Driving from Florida to Alaska - Episode 1

[Music] some people take road trips so they can get to their destination but we take road trips so we can experience the journey and rather than showing a stereotypical cross-country road trip we decided to take it one step further we want to drive from Florida to Alaska I took my SGI swappi subaru forrester and bend to his evo 9 mr on a journey of over 10,000 miles we have only three weeks to travel in 22 states and two Canadian provinces this three weeks was the longest block of time that we had available to us all year so we wanted to take advantage of our goal to see as much of the continent as possible [Music] hi I'm Ben and I'm Ben and this is our intern Devin and we are here in very beautiful and also very wet hot and humid Tallahassee Florida with our two cars my evo and Ben's Forester yeah we plan to take both of these cars on a road trip and it's not just any road trip we're gonna take this from here in Tallahassee Florida up to Anchorage Alaska which is about six or seven thousand miles and back I've an saw that was kind enough to sponsor this video series so they've loaded this up with different parts of serpentine belts brake pads brake rotors so hopefully if we do break down we can just fix it on the side of the road yeah I've got a ton of tools in the back of the car you might even notice the rear end squatting down from all the tools that I've got I'm a little concerned I'm a little worried but I think we've got enough stuff between both cars and both ski boxes that will be set anywhere we are middle of Canada we should be okay well we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves so let's start at the very beginning 7:30 a.m. and we just got some food some breakfast to keep us awake we're leaving town now and we got 11 hours to drive to Florida our starting point the trip begins with a short and easy 11 hour drive down in Tallahassee Florida this is where we're gonna begin to cross continental Road the entire trip should take about a hundred and seventy seven hours on the road so this first 11 hours should be a drop in the bucket back with the e boat was designed it was kind of designed as more of like a sports car or something to be used for spirited driving and track use and stuff like that so they really kind of cut out some of the nicer amenities that like cruise control sound insulation this is exactly a road trip we may learn all right we are eligible of Virginia which means a radar detector now though speeding tickets there's only like one province in Canada that doesn't allow them Virginia's the only state the US but doesn't allow them so we're good to go for a while nothing we're going to speed every time I go on a road trip we'll always take some rental car like minivan or something boring and you always wish that you had fun car whenever you come across this is kind of that opportunity for us to get to drive our cool cars in cool places it's great feeling to take your own car out on a road trip like this but there are definitely some drawbacks like fuel economy neither of our cars is exactly what you call fuel-efficient and after the first few fill ups we're averaging 22 miles per gallon on a delicious premium gas if I've done the math right that means we'll burn about nine hundred and seventy four gallons of fuel during this trip a worthy price to pay though the enjoyment of driving our sweet sweet turbo cars we've made it 300 miles and the STI six feet in my forester is making a very comforting grinding noise so we took a quick stop in South Carolina for lunch and I told them that is transportation get Bella bearings are bad so they're grinding they've been grinding another saw this trans was loud but they've been getting a little bit louder as I've been going so I talk of the inter tech and they said transfer bearings are likely bad and yeah I have to get that fixed transit in the park well you ever wondered which would break first a Subaru or Mitsubishi in this one use case of a car that was swapped a week ago this answer has been answer this question that's been answered my car was an automatic a week ago you go for the win let's be free minutes be cheaper the win the closest shop I trusted was in Atlanta which is about one and a half hours off the path there's a shop there called an All Pro Subaru and they're gonna look at the Forester to see what the grinding noise is so I am here at all-pro Subaru because my transmissions making some noise so friend recommended I come here and they're currently working on the Forester see what that transmission noise is hopefully I'll get back going tonight and we can make it to Florida as originally planned but we'll see what happens it's got three of people back there working on it they took a part of the back end of the transmission because it's making some noise and the berries are fine so that's good heck yeah bro that's good that means about the order Barry turns out the grinding noise is just like driveshaft that isn't quite lined up right they changed some things around to line it up better and we're back on the road only a few hours more to go today about five hours until we hit Tallahassee which is this Aaron Foley business trips technically even though we've been driving already if this is any indication that once the comforter isn't this trip then we've really got to cut out for us as you can tell it's raining very loudly I can't see anything I'm definitely gonna have to get somewhere please so we've actually arrived in Tallahassee which is where the trip was supposed to start it only took us it only thinks 18 hours to do a ten and a half hour drive so you know I mean we're already on schedule I don't really know what else to say yeah I've got a huge dent in my hood that was super fun this side scared over here is just feet beat the heck up I damage something else like ice cut my front lip I exploded some vlogs as well how many how many miles we'll be gone not even like 700 so that would be not even one 11th of the actual distance that we're going to drive what's this gonna look like with 11 times more bugs on it well I brought detailer so hopefully we never have to find out especially I'm basically going to be detailing like the surface of the Moon with all the craters and scratches and paint chips that it's gonna have considering that this is the damage from just one day of driving so yeah like the most inefficient first day of the trip possible and this wasn't even officially part of the trip but we got it done we're in Tallahassee tomorrow morning we're gonna shoot an intro and then we're actually going to start our drive from Florida to Alaska right on let's let's start this trick just this interviews over [Music] man what a trip yeah no we're we're good we're here we're here this the start of the trip it started the trip and we already had one breakdown just trying to get down and it wasn't a breakdown I was just just concerned with some noises that we got checked out we're all good it was a three-hour three-hour concern nope we're fine we're here ready to go all right so today the goal is to drive from Tallahassee all the way to what today we're in Austin Texas Austin Texas yeah so that's a 13 hour 14-hour Drive okay we'll see we can probably end up making that a 17 hour drive somehow I mean it that sounds mile well no let's say 4:20 I think we can make this less let's see what happens okay yeah so we're gonna hop into the car go get some parts and if they're out before leaving Tallahassee we wanted to make sure that if our cars broke down on the trip we'd have some parts on hand to