EV Swapping a Car that Sat in a Barn for 62 Years! #48CHEV [EP1]

[Music] please don't stop watching hear me out okay it's going to be awesome hear me out okay you guys probably haven't really seen much of this of my yard before but this is where I keep some of my crap my B diesel processor which I never ended up doing much with show you guys my secret car my my daughter calls this my Daddy's Secret car my wife didn't even know I had this but I have a 1948 Chevy Fleet [Music] master [Music] tossup cuz it's a beautiful kind but it needs so much work I don't know if I want the hundreds of hours that I need to invest in this car but it also comes with a pile of new parts it's in really bad shape but it's in better shape than the four-door that we had you know everybody takes the gamble of what it's truly going to be there's a lot of stuff hid on these old Vehicles all right so you guys know that we swap anything and everything into places that they're not supposed to be and what kind of channel would we be if we didn't dabble into electric there's a lot of things to own EV that I do not think are a positive but we're still going to [Music] build morning morning sunshine you know I'm not normally at this really for work well welcome to the real world we are going to go grab this 48 Fleet Master convertible in the rain so this 48 Fleet master we're coming over like car show right we took n Baker to car show we thought we'll drive through the country there's a style Master sitting in the weeds so we thought well I need to couple pieces of tramps stop in take a look the owner wasn't there he doesn't live there but the uh neighbor said oh you got to check this car is got in the barn you might be able to check it out so we got a hold of the old guy and he showed us this convertible and the story is that he's owned it for 43 years hasn't actually ever done anything with it which is which is a shame like it's a beautiful car he wants to build the car now I think he's seen our Fleet master and and he wants to get his going but at the same time at this point is it really worth throwing 50y Grand to do a car to and know sick yeah I don't have a way for kids so I see this is made totally justifiable yeah yeah anyway we'll see what happens [Music] today [Music] it doesn't say what it is it's just a chrome chrome badge P of skull I bet you every single linkage is seized sounds like a candidate for a cuming swap toss it cuz it's a beautiful kind but it needs so much work you could put acetone and ATF in there and see if you can unseize it and find an oil gallery and just pump oil pressure through it just get oil everywhere there's no way you could ever think that that engine is going to be [Music] reliable uh I wouldn't do that too much stay to the edges careful with that ring though holy crap it's heavy yeah this whole thing is just one bad storm from falling down I saying a rich 2 I want one of those really old license plates up there so I'm hoping he can get one down for [Music] me oh so gross I got yeah yeah yeah cool on all these pieces this is the trim it's actually in better shape than the other one it's got the right age to it that's for sure old rusty stuff you don't oh it's raining down here just like that beam is yeah I see like aiming right for be that's all yeah I'm good though how come all the neat stuff is on the second floor it's really dangerous oh pull it on the trailer pull it outside take a look all Wheels turned yeah yeah the drums usually don't stick as bad as the disc brakes the disc brakes just seem to clamp on and one spot [Music] [Applause] [Music] so what do you think I think that car is going to need a lot of work well we knew that but heg puts that car at 50,000 when it's done the biggest thing is that car is not complete yeah and that motor will never no but like the motor is not a big deal it's they use those 216s and everything so you can buy another project for 1,000 bucks with a running engine I've seen one just the other day 1300 bucks with a running 26 already D animals are ding that car it's a good yeah I don't think it was worth losing sleepover or getting up before a son was out not doing that for another 10 years so that's about how long it's going to take to fix this cut anyway I think we're all here we go yeah hey that's my life I'm so torn about the car don't know what to do what do you think I should do um I don't know at looks like a lot of [Music] money so our convertible is in a sad State of Affairs talked with the owner yesterday and uh for now we're going to leave this one alone it uh is just too far gone um we're looking into a one piece floor but they make them for a 49 and not a 48 that rocker will work I do have one more but my floor piece pieces are different the the sections that I had in my fleet line they're not the right ones but uh there is oil in the engine it's actually clean and there is oil in the transmission so it's seized but it's actually pretty decent underneath the rocker cover and I pulled the spark plugs and they don't look terrible either there's one that's pretty bad this is the worst one that being said this engine hasn't turned over in 43 years not that I'm ever going to fix this engine up but uh I do kind of want to see if I can get it running after 43 years of not running we pulled the spark plugs put our acetone and ATF mix in there we'll let that sit for a week then I pulled an oil plug at the back find an oil gallery and then this is an old uh jet pump just for like house uh Plumbing so what it is is a bladder that goes in the one side and your water would go in here and then the rest of the tank is pressurized so we'll put this bladder in there I'm going to start with a thin oil now this uh two-stroke oil has been around for a while probably not very much good anymore so I'm going to put the oil