Forgotten 1968 Pontiac Firebird - Will it RUN AND DRIVE 700 MILES?

under this car cover here is a 1968 pontiac firebird hasn't been on the road in about 10 years and it's known to have it's got some issues i'm going to try to get this thing running and drive it over 700 miles from eastern michigan all the way back to minnesota in the dead of winter probably snow definitely freezing rain and i also just realized i have to get it running because i just traded my car for that perfect before i get too far here i want to say thanks to joe and vicki this is their shop here and this was their firebird awfully kind folks for letting me wrench in here and another thank you to joe who unfortunately couldn't be here today he's out working for our amazing air force so thanks for your service and what you do for our country let's get this cover off take a gander around it hook our peepers into it see what we've got going on now i got to get wrenching quick not only is the sun going down in a few hours and it's going to get a lot colder but there's another snowstorm moving in and i'd sure like to be on the highway before that hits i have no idea what a 68 firebird is like in a snowstorm but i'm guessing it's not it's not ideal [Music] be [Music] it's shiny i'm scared not quite sure how to approach it if you just get in there if you just kind of wander around man it looks to be in really good shape what really intrigued me about this car is it came from nevada i believe arizona one of the two and it's supposedly 319 percent rust free never had any patches or anything like that which is huge for me because you know i'm up there in the rust belt nice color it's kind of a i don't know how to explain colors it's blue and then there's some sort of maroon-ish off-red stripage going on here some sort of aftermarkets hood ooh footpins that's 24 horsepower ea or each it looks to be pretty well all here maybe some lens covers i noticed a piece of windshield chrome missing wipers are gone i do have boxes of parts here that go with it mickey was nice enough to go dig and find all of this stuff ooh is this crushed velvet it is nice no rear door panels maybe they're in the boxes this is that southern you can definitely tell it's the south car arizona nevada the dashes and everything just get absolutely cooked before we go digging too far guys always got to start in the trunk tells you the whole story let's dig in there and see if we find anything good am i going to fit back here i am i've got 86 keys that's nice should be one of these roundy rounds negative negative well what is going on negative this looks like a mailbox key that's it [Music] you're gonna like this we got rob zombie edge and mouse droppings and that is pretty much it which is exciting you don't want to see intake gaskets or water pump or head gaskets or anything like that this should hopefully mean that everything is on the engine and she's ready to go i am gonna listen to this on the way home do we have a radio probably not i don't know this thing might be it's too shiny for me i might have to run some sos pads down or something maybe shoot some primer around the wheel wells let's dive into the captain's lounge here see what we got going on door panels are in excellent shape this is a factory model here it's called rot you know and wasn't very popular but some people dug it i wonder that might be a new door i'm seeing black down here if you get them from like amd or actually pretty much anywhere doors and door shells come in black so that might have been replaced we'll decode it later maybe if we have time this interior i'm leaving that be got a racing steering wheel that's good got some scallage so you know the shift kits in the transmission no radio fuel gauge might work that's a plus oh look at this down here you see it's got the little pedal so it's gone but this used to be a four speed i would assume yep so this used to be a four-speed car which is great because i'm going to put one back in it immediately headliner's gone also great that's not down on the teeth don't have to delete on that and looks like they might had an issue get in the trunk already seats kind of up hanging out brake lines speedo cable so i'm going to say the speedometer doesn't work got lift or lowering blocks depends on how you fix them i guess oh we do have radioactive look at this what do we got what is it what kind what's the flavor durabrand keeping that right up my alley got the old removable faceplate throw this down to levi's and then supposedly your deck doesn't get stolen bunch of paperwork i'm not going to show any of that what is this front light harness gonna guess the headlights don't work not sure why pretty standard issue what i like is the dash isn't all cut up other than for the stereo but they don't have gauges buried in here anywhere center console's in a pretty decent shape and i'm not seeing any weight reduction yet which is fantastic i usually feel up in the lips here that's all metal pretty great lots of spider webs from sitting so they got this car about 10 years ago on the nose and through deployments and everything else you know life gets busy they parked it and then i think she said they moved twice so this car has moved from south and made its way up here to michigan and it's just been sitting under the car cover basically but you could tell they care about it there's a battery tender on it that's a multi-angle see when you speed up and you start flopping it extends your field of vision there that's custom probably oak ah definitely pine still like it i don't know this is a solid car paint's kind of got a flake in it all the tires are aired up front ones are going low but not too bad let's get the power barn open see how many horses we got in there those usually don't come out that easy oh yeah