fix them so right now we are a Vance Auto distribution center here in Tallahassee where we are going to pick up a bunch of parts for the Evo and the four sir just like we're parts serpentine belts brake rotors brake pads stuff like that just stuff that might break over the course of trip that we can just easily replace on the side of the road or something like that [Music] we need more parts because that's not enough we have to get some more brake pads and belts serpentine belts that's a common thing that goes bad and it's really easy to fix on the side of the road Devon he's gonna break the first belt probably you and just on the other side of town we got the last few parts that we need [Music] so we got a couple more parts we got rain-x wipers for then more gray pads with then Belted what you're talking about well going new one the rain yesterday had me stuck going about 45 miles an hour so I installed some rain-x wipers to help with the visibility to be able to keep up the speed limit and get back on track well finally leaving Tallahassee a little bit before noon goal is Austin Texas about 13 hours of driving ahead of us should be an easy day hopefully nothing breaks should be an easy day the goal for today is Austin Texas which is about 870 miles away 12 and a half hours on the road it should go by quickly but just like yesterday there's a lot of rain ahead of us it rains a lot in Florida gettin a good amount of rain [Music] as we cross in Alabama the rainin cleared up and we were finally starting to make some good progress well that was until this happened [Music] we had a little mishap then hit his brakes rather suddenly I hit my brakes also rather suddenly to not hit Ben and the person behind us did not have Brembos so now I have this like I said my car is slowly being destroyed as we drive across the country it is honest I'm sure it's a little bump out or something they probably a few hours later and we're almost to Texas the temperature has risen to 95 degrees and the Forester has encountered another problem meanwhile in the Evo the a/c has been working perfectly and Devin and I couldn't be happier the ECB president came on I think either the compressor clucks is bad or there's a leak in the system somewhere but I don't know [Music] everything was going as planned and we're really starting to make good progress as night begins to fall we cross the border into Texas and the only thing currently broken is my air conditioning which isn't a problem just inconvenient considering that now we're in Texas every now and then we stop and I fiddle with the compressor to see if I can get it to work the level thing to be perfectly fine worn out my opinion the really fascinating part about this road trip is that it is so poorly planned out and horribly risky there are actual genuine risks to this road trip we can and probably will break down and we don't have like a backup camera crew or anything like that none of this is like inflated for reality television it is just genuinely a situation where we could get stuck in the middle of nowhere Texas with a broken Evo or a broken Subaru or something like that and we haven't even gotten the Canada yet these 3 o'clock in the morning right now we're still driving my transmission is leaking logged why oil is leaking like that no bueno so in Austin is the quarter cup tuning in Austin Texas get this car up on under their lifts so I can actually get underneath it and work on it and change out the rear transmission seal hopefully we can find the park that part it is 8 o'clock 9 o'clock 9 o'clock here in Austin Texas and we are at this hotel lovely hotel here and me Devin and I are gonna go out to cop Tooting other right around the corner here and we're gonna see if we can fix a transmission leak that I have in the Forster but hopefully I get the super fix them we'll be back on the road and only a few hours [Music] [Music] [Music] okay so this is the driveshaft mounting bolt and Cobb just fat this up basically throw a hole through a dowel dowel rod of aluminum so this is gonna space out that perhaps you have to lower it down a little bit but still give it strength so it's not gonna wobble a little bit place and stuff like that so this should give us a better drive shaft angle and hopefully cause it to not leak I can't say enough good things about Cobb tunic they were so willing to drop everything and help me get this fixed and I'm confident now that the new drive shaft angle and transmission seal that we got from Avance won't leak this should be the last of the problems that I have with the Forester on this trip and we're good to go for another 9,000 more miles [Applause] okay so we're in Texas now the heart of Texas is we pass Austin and all that stuff super super flat out here and we just hit our first freeway that has an 80 mile an hour [Music] that's what your ratios are not super tall or intended for Texas it is what it is don't break down so far just trying to get through Texas New Mexico and Arizona see in another 13 hours it's three o'clock and we still have 13 hours left to drive today because of the delays that Ben's forester caused we need to drive through the night to get back on schedule of course that's right about the time my evo decided to have its first problem I have an axle boot and the rear that is starting to fling grease something I guess Nicks the boot or the snap ring is failing but anyways grease is coming out of the CD joint which is going to cause an issue if I let it run out of Greece and the internals basically eat themselves so right now all we have is painters tape I'm just gonna like wrap some painters tape around to try and keep the grease inside and see all that and then when we get to a Walmart I can get some actual duct tape and see if that is a little bit better and then maybe down the road I can either pick up like a replacement boot or a whole new axle or the problem is that nobody really makes these axles anymore so we'll see but right now I'm just gonna try and band-aid it it's 10:00 p.m. and we're in the middle of Texas which means there's no stores around so we'll have to keep driving for a few more hours until we find the first place to stop we just got to a Walmart I'm gonna check and see if that painters safe it's still on at all and then we're gonna get some actual duct tape to redo the job because your safe is not a long-term solution nor is duct tape but I don't have a new axle so the painter state was still on and I haven't lost any more grease okay so I got Krazy Glue got duct tape flex seal liquid rubber sealant coating and I'm gonna do all three of them and see if maybe that'll just keep it from leaking a relatively long [Music] now I realize this isn't exactly the correct way to repair a CV boot but since we're in the middle of Texas in the middle of the night we don't really have that many options so I applied some crazy glue and I sprayed like flexi ol stuff which basically is liquid rubber it turns into rubber like once you spray it on there and that seems to actually be doing pretty good so I'm gonna let it cure for a couple of minutes and then throw the wheel back on it so yeah we do I gave the rubber about five minutes to dry and we hit the road for a long drive ahead of us a few hours later the Sun had risen and we had made it to Arizona [Music] it's only been four days on this road trip so far and we've covered 2,500 miles there's still over 8,000 miles to go and I can't wait we've planned to meet up with a friend in LA to go cruising the canyons but that'll have to wait until next episode so we'll see you next Saturday [Music]