in the bladder and then I've got the lid here that just goes right over top and then we'll just pressurize the back and without the engine running we'll Lube everything up so we got a valve in the back and just pressurize that with about 20 30 lb and we'll sit for an hour or two and then we'll put some more oil in there and uh I do kind of want to wait and see if we could actually get oil pressure up to the cam but that might be asking a bit more much so it's been sitting for a week and all I did was there's two threaded bolts uh threaded holes for bolts in the front pulley just took a big bar drilled two holes through it and and bolted it to it and now I got it to move just that you can see it's moving now the engine's not seized anymore I'm not going to turn it over any more than that we'll uh drain the oil put it back in there lube it up again and then I'll see if I can spin it all the way around whatever's sitting in that little spot that little bit of uh crap uh was sitting around the Rings we don't want to score that all the way up and down so we'll lube it up we'll fill the cylinders up again I think that starter shot so we got to pull the starter off um I'll try the one on the parts car there maybe that one's good and uh see if we can get a crank it over but uh I'm pretty confident we can get this running so here we go okay so after messing with the 216 for a while I realized that only the pulley was moving and not the crankshaft we ended up end up shearing the uh keyway on that and that's when we decided to stop and just keep going with the rest of the build that 216 unfortunately is toast I was really excited about this convertible seeing it in the barn but when we pulled it out it is actually pretty rough it is a neat car but I don't know if I want the hundreds of hours that I need to invest in this car but it also comes with a pile of new parts new brakes slave master brake lines um all the shoes uh Chrome pieces rubbers NOS front fenders NOS rear fenders those fenders have never been used or properly installed um a whole pile of spare parts with it I traded this for the 48 Fleet master that I built um took it in on trade for now I'm going to reassemble it with all the noos pieces empty it out lay the parts out blow it off vacuum it off go from there ay [Music] all right we're on our way to a dealership in Ottawa which is about 350 M 300 mil from our house we're going to go pick up our new donor car and we have to float it back because it physically can't make the trip home it has a range of 94 km seems like pretty stupid but anyway I'm pretty excited about this [Music] project okay so it's on so D that's pretty cool so here's the story with the Lea there's a couple reasons why we're going with a leaf it's 110 horsepower engine um and it's a nice neat compact setup over the front tires we're going to put that in the back it's convertible so I don't need Tesla 400 horsepower and as soon as you say Tesla it's $10,000 for a smashed up wreck meaning that we might still need parts whatever this is a fully running functioning car um but we started out looking at smashed up Leaf so we went on Copart we found a smashed up one so weird cuz it doesn't make a sound there was one that kept coming up for auctions it was still 6500 bucks Canadian by the time we were done so then I noticed this one online um fully working and they were asking seven for it we got them down to 6,500 and then we found out incentives are available for use electric vehicles too you get 1,000 bucks back and another th000 if you take uh an ice off the road so $2,000 cheaper nice sharp turning radius look at that like no vibrations no sound I'm actually really excited about this project this is this is pretty cool although we did lose 10 km driving 5 km so that's not good all right so you guys know that we swap anything and everything into places that they're not supposed to be and what kind of channel would we be if we didn't dabble into electric now let's get the politics of the electric out right away batteries are terrible for the environment scrapping the batteries we're using them it's terrible the range sucks all right that's not why we're doing the swap we're doing the swap because it makes sense for the 48 convertible I don't need to go fast I don't need to go far I don't need to drive it often and I want it to be quiet so I can enjoy it with my family if I want to go fast I'll drive the Audi or the GTO or the Mustang if I want to be loud I'll drive the Mustang or the C10 if I don't want my family with me I'll drive any one of those because they're not that enjoyable for long trips um but I do want to enjoy my the time in the convertible going out for supper going on a date night going to the lake grabbing uh a little picnic and then driving home again putting the car away and not worrying about it for the next little bit it's going to be an interesting series because we have to do a lot of modifying to make a fit that doesn't actually just limit itself to an electric drivetrain here's what I mean we've got a front end off of a Crown Vic kudos to Cletus now these are going skyrocketing in price but luckily Stefan and I yanked this set of a Crown Vic that was at Vic pal or at vnr um probably three years ago it's been sitting in the weed since then for the back end we've got a G35 suspension so let's get into that why this makes sense for you all right so this is a G35 I think if you go with a 350 Z um this is all aluminum and is a lot lighter and even though um that's what we're after building something as light as possible this was a lot cheaper and we're probably going to hack it up to Pieces anyway there was a lot of Engineers and a lot of time behind the computer making calculations and that on the suspension and how it works that I am not going to mess with as your arms go