we're off to a great start and it does have a battery i'll be dipped i was wondering if we were going to see a bop engine in here some sort of buick olds or pontiac but that's definitely a chubby small block and she's got some go fast parts on it headers edelbrock intake carb rider looks like we even got the clear lightning roller some bagel lightning hoses i mean you could water the garden with them things brand new charging whirler belt's pretty cracked up that's just from sitting digital fans on here just saw that got a napa battery it's got i have to look closer at this oh we got some red down here what's that mean oh it's got will disc brakes on the front i'll be dipped well we got under here then look at that got all sorts of suspension parts on the front no idea what any of that means or does but looks really nice we'll uh get behind the block here i'll get the digits off of that and we'll run her to see what kind of small block she is i'm sure it's probably just a 350. see a fram down there got to change that immediately uh oh look at the angle of the belt on the power steering i don't think that's gonna last she's got a custom bracketry on here you know if we gotta run it i might just snip that off chances are that's just gonna go flying anyway that's a mouse nest stuff in there oh no is that what i think it is oh give me a minute guys this could be uh really bad hold on had to get some more light on it to confirm and if you see that little chunk of brass down there that is the entire freeze plug popped out of the engine laying on the inside of the motor mount and that my friends equals potentially pulling this engine a foot or two out of the car to put that freeze plug back in it really common easy mistake to make you move a car from down south up north a lot of times you're just running straight water and when they freeze up they push those plugs out and the other thing we got to worry about is the block cracked and does the head have any cracks in it now as well but that's going to be quite a bit of work i might be able to strip this side of the engine down try to lift it just enough to get that plate off and then put a temp fix in there but most likely we're going gonna have to lift this whole thing up out of the car great the other thing i noticed down there is a transmission pan looks like murder she rode under the car so we got something going on with the transmission as well could just be a pan gasket hopefully wonder we'd take a peek in here there's even anything left so i can see in there slightly and it's 100 water so let's pull the old dip stick see what the earl tells us if we got any water in that very black oil needs change for sure i don't see any water in here and i taste a ton of gas so probably flooded well it could be a few things flooded trying to start it could be a bad fuel pump a few different reasons for that the least likely but it is an indicator if the engine's tired and worn out and the rings aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing you can also get fuel down at the crankcase that way too and being there's no water in the wild doesn't mean we're safe not having a crack head or block since it has a brand nothing's been circulated so i don't know i think at this point i should just see if this thing even runs let's see if it fires up and if it does then i'll go through the headache of trying to get that freeze plug fixed then we'll move on to transmission does it actually move and last and least brakes those are just a convenience i think where a guy is going to start on this here rig is i'm going to pull a spark later out jam a bore scope in there let's just take a peek at the cylinder walls see if we can identify any issues or if it's healthy looking and then we'll move on to fuel i'm going to snip this line off here that goes to the tank we get it off of the pump and i got a little digital pump and we'll just bring it out here into a jerry can i just want to see the color of the fuel sniff on it a little bit bring it into the wind bags see if we're getting any chunks if it looks halfway decent we'll plug that back in i got a few gallons of fresh gas we'll throw that in there back later won't you come on out now it is getting fairly cold in here i'm going to be honest pretty excited overall to be honest i've owned a lot of first gen camaros never a first gen firebird so this is going to be a lot of fun this thing is richer than oprah moses sandals the fuel in the crank case is definitely a rich fuel make it happener issue look at this sparklater that's exactly what you're going to see when they're running really rich i don't have an edelbrock tune-up kit with me but i might be able to i think they keep them on the shelf at o'reilly's and it's definitely not just an idle circuit issue and it's gonna run not gooder-ish the way that she's dialed in so we'll have to keep that in mind hopefully the cylinder walls aren't all washed so i'll get a bore scope in there now we'll take a peek i'm going to end up moving to a different cylinder here because this one's on the top but we can see i don't know if you guys can but the top of the piston is very carboned up those two scratches are from my camera lightly scratching the top so they're very very dirty little berryman's italian tune-up would do this thing good stock style piston in there with the valve reliefs i did see some writing back here so i'm curious maybe i can get a better view in a different hole but usually if they're 30 over anything like that you're going to have it'll say 30 over some sort of part number and 30 over on top of the piston and i'm wondering if that isn't what i was glancing at there so i'm gonna move over to a piston that should be down if i could figure out where it's at in the firing order here quick and then