music] you have a charger that hunts and smells read a little jealous over here because I know this this is temporary where I'm sitting this is big this car needs to be jumping over a river if we tried to drive it right now we may just disappoint her so it's probably just basket what we have yeah yeah which is a car on deck stands that runs and revs most cars on jack stands don't run or read five months later it's winter in Southern California which means it's raining and we've got a thicker clothes on the driveway is a bitchin shade of rainbow from all the fluids that are dropped on it and the charger is not here because freiburger actually drove it to an exhaust shop and an alignment shop oh look how straight the wheels are [Music] with exhaust of sorts look what we made the guy at the alignment shop said we would have died if we pick not as it was well the wheels were like this and like this it was I've only driven it two blocks no reverse seriously absolutely nothing how's that possible that it drove me in the driveway and as soon as it saw you it broke I honestly fear that people think that we will have faked this for drama because it's so unbelievable but you have to see this we do not lie on roadkill fire the thing up we know it as fluid we put it in reverse we know it's shifting girls note what hey [Music] I just tried to drive that card I wouldn't move as possible it's dead again so now it's dead in the street I seriously thought Freiburger was pulling some sick and twisted joke on me when he magically made the car stop moving so he shoved it back in the driveway crawled under it at jerked a transmission out of the thing again and ran it to a shop down the street where we found out that I had not gotten the torque converter fully seated in the front pump when I put the engine in the car the first time while the transmission was down the street getting rebuilt we had plenty of time to make the charger cool and even legal we hung some headlights in the front of it and because an original charger grill in mint condition cost like 2,500 bucks we ended up making it this killer Mad Max grille out of some perforated steel we just created probably the greatest grill that mankind has ever known and we don't have beer to celebrate there might be one Bud Light though you're right we don't have peered a celebration invites the equivalent of stepping foot on the moon that's what happened here today if I was a guy in a Prius or a Yaris and I saw this coming up in the rear view mirror I get out of the way right as we wrapped up the grill the guy called and said that the transmission was finally done so he ran over there to pick it up slapped it in the car and then of course the topper we had to throw on the furies hemi hood scoop because the fury always brings good luck we're going on a road trip today there I called it I declare this charger roadworthy ready that was cool fire out of the scoop [Music] I can't even believe it we are finally gonna hit the road alright kiha that's not smoking as much as it was Rob's our friend but you really need to do a Burnout down the street [Music] oh no it's a big that was it I was that was on the floor pretty much what's that noise driveline you bought the driveshaft in yeah [Music] it sounds like the muscle truck good kinda oh my god nerdy what is the smoke headers it's the dirt coming out of the - oh that's smoke see the smoke pouring out air started smell what behind us dude [Music] they're gonna see that teaching John movie I think we should fall over oh my god we might be on fire dude [Music] so we got on the freeway things sounded awesome like literally greatest exhaust note ever reminded me a lot of the muscle truck and then it was just James Bond smoked the whole entire freeway I think we stopped three lanes of traffic just now because it's puking tranny fluid everywhere dipstick came out came out hey it's gone transmission fluid catches on fire good and luckily that didn't happen yet we did have the James Bond smoke screen going on went with a dipstick in and that's supposed to go into one of those bolts but we were kind of in a hurry to leave so I thought oh I'm just gonna hammer the dipstick tube in put some martini on it and it'll be good it wasn't good this just blew out my fault I almost burnt the car to the ground we scut some sort of a clunk going on up here when it's rotating I should probably look into that while he's fixing that deal okay I found that clunk we're good if the wheel weight was just hitting the upper ball joint it'll fall off soon enough daylight was winding down but finally we had this thing running again and hit the road I can't tell you why this is such a lifelong dream for me but I have always just loved thrashing passenger cars around in the desert and to have a 68 Charger in particular it just brought back the vibes of Dukes of Hazzard dirty Murray crazy Larry and even Bullitt it's just I was raised to believe that a 68 69 charger is that the most indestructible vehicle off-road and I was set to prove it [Music] if I close my eyes I swear I was riding into generally it sounded just like wait for the next one that's all four wheels never left the ground we've got too much respect for this car but we did get it sideways around every corner we did throw dirt in the air we had a blast man this episode was a long way to go I think back about how I really thought that we were gonna get this charger done in three days but it turned into six months but finally ended up with exactly what I wanted for a long time and that is the Mad Max 5 a 68 Charger and in the end there's only one thing left to do a proper burnout [Music] what what engine is in this thing it's a date okay is that a v8 let me talk to my my wife here and see if she'll give me some money Oh we're gonna pay you to take this we don't want it you take it and we'll give you money oh they just got better didn't it no we're gonna give you money

Channel: MotorTrend Channel

Views: 12,873,418

Rating: 4.859026 out of 5

Keywords: dodge, dodge charger, Roadkill, road kill, motortrend, motor trend, hotrod, hot rod, David Freiburger, mike Finnegan, 1968, 1969, 1970 dodge charger, 68, 69, 70, Mopar, buildup, project car, dirt cheap, thrills, dukes of hazard, general lee, dirty Mary, crazy Larry, thrash, donut, slide, sideways, burnout, destruction, motor home, motorhome, rv, pace arrow, 440, big block, engine swap, off road, dirt, stunt, jump, Rat Rod, V8 Engine (Engine Type), motor trend channel, roadkill 23

Id: 0JXDcJQqZrA

Length: 40min 2sec (2402 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 20 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/WarpedHorizon]

Roadkill is quite possibly the best car show on Youtube, and this is their best episode yet. A synapses for those who don't know- Roadkill is the strange, fascinating automotive adventures of Hot Rod Magazine's Editor-in-Chief Dave Freiburger and Editor Mike Finnegan. It's a fun way to live vicariously and learn how to and how not to fix cars. Watch it!

[u/[deleted]]

The 3 day build of the Crusher Camaro live was really a great watch. They have all 3 days uploaded, close to 24 hours.

This episode was pretty awesome, no doubt.

[u/Mcflyguy]

Nice. Proper roadkill. I wonder how many cars freiburger has laying around California? LOL

[u/Warmaster_Bacon]

My new favorite episode! Wish I had the skill and knowledge these guys do, all I can do is basic suspension/brake work.

[u/One_Wheel_Drive]

I really couldn't believe what I was seeing when they put that grill on. This is what's so great about Roadkill.

[u/Metamorphism]

Why did they use a motor home engine?

[u/LunchInABoxx]

Dam that was amazing