up um These Bars get closer things tilt as you're going around a corner that keeps your tire flat on the road at the same time this is the most comfortable because it's an IRS independent re suspension so more than likely what we're going to do and I'm still turning things around in my head is put this on a jig and weld the suspension in place um and then remove this Center section we're going to take that electric setup which is just a transmission it's not really a transmission it's gear reduction off of an electric motor and then the battery management system on top of that the engine and transmission will be in a cage that gets bolted to a frame so we can drop the entire engine and trans or motor I got to stop saying engine cuz it's a motor motor and everything else off the bottom of the car and then go from there this is actually the proper width as the convertible so we're 69 in to the outside of the tires that were on there and that will fit nicely inside my quarters the same thing with the front suspension this is Crown Vic and it is 4 and 1/2 5 in too wide so because the motor is going in the trunk there's not going to be much weight on the front of this car I'm comfortable with cutting 4 in out and shortening this we'll get rid of the steering we'll keep the electric steering off of the leaf and then bolt that same fashion to a frame we found a company who can mandrel Bend aluminum for us basically the frame is going to come out it's going to go wider so that we can Bolt the Nissan Leaf batteries to the frame and then narrow at the back and go up and over this suspension here here another reason that we bought the leaf is that the batteries are a lot narrower they're in a uh nice package that is removable from the car rather than a Tesla which is like super flat all the way along the bottom you put your car on top of that you can't really change your your widths that much the Nissan battery can come out from underneath and get bolted right back to our new frame and all the newer batteries are the same physical size so if we don't have the range because it's an older leaf um and the concept works when we want to drive farther we can invest in a larger capacity battery afterwards so that would be a 24 kilow hour battery and we're looking for eventually a 40 amp hour battery once we have the battery bolted to the bottom of the frame we can put the convertible car on top of that and then we're going to bend the floor to fit around the battery because it needs a new floor anyway once we have the floor in place we can figure out interior um this entire Dash is going to go into the uh conver convertible as well so basically we're taking all the guts out of that anything that has a wire and a plug is getting moved over to the convertible the Crown Vic and the G35 both have a 114.3 mmx5 bolt pattern so the rims will work exactly the same brakes we'll probably see if we can get an aftermarket company to do the brakes um and hopefully they're able to do something for both of those as well now the convertible the specs I haven't weighed it and all the pieces aren't in there interior trim whatever else the engine and transmission are in there but from what I read online the convertible weighs 3,100 lb that leaf weighs 3400 lb so 300 lb more and the battery in that thing weighs 650 lb so what we're hoping to do is eliminate uh well we're definitely eliminating the 216 the automatic transmission the torque tube the entire rear axle um we'll probably do lighter bump bumper ETS or bumper holders for the front those are very heavy steel frames that hold that Bumper in place we can I think end up about the same weight as what the leaf was if not a little bit better now that might be ambitious but that is our goal we got to have a goal in the beginning so that the range should be similar the amount of speed and driving in that in that on the road is perfect for a convertible it's py enough it's actually very torqu so the engine in that is 110 horsepower and the torque is about 250 I believe the original 216 in that was 90 horsepower and just under 200 Hors so we're increasing about 30% um which should be a really nice fit for that car it only makes sense so this is it 1948 Fleet Master convertible in 1948 they made 250,000 Fleet Masters four-door two doors um the wagons and the convertibles of the 250,000 about 20,000 000 were convertible and the only more rare car than this was the Woody Wagon which they made about 10,000 of so uh put that in perspective the GTO that we have 67 GTO is a pretty rare car they made 60,000 of those so um there's not too many of these left the issue is that um we got a pile of missing pieces that's going to cost a fortune to bring back to original We rebuilt a four-door version of this car the exact same car and the the drive line on that was completely rebuilt already so um we did the body to it and then realizing that it is an extremely difficult car to drive top speed is about uh 70 km an hour which is only about 45 50 m an hour so you go for a nice little cruise to town and before you know you got 20 cars behind you that are not not rude enough to honk at you but are pissed off enough that you're holding up traffic so when I got the car when I traded it in I was really stuck on what to do with it and until now as you can see uh the fenders are NOS so they've never been on the road before and this is just surface rust um that will get sand blasted off the grill we have part of the grill rechrome we need to rechrome the center Grill so if you guys know of a place to get rechroming done uh definitely comment down below all this trim is missing so we'll probably weld the Hol shut and smooth that out um and the interior is completely gone there is nothing left of of this we can't fix this this it's just not worth it um again NOS fenders at