we'll take a better look well it's not horrible i do still see some cross hatching and i know you guys can't probably see this but then there's some really nasty vertical scratches as well i mean it's not bad bad but this would definitely be a candidate to pull out do a quick dingle ball hone throw some rings in it fast it's gonna probably run just fine so let's move on and rig up a little fuel system here pull some of the fuel out of the tank see what that looks like and hopefully we'll have this thing turning over here in a few minutes as i was getting this dialed in started looking at some other stuff and drinking it in more and this here means a very long cold long cold ride home southern car you just tear all this stuff out snip them off plug this stuff up another nine horsepower you know i didn't see any parts of a heater core in the box or anything like that so we're gonna have to keep that in mind how to live on the way home anyway got this pump later rigged in here i think this one is ground we'll find out and we're just going to pump it oh it's already gravity's eating pumper down into here see what that fuel looks like and make a decision if i've got to drain the whole tank out then refill or if we're lucky we could just splash some fresh fuel in there shake the car around and maybe it'll run off of that probably not the biggest thing is i don't want to be sucking chunks and things like that up in here because then i'm gonna have to be replacing a bunch of filters on the way home and stuff like that speaking of filters we got to get rid of this one here these leak can cause more fires than ex-wives so we want to get this off this is the spin on kind and what happens is your engine vibrates and they slowly shake loose and then these start dripping fuel and kabuf you got fire all right let's see what a guy can get out of there oh dextering [Music] yeah that's that doesn't look very good let's see if it clears up sometimes the line will hold a bunch of varnish in it and then it'll clear up a little bit [Music] i didn't see any chunks coming out so that's good but the gas is definitely bad so we're going to pretend that i didn't do that you know we didn't see the condition of the fuel and let's just plug her back in and see if it'll run off of it plan remember fellers great things happen when you cut corners it's angry snip that off just snag it back on down here okay yep there we go it just smells not good keep ignoring keep ignoring i don't think we're going to have any issue getting lightning out of this i this is about snazzed up as you can get and looks complete so and once i hear it fire then i'll feel comfortable enough putting 942 hours labor in it getting that freeze plug fixed speaking of smells the interior on this one isn't that bad it's grain bin with a hint of shoe closet it's actually pretty pleasant well let's start digging in here and get a closer look 75 mile long stud on here put that where i'll lose it [Music] 1405 so that should be a little 600 cfm yeah it's for sure a little 600 man well choke and you can clearly see she's been flooded more than my basement it's got to be just jetted wrong there's no reason it should be running that rich got the nice bracketry over here they actually hooked up the kick down that's pretty rare a lot of folks just let this lay or don't even hook it up even got the fancy little bolt caps on there this is all intact i missed this the green wire here off the lightning rougher says we got attack somewhere in here how did i miss that where is it i don't even know oh it's way down here yeah so she's got a rip em gauge that's good we'll see if we could bend that needle off normally i scoot underneath these and hook my lonewolf 6000 trigger up so i could just crank them out here this one's in a diaper bag so i'm not getting to the starter very easy i'm just going to turn it over by key because again i'm just looking to hear it fire off just for a couple seconds that's good enough for me then we'll jump into this freeze plug i got my battery charger that doesn't work hooked up and just on full sink that's where you boil them overnight you know so i'm going to jump in just start cranking on it there should be fuel to the pump already so it should only take maybe 10 seconds till we get fuel to the fuel make it happener now i'll start pumping on it and see if we get fire well ignition works starter works off to a good start and we've got some deck stain in the filter now that's good so i'm gonna shoot some brake cleaner or carb cleaner down here whichever one i can find first and it's easiest to grab and then we'll see if it cranks over get this thing filled up with fuel and see if it fires i'm going to give it just a touch of motivation here there we go [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Applause] suppose a guy should address this first and then we'll see if we got squirter action what's going on up there i found this one on the bottom of my toolbox so i'm sure it's plenty good definitely better than that one whoa okay so this is a great example of what i was talking about earlier fellers these fuel filters get them out go get it out get it out of your vehicle right now there we go now the squirters aren't working let's try it again [Music] [Music] i've got a punch i'm gonna try about like that [Music] [Music] yeah yes i'm not sure what kind of mufflers the old girl's got on it but sounds pretty good i had my ear meter turned all the way on when she was just sputtering there trying to start and believe you me no yeah i've heard that noise before so i came in here with the old timing tool and gave her about four degrees initial timing and she popped right off so now that i've heard it run let's start digging in we're not going to get anywhere without this freeze plug popped