Channel: Gears and Gasoline

Views: 2,840,754

Rating: 4.8729863 out of 5

Keywords: Road Trip, Epic, Cross Country, Cross Continental, Mitsubishi, Evo, Evolution, Subaru, Forester, Boxer, EJ, skibox, florida, alaska, Florida to Alaska, Gears and Gasoline, crazy

Id: IPm6RPmI5_A

Length: 19min 38sec (1178 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 11 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Sean1117]

I just did my trip from FL to AK this summer. Yay Uncle Sam telling us to move. Took my wifes 2015 Nissan Sentra.

The trip is not bad. Atleast, it wasn't for us. I would've much rather had my truck or even my ST for the trip, but that wasn't an option for us. The ALCAN highway isn't dangerous as long as you don't take anything unreliable and old through it. The drive was absolutely amazing through the states we traveled. We loved it, but we are done with long trips for a while now!

[u/_KoingWolf_]

I will never not support this channel. It's been really cool seeing it bubble up and up into what it is now and still growing. One of the better not obnoxious car channels out right now.

[u/Hellman109]

A lot of the parts they took seem like 'hey, were leaving on shit break pads and rotors, better take spares' kinda stuff, like the screwed up drive shaft.

A single set of pads and rotors should do that trip like three times over easy, it's all long distance driving which should have minimal braking compared to normal round town commuting.

Also in general, fuck doing that without aircon by choice.

[u/increasingrain]

I always wanted to do a long road trip like this. Unfortunately I don't know anyone who would want to do this with me

[u/upex01]

going cross country in an Evo IX

[u/Ar1S3]

Looking forward to some of the driving roads they mention. I'll definitely be noting them down.

[u/DontBeRude159]

This was so good!