the back they bolt to the to the car right here and the moisture sits in between so this is completely rotten so we need to fix that the trunk needs some work I don't think it's bolted on um but uh it's in better shape than the four-door was I had to go back and watch our video when we took this thing apart and kind of assessed it and it's it's in really bad shape but it's in better shape than the four-door that we had rework the whole thing to fit all the gauges from the leaf put the double in nicely right here um get rid of all the ashtrays I don't think the girls need the ashtrays usually there's ashtrays in the back of the seats or in the armrests here this is a 216 GM motor in line six it puts out 90 horsepower torque is like 150 I believe something like this I think the guy that we got it off of got the car in 1962 it was never on the road then I don't know how long it was sitting before that but he took this engine out and he had this one rebuilt on the side there's a tag that said it was rebuilt in 1967 it is just a dead weight to me so she's going off to BNR which is really sad because I think he spent a couple thousand or a few thousand on it rebuilding this behind it is a two-speed power glide but somebody has switched that because this year never came with an automatic transmission it was still a three on the tree which is why they were so difficult to drive first thing we're going to do is Rip all that out because we're going to get all of this sand blasted while it's still on the frame so it's still kind of rigid we'll take all these panels off get them blasted at the same time and then uh put it on the rotisserie we'll weld we'll weld some jibs in there we're going to fix the Rockers make it nice and stiff and then uh we're going to put on the rotisserie and cut the floor out so this is probably a week in spraying everything you can see there's still Lots on there but might as well add some more who knows I think a bunch of them are freeing up except the latches I think these are still seized but it did that that happened it spun there really nice but the latchs right now I don't want to bend it and snap it here I going have to add a little bit of heat to that but I'll just keep sand blasting is in one week [Music] you can see giving up the odd wiggle here and these are starting to move I don't think this top has been up for since 60 I was parked parked before 1962 I think he had it for about a decade the previous owner before the guy I bought it off and got it we are truly 50 60 years since this thing has done anything see about those latches but so far so good so you want get some windows rolling up and [Music] down careful duck [Music] so I debated on weighing the car just to see what we had before we started it doesn't really make much sense because there's no rad in it no coolant bunch of pieces are missing on it there's really no interior to speak of so it makes more sense to weigh what we take off and uh figure out roughly from there originally is 3100 lb according to the internet just the batteries weigh 678 lb so that's um quite a bit of extra weight that we're that we're adding so just going to roll it inside it's a beautiful day so we'll do it right here here we [Music] go [Music] seriously duck seriously [Music] ready what do you want pepper I got nothing for you then there's not for like hours literally hours go do something all right just fell through the floor Moment of Truth does the convertible top work that is pretty sick little stiff little stiff that is sick awesome that is the first time that that top has been up in 50 what is I I'm going to say 1960 so 40 60 years first time that Top's been up and she's not in that terrible of a shape I got to pull this chrome molding off cuz that is not going to farewell we'll vacuum all this crap out I can give this to somebody for a template that's what's left of the top we got a zipper maybe we can reuse that can you picture it can you picture it at all oh man it's the simple things in life that is so cool and it looks like everything's okay there's enough meat here there's enough meat everywhere um I'm not sure this will probably just be stuck in the cloth um that would will have to be replaced but overall that's not bad I'm okay with that it lines up nice my gaps are nice you guys know I love my gaps that's where I fell through the floor the hydraulic lines didn't stop me super embarrassing but what is really cool about this is that it is a power top so uh little 12vt pump and uh that whole thing comes on its own super sweet for 1948 all right we'll uh yank the engine out and then um take these covers off one stubborn bolt right there that's rotten on both sides and then we'll uh start pulling the last of the Chrome off which is just slow tedious painful work um this is banged up pretty good so we'll have to see what we do with that I might I might still have some other trim otherwise if you are going to do this to your car now is the time to polish this you just take your um we've got videos on polishing the Chrome on Su stainless on the 484 door but when it's all in place and held nice and solid you can really get into it with the grinder buff it really nice and then pull it off um we might do that pop it back on again before we um paint or primer do a pile of work to it and then uh take it off again one more time after that but all right some tedious work we'll line this all up for the sand blaster and then we are good to go stupid duck just craps everywhere yeah hey Rich what's up what's up rich I want to crap where you're working is that all right is that okay yeah you anyway camera shy if you're camera shy then go away go away duck go away go away all right now for all the money ises it oh oh there she is boys worked except I'm missing this lats so hopefully da' got oh that one's