out the other thing i started thinking about too is i got to look at the other ones fairly close there's a couple i can't get to but i'm going to use my probe here and look at the other one behind the motor mount and then the other two as well on the side which i could just look through the headers and see those oh this is not going gonna be fun so this would be the captain side rear and that one looks firmly seated i don't see any evidence of anything leaking around the perimeter usually it gets scaly and algae and i don't know some other science stuff so that one looks good so i'll move over to the drinker side and take a closer look at this side over here so this would be the drinker side front behind the engine mount kind of a weird angle but that one is firmly seated again i don't see any evidence of it leaking which is great that's going to give me the confidence to first try lift the engine like this kind of you know up like that and if i can get my meat mitts down in there good enough to get the three bolts off of the clamshell part of the mount get that out of the way then i might be able to fit one of them rubber expandable biscuit plugger uppy freeze plug later 200s in there and that lathered in silicon might be good enough to get a guy home it's like i say i'm planning on pulling all of this out anyway because i want to put the four speed back in it so i just need it to work for 700 miles even if it dripped fine will carry water you know so the next step is sparklaters hoses out of the way gotta get rid of this header so i suppose i'll get her up in the air scooch got on both the collector hopefully those will snap off get that out of the way and then we can start wrassling with the dang old [Music] mountain [Music] i got updates over here got the boom tubes off now you can see that wi-fi freeze plug a little bit better so i think if a guy has a plan i got these chains attached up here and i don't need these accessory holes so if i snap these bolts off yeah we'll just move down to these they still hook a cherry picker onto this and i'm going to try to lift this just high enough i've already got the top two bolts out on this mount i need to get the one on the bottom which is hidden down here up over this clam shell looking unit from a bobber jiggy 300 and hopefully i can get this just high enough or maybe i could sneak in from below and get that bolt out and then i can just get enough separation in there and if that fails then we're moving on to full export mode which is undo the other side get the lightning weather off and really get this thing up in the air trying to avoid that because i don't want to take the drive shaft off and all that stuff by the way is down here taking the exhaust off we got full drag race mode pipes i don't know what them are two and a half three inch and i think some of them fancy floor masters back here then we're pretty fancy we got new springs i mean rear sway bar there's some goodies on this thing i haven't even really gotten to yet got some chocolaters up there braided hoses gearbox has been put in it so quite a few parts on this thing all right let's give this a shot i'm gonna go and take everything i can until the transmission hits the tunnel there it's probably only about two inches but i've got a lift off oh i think we got plenty of them there we go so i got a lot more out of here than i thought i was gonna get looks like maybe two inches two and a quarter i'm gonna try to block this up or jam some wood in here or something so i don't have my hand under this if the old china freight fails on me i don't want this you know it'll bite you and that's that but the great news is if i can macgyver that bottom bolt out we're in business i can easily get the old one out and get that new one in there 62 days later got it out and that was a bugger because this is cracked or broken so the rubber has settled and it was sitting right on this bolt so the socket wouldn't go over it i was able to come in from underneath in there crack it loose and then i just kept rocking this back and forth stick my finger in loosen it hold the bolt stick my finger in and eventually got it out felt like it was two miles long but it's just a regular old one definitely not putting that back in would really be no point since this needs to be repaired and now we have clear access to this bugger right here lots of rust junk falling out you can see the other plug down there i'll grab it real quick i'm going to get you down in here see failures can see it's not horrible but she's pitted enough down there that she might give us a leak maybe sorta and then back here is that other one and she looks plenty fine we'll just completely ignore that so i'm going to start off by spinning this here through there if i can angle her in there right probably not keep hitting her with sandpaper and then i got a couple different flavors of cheek poker i'm gonna spin them in there you know see what happens probably nothing okay got this hone on here i'm gonna see if i can whirl her around a little bit well i can definitely smell the rust it's right in my teeth so it's doing something let's take a look see if we made any improvement oh yeah already looking a little better in fact i think that's probably plenty good i'll still run the cheek poker through there just for a second it'll make me feel good for spending money on this at least you know we'll just jam around in there well that was really the ticket look at that now brand spanking though so if you find yourself in the jam here skip the sandpaper just go get this cheap little inch and a half of course whirly woo couple boop boop boop she's ready to go i thought maybe i'd show on you guys this quick case you've never seen one nice to know in case of an emergency but basically the concept is you just flop this in the block and as you tighten down this nut here it squeezes these two washers together and the rubber expands you want this flush and all the way in the block because basically you're creating a lip on the inside so the fluids can't get out normally if the block is really coarse and pitted up i do put some rtv or something around this permatex but i got her pretty clean on this one and these do say install them dry but let's be honest i don't think anyone does but i'm gonna try this time and see if it works so i'm just gonna put this in there give her six fifteen oogadoogas and that should do haven't decided if i'm gonna let her hang like this fire it up circulate some coolant see if we get a leak or if i'm gonna put it all back together and just cross my fingers i'll probably put it all back together and just cross my fingers so it leaks again and then i have to take it all apart because you know that's way more fun guys should probably you know test on that before you put all this back together so i did the right thing and just put it all back together if you're wondering from earlier why i didn't run it any longer than i did one i didn't want the headers just piping hot because i had to get in here on the exhaust and two i'm going to guess that the transmission was empty being there was 71 gallons of atf on the ground and i didn't want to burn the pump out but i'm going to finish torquing these down and i think we're getting pretty close to where i can fill this thing up see if we have any leaks but i will have to probably address this transmission leak before i run this any longer and i'm thinking it's just a pan gasket hopefully i haven't really looked too close under there guy has to assume that's what it is so i got a filter kit we'll throw a filter in at the same time but this is coming along pretty good and i think i got just enough room in there if that is dripping i can get a wrench in there and just pin its ears back a little bit more if i need to this eventually i'm going to have to address how this power steering pump is kitty wompus in here i'm pretty amazed that this belt hasn't come off yet it gets tough because this bracket is for the original manifolds which are you know this thick guy probably could make a stand out in here with some hollow pipe and they do make another aftermarket bracketry thing but of course i just don't have that at the moment but like i say if this becomes an issue and it throws a belt i'm just going to keep driving i don't need power steering anyway so but it's coming together there's a lot of fellas out there that think you jinx on yourself when you change filters and fluid transmission works great and then all of a sudden it doesn't we're not really in a position to pick here we just got to get this leak fixed yep yeah yep no no get on out of there wow this thing this one can i even get to it got the shift rod do dabber thing you stubborn little devil oh okay i can't see anything i'm gonna leave a couple of this loose up here that way that's swinging on like that sure is nice laying down though i'll tell you that much well there ain't no juice in this thing i'll tell you that might be a little left in the pan but normally she's just spilling over by now normally like this i'd have my armpit full all the way to my hip bone well why is it stuck like this oh yeah she's dry i just can't see over there that must have been it there okay there it is a little bit of metal in your pan is normal from clutch wear but this here is what you call just it's extreme this is literally a pile of built up metal so now guys wondering do i even have any gears left because that is wow it's gonna take me a while to get all this material out here look at that so clutches have been cooked no question about it as long as a guy can get park and drive that'd be nice i don't want four neutrals that's much better about two cans of carb cleaner and some steel wool and that should work pretty good possible filter in it quick i'm going to use a rubber gasket this time that was an old court gasket there's only so much they can soak up before they just start weeping get this buttoned on i think i got enough etf hopefully i think i got five or six quarts that should be enough to run it anyway and that's probably going to be it for tonight and then in the morning we'll put some coolant in this thing and see if our repair holds decent day two 759 o'clock got the transmission pan gasket done actually took longer to get the shift bracketry installed more than anything but that's okay guy got thinking while i was down there miles will change on the oil while i got her shot up in the air she's sporting a fram filter right now so let's let's delete on that i got a wix and some other oil we'll throw in it then when we drop her down we'll throw a couple cortices into the transmission there see if we could fire this thing up again i am anxious to see how many neutrals we have after there was 11 inches of clutch material on the transmission pan there should be fine no surprises with the oil down there just like a filler tasted lots of gas and not a ton of shavings on the magnet actually which is good news if you look close on the outer ring that's all gas in the oil there and i wish she had smell-o-vision because she's it's ripe it's up in here next time you go to the parts store whichever one you like to go to ask for a cutaway of a fram filter versus air filter like a napa gold or a wix or whatever brand you use and you're gonna be shocked this is pretty neat opened up my wix filter here and small block cheby water neck gasket came shooting out with it some cheby filler must have turned this back in and forgot he hit on this in there bonus remember fellers write the date on these and maybe even the mileage with the