still a little tight but it's not bad doesn't even squeak it's a bit tight there we go nice there we go I think that's it no I can't do it by hand well but it did spin really easy this way now so we'll we'll take it out and throw it in the Vise and I'm sure that we crack it Loose sweet I'm still going to let them hit up with the sand blaster cuz we'll probably end up painting these or we'll have to get them rechrome no more yanking to do grab a garbage pail throw all this stuff out all right so looks like the the rubber is in pieces that goes into your trim there this must have been baked in the sun cuz it's it is tough and then on top of that are little screws that hold that chrome trim on so [Music] get it all and that's just screwed into the wooden block and that is some good wood still kicking man crazy 70 years here we [Music] go that's the profile I need if I need to order it [Music] later these ones here are a bit of a bugger because I cracked them loose but now the rest underneath is being a that's where these straws come in really handy and kind of go whatever at an angle that you can't actually get [Music] out the other [Music] side [Music] wonderful little bit of lube goes a long way just don't loosen [Music] all nice [Music] sweet I've never noticed this before so before I wipe it what is the data on that I just can't read it that's too bad it's a good sticker though that will get Sam blast it [Music] off all right uh we today's a good day because we're going to blast the it could be a good day or it could be a really bad day depends we're here with Chris from CNC dustless Media Blasting we've done lots of sand blasting this is Media Blasting and much better right right we use uh recycled glass less heat less friction less mess the biggest thing is like big panels especially the hood and the and the doors and stuff where if it gets too hot it it'll warp the it looks great when you leave when it goes to the paint shop they're like what the Yeah creates warping because of the Heat and stuff yeah so okay that's where you know the glass is starting to become a new thing of uh environmentally friendly as well too um some of the sand and there's more variances in glass of what you can get um corness and more fine and stuff like that so we find we like using the glass and what what's the machine you use uh db800 company out of Texas their name is dustless blasting dry and wet blasting so uh the machine's designed to use any type of media as well now you know we could run soda we could run walnuts we could run the different types of media where we find the glass just to be very versatile it's got a 4 cylinder turbo diesel cooler engine in it with a heck of a lot of electronics not the cleanest because uh you know obviously it sits in the in the dust and everything else you know for being um quiet you know for us to go into residential neighborhood all you hear is the hose probably yeah we've been happy with it and everything else it would have been nice if it didn't have quite as many electronics on it but uh you know it is what it is for yeah when she goes we can throw a 6t it is what it used to take two guys one guy to lift the bag up another guy to Slit it so I said screw it we welded this thing in here and sharpened it up yeah perfect like some knives and then you just SL slam the bag on there and out [Music] yeah [Music] so how did it turn out uh turned out good you know what for what the car is and stuff now you definitely well now you definitely know where you're at obviously you can see where the bad spots are and the good spots and stuff so the fender bolts right to the bottom and they hold moisture here so I knew that that this was all rotten on both sides but this this is a bit of a surprise I didn't look hard enough here um I think this whole section's been replaced maybe a little fender bender yeah so when we go to do a car it's kind of uh you know everybody takes the gamble over what it's truly going to be there's a lot of stuff hid on these old vehicles and usually we find a lot of surprises that most of the people don't even know there is there so sometimes you run the risk end up with a cheese grater or sometimes you might be surprised but this is the idea is to get it to so now you exactly know you know what I mean there now there's no surprises I did the 67 GTO and a four-door version of this car and both of them were a lot worse than this car so I'm actually really happy I I'm I'm I'm wondering what I'm going to do here because this is its own profile and I think this is even different than the normal Fleet line so you can't buy like there's no parts Car anywhere that's got this where I can weld it in and I might be able to just clean it up but that that's neither here and there but all the NOS Parts yeah they were they're awesome Prime them the the trunk was that that bottom of that trunk is the only major thing yeah um everything else held up I'm super thrilled the uh like rad support and everything not that that that's holding a radiator anymore but the fender kind of Bolt to it and stuff so yeah yeah the hood turned out nice and yeah that's awesome right on well thanks a lot Chris all righty thank you we might uh get you back maybe even when we weld the floor in and do a bunch of clean up we might even just get you to touchup Parts it'll probably end up being on atier by then but next time I shouldn't get Austin take an extra hour extra hour to get here it's all good thanks a lot man appreciate it all righty thank you

Channel: DEBOSS GARAGE

Views: 90,020

Keywords: 1948 chevrolet fleetmaster, fleetmaster convertible, ev converstion, ev swap, electric car, electric car conversion, ev roadster, tesla roadster, ev roadster swap

Id: dFJvhaguKT0

Length: 39min 35sec (2375 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 18 2024