paint marker it's gonna save you or the next guy a lot of guessing if you've watched my channel for any length of time you know i'm a huge fan of shell and pennzoil oil products today's flavor is pennzoil 1030. normally in these older more tired flat-tapped engines i like to run like a 1540 a little bit heavier oil but we're in the dead of winter and it's snowing right now so i'm going to go to 10 30 here and this here pennzoil is pretty much the buffet of oil properties it's got everything a guy needs plus it's got a good cleansing agent in it with all the carbon i saw with the borescope i'm sure there's a bunch of sludge in this too and this will help clean it up for the directional propulsion selector back there we're going to completely rebuild it by throwing some lucas stop slip in just get ahead of the curve you know a little trick here put half a cute tee in and then take half of this put it into here and then shake her up and then dump that in that way you're not sitting there for 93 minutes trying to squeeze this stuff in then your second qt finish the bottle off you're ready to go i don't think a guy is going to fill this to capacity until i can make sure we don't have a yellowstone park going on got to thinking last night when i was trying to get 13 minutes of sleep this has got digital fans on it no idea if the temp sending unit works if the relay works so we'll have to make sure we test on that before we hit the road yes guy got sitting here thinking i don't have a nickname for this yet i was originally thinking of instead of the firebird it would be the snow bird since i had to drive through two blizzards to get here and it's snowing right now but it's also been sticker bombed with a flamingo is that what that is they eat a lot of shrimp turn pink i guess i don't know wives tale but if you got a nickname for this bleep bloop it down there in the comments i have no idea but it's got to be called something what are these creatures i don't know [Music] the fans just get on [Music] none of the gauges seem to be working you know what fellers i think she's got a little cam in her believe you me probably not i think it does actually maybe a little rv cam or something she's got a little thumb thump it was circulating the fans kicked on i don't see any leaks yet and it's charging so we're off to a really good start i'm gonna let the fumes get out of here a little bit i got the garage door open get a little woozy and then we'll test for some gears here in a minute so i got everything buttoned up i'm gonna jump in check the transmission out see if we got forward and reverse and if we do then we'll move on the headlights tail lights and wipers those would be nice it's snowing out and i got another storm to drive through on the way back as well [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] all right we've got gears and headlights we've got no tail lights so we'll start back here so there's a little bit of a wiring thing going on here i'm sure there was some struggles going from a manual to an auto and then there's been some few things cut in i figured out that this is high and low beam the switch over here those work headlamps work got the heater wired in over there and then i've got brake lights but no tail lights and that was a bonding to ground issue back here which i think i have resolved this other one here is busted not going to worry about it right now there is some new housings but if i pass the cop i'll just hold the break as i pass them so it looks like i've got tail lights in the dark vicky's packed everything for me i had one box in here and it was full and she somehow got all of the parts in here which is great so we're making a lot of headway i just gotta finish packing some tools i've got my power tools and of course the mountain dew and i'll get my universal tool kits and stuff in here i think i'm gonna have plenty of room i never thought i'd say this but a 68 firebird has a lot more room than the corvette which is i guess makes sense i think this is all ready normally i dump berryman straight down the carb but b and we've got over 700 miles i've got like 10 cans i'm just gonna keep putting two cans in every fill and that way it's just getting fed onions the whole time and that should hopefully clean up those pistons and rings and there's really no point in changing the plugs right now they are fouled but that berrymen will hopefully keep them at bay while we're burning all that excess carbon and stuff off and if i do end up with a miss then i'll just pull over and replace plugs really quick i think i will swap this belt out quick now that i'm looking at it there's a lot of cracks in here i don't think that's going to get me very far so miles will go on ahead and do that now look it over a couple more times and then probably hit the road i'm not even going to worry about wheel bearings this time being the wilwood discollator kits on there there's no way they didn't put new bearings in need some air and i don't know i guess i'll keep walking around this thing scratching my head this one's about on the rim oh wipers work but this is the only thing i got no one in town has the right one that fits i tried to retrofit a um you know thing into the stuff here that didn't work too good so i just spray away the snot out of it and if i get in a jam i'll just be gentle and use this sparingly and then you can always ace-venture it if it gets real bad i guess just eased her down to the gas station just a couple blocks the gauge she's broke off and empty basically i don't know if that's accurate or not so can't pass up a fuel station we're going to start with the berryman b12 treatment i'm going to go with two per fill and this should just bring it right back around ceiling keeps crumbling anyway fuel gauge works supposedly i got uh 15 gallons in it no 16. i don't know somewhere in the middle of before 20. so we're going to guesstimate 10 miles to gallon to be safe so i need to stop in 150 140 miles do have a 5 gallon jug smashed in here somewhere taped up the dash so that doesn't flop around got the electric heat just cranked on do nothing mode got my fire extinguisher here and my if you take your finger burner and rotate it 90 degrees it's also a defrost got that ready i think we're just gonna hit the road see what happens in well the transmission shifts but it's really really soggy i mean it just takes a minute to select brakes work really good which is a first for me i think got a lot of tire vibration but i think that's just from sitting all those years maybe they'll come out of it probably not i do have a spare it's flat that's fine so everything so far is just going as planned passing the top right now nothing that's good so i'm gonna try to get uh maybe 450 miles today or so and then shut her down for tonight i didn't make it very far and i froze taped off the cowl here it's coming under the dash somewhere hopefully that'll help a little bit nothing's leaking fans are kicking on this is slightly scary ah fuel pump's feeling a little weak that was weird [Music] all right well anyway good enough for now i'm gonna swing through mickey d's grab some food stick her back on the interstate got a lot of ground i like to get down as many miles as i can before the sun goes down because then i'm gonna have to figure out what i'm gonna do for uh tail lights i got brake and i think i might even have blinker but i don't have tail lights also i don't know if this is good plate from 68 maybe that'll work probably not one of the bigger improvements i've got going for me is there's like 38 39 weatherstripping in here which is really nice that window outlays the other window so she's got a little leak but hopefully this nine inch exhaust tubing heats up the floor a little bit but so far it's not too bad we'll just have to see how it is on the intro state though at least there's not snow scooping in my [Music] face didn't make it far i was getting gas right there now i'm over here because i used my blinker and it just stuck on and i had a blown fuse on the brake lights and then i got to thinking it's going to be dusk or dark pretty quick so i got my brake lights hot wired in and that's really easy to do guys if you're getting a jam just unhook your brake switch which is this right here that's just a plunger and that's what's called normally open so when you're not hitting the brake pedal that circuits open and when you hit your brake pedal it becomes mc or normally closed so i just unplug it and loop it like this and if you don't want to unplug it or it's really hard to get to you can actually just take a scotch lock like this and just put it in there push this down that'll close them get you through the evening and in the morning you just pull it back out so i'm going to run like this and then tomorrow morning i'll just pull that loop out hook my brake switch back up looks like we made it to the interstate flat spots and the tires still haven't come out so i'm gonna do the right thing and take this exit just shoot it right to 75. see if they come out that way i think i've got tall enough gears in this thing 1500 is about 55 so boy these roads in michigan they uh they need a little work i thought illinois was bad my goodness it does handle good though wow really wandering and 70 at 20 200 rpm it's not so bad [Music] it is really drafty though i guess they're going to have to put the coveralls on as soon as the sun goes down you might be able to tough it out until then it is just shaking in here we got a mouse nest on fire somewhere i know that smell [Music] that's fixed [Music] the son of a man worked his fingers to the bone just trying to make something out of nothing you know you never wanted silver gold or the finer things just some wife and kids at home in the american dream are you gonna step along baby this is our time to rewrite our american dream i just can't see not this defrost engaged oh yeah still snowing out flat tire the good news is i saved the rim so i'm gonna spend two hours digging out the spare tire that's in the bottom of everything with the jack see if it even fits hopefully these aren't uh locking lug nuts doesn't look like it thankfully and i need to get this changed pretty quick sitting on the side of the roads an easy way for the old cox to show up dang it this tire is quickly losing air it was flat when i got it at that shop this one is gonna rub really bad i could barely fit my finger gonna have to stay off the bumps and try not to turn it's the only option i got and this is really bad on the rear end having different size tires i got 40 miles next town gary indiana mobile alabama la something something nope none of those i am close to gary actually i'm on the indiana on the illinois state line somewhere over here over there i'm not sure what a good day fellers we got ourselves a firebird we got a bunch of miles down for leaving late in the afternoon that's good i don't even think she smoked when she fired up did you guys see that's really nice means the valve seals and the oil rings are doing what they should that's good been a shutter down here get a wobble pop something to eat i'm going to try out this establishment i hear they have good fried pickles and that's the only reason from best guy i came running out and i was thinking here we go round four can't work on your garbage in front of our garbage motel but you know he just wanted to know what size engine the old snowbird had i like to bring my tools into my room you know that way when the car gets stolen i save 128 dollars in tools 712 early o'clock still spitting snow got a little bit last night i guess i got to deal with this tire issue today ironically when i googled machines and exit with a bunch of tire stores around her ended up in the same motel i did with the corvette headed to north of detroit i just knew in the bottom of my liver these front tires were going to be an issue they're just so dry rotted right here and then you combine that with michigan intro state you're in trouble i also left the taillights connected last night dead battery that's weird also can't get in the driver's side door apparently it locks and never unlocks so i lost some hardware in the door panel so now i get to crawl in through the passenger door for the remainder of the trip it's fine learned a pretty good trick about tires save you some money i can actually uh just pop this other side off and i think i'd be wiser than a white owl to replace this side as well dig out the other tire and then i just call up a uber xl for eight ten bucks get dropped off get the tires call another one he'll bring me back maybe it's a sheet i don't know it's a lot cheaper than roadside service or the mobile tire guys nothing wrong with them i just i can't afford the it's you know it's expensive it's emergency stuff you know i got a jump pack but i was charging my phone with it all night hopefully it's got enough juice to z otherwise i guess i'll just hold jumper cables up in the air and i'll hope that someone stops hope it even starts this morning double check the fluid spoke for the bumper didn't really do much of that i just kept it to the floor you know since it's negative 244 degrees i think i'm gonna just get to get this tire off probably a good idea about an hour and a half later guy made her back these are the only tires believe it or not even with all these stores around here that at anything remotely close to 235 45 17s and this was pretty painful firestone i don't know fuel fighter champion three thousands supposedly a seventy thousand mile tire not sure 400 bucks mounted balance for both these but i got to thinking i've got charging whirler water pump starter lightning hoses a whole bunch of stuff that gets pretty close to the same amount of dollar value that i'm going to return on when i get back home so yeah wishy-washy i didn't want to change the size too much because of the back spacing and then it's so close to rubbing so i'm going to pop these on should be able to do this pretty easily you just get under the front put that one on take that one off put the other one on you know the drill probably get the finger burner out slash defroster 200 just melt this away hopefully it doesn't crack well that's done and the good news is they don't look remotely close to that pattern so that's fine those are tighter than i remember but see what we got for earl i had to run it without the filter last night i forgot to mention it doesn't have a tall enough riser so what happens is the throttle keeps getting stuck at 3000 rpm which is fun but you get in the traffic it gets a little tricky so unfortunately i'm just going to have to run her wide open cylinder walls are already scored so yeah it ain't going to matter if it chews on some stuff look at that still plenty over filled perfect what else do we want to check yep yep yep okay well this is this seems fine i already don't fit and i look like a complete idiot slithering in this like a snake but we'll get in from this way now how is this gonna work um seats shuffle can i get all the way across like this then bring my leg bring in the leg bring my leg up bring it over ouch oh help help me ah help i just never this is not ah well that went well i think that's an easy process look at all these keys and i just help me understand we're gonna try this one yep coke that doesn't work pull it out anyway just in case i used all my juice so hopefully it's got enough maybe give her more gas probably only got five pranks come left more gas wow not even one fire oh i got my security device unplugged now i got to crawl out of this bring the thunder there we go [Music] [Music] uh nice i'll let it sit here and idle go finish getting the snow off [Music] uh solid ice man this thing does sound good though got my door open while i was warming up i just took a flat screwdriver and you could see the door flapper in there and somehow got stuck between lockage closed shuttage so i had to hold the button lift the lock press the lever and now it's all reset again crawled underneath hooked up my uh brake light switch again so they're off now and i'll have brake lights through the day so that's good let it warm up for a couple more minutes and then get gas over there and start scooting they're floor masters it's like a kit put together and weld that's pretty cool [Music] [Music] i made it over 700 miles no heat and a 68 firebird i'm opposite of pink floyd my feet are painfully numb that's okay car did really well even after sitting up for 10 years other than the tires i have no complaints i don't know what to do with it though i'm looking for your guys's suggestions so please put those down there in the bleep bloop section if you're not subscribed please do that hit the bell so you know when other videos like this are going to go on thanks again to joe and vicky i'm starting to not be able to see so that's going to do it for this episode see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Vice Grip Garage

Views: 1,200,987

Rating: 4.9660201 out of 5

Keywords: motortrend, roadkill, vice grip garage, vise grip garage, vgg, firebird, camaro, 1st gen, 1stgen, 1967, 1968, 1969, 400, firebird 400, sbc, 4 speed, revival, rescue, restoration, will it run, will it start, road trip, break down, broken down, road side, pontiac, chevrolet

Id: JEEOxjKur-E

Length: 72min 33sec (4353 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 16 2021