I Surprise Ed W/ His Restored Golden Nugget LJ20 Stuck 40 Years In The Mountains

golden nugget oh come on it is finally here the day of the golden nugget reveal you have all been waiting for it we have been waiting for it to three-year restoration crammed into six months this has been crazy stressful for everybody involved but also super exciting and it's here it's finally here this whole story started way back in 2010 when ed told me that he had a jl-20 stuck in the sierra nevada mountains at his gold claim i spent the next few years trying to talk ed into letting us go down there and seeing if we could get it out and finally last summer we were able to go and do a reconnaissance mission i grabbed paul from fab rats and trevor and we flew in there rented the car drove up to the claim and scoped it out the highlight of our trip was eating the blackberries oh also we noticed that yeah we can get this out so then came the ocean's eleven moment when i had to gather my crew together so first of all we had ed and fred they were the masterminds next we needed a demolitions expert we needed a face man sweet we needed a distraction heads off this eating all day has got to stop we needed an electronics expert i'm contemplating my life decisions we needed a ninja warrior cantaloupe is good to go we needed logistics how deep is it right here and finally we needed an engineer that's where i came in so we assembled the team we drove out there we found that golden nugget we got that golden nugget and we brought that golden nugget back home so next we did a three-year restoration in six months and that took fab rats robbie layton bleep and jeet chad's fab bikes and beards mischief maker tv we got it done and now we're ready to give it back to ed so we're gonna stage a recovery invite ed to come along with us and let ed find it we know somebody who has a piece of private property in the mountains in a beautiful location and it was perfect because we could hide it in the trees and it was not seen it actually looked really similar to where we dug it out of so that was kind of cool it was like a circle so robbie layton brought the rokon down we already had the golden nugget we put them together put them in a trailer and drove up the mountain and we hid them in the trees so now the only thing left to do is to fake a recovery and invite ed to come along so that he can find the nugget so we got a call for a jeep that's stuck in the mud up here on kolav we're gonna head up there and see if we can get him out yeah we'll find him weather up here is nice and cool not like 107 down there we got jamie back there we got tucker we got peanut it's gonna be a good day [Music] do [Music] so [Music] see a bear up here i've never seen a bear in utah i've seen them in montana and california in colorado and arizona but never in utah but they are up here i'm amazed as much as you've traveled [Music] that's where we're going i don't think he's down here he says he's by the ponds and there i don't think there's any ponds down there so we've got a bad pen there's water that's not just mud that's water they don't look stuck that bad look he's on down there yeah i'm gonna get out and look what you doing peanut not deep enough to go swimming in i think he's down this way there it is huh don't look stuck to me is that it yeah come look at it he's back yeah i'm gonna need your help on this one [Music] golden nugget oh come on you guys are you guys are funny me they said it hadn't even painted [Music] how to get way in here i don't know you trailer it come look holy moly way up here wow what in the world you do this for ain't that pretty my goodness we've been lying to you ed yeah that is really nice [Music] when you went up to paul's with skeeter yeah paul had to hide that in his garage up at his house yeah yeah like when we were robbie's like everything we had to lock everything behind locked doors wow [Music] come and look at it got a winch on the front you just wouldn't know it would you remember those tires you were asking me about and i said they were for the trailer yeah that's what they were in yeah got that painted and together they told me the parks were bent and had to weld and it was still in so late i told you why would you bring it here to show me way down here because it's fun it's fun ed wow we've had a lot of fun doing this yeah yes i don't know when you've done it have you been on it is it running oh yeah they both run and drive this will do 80 miles an hour huh this will do 80 miles an hour i never had it over party it's a hot rod you scooped a motor up that's a different motor you know that green suzuki the green suzuki at the yard that's what we bought it for was for this engine you pulled the engine out of that yep and the steering box transmission transfer case suzuki engine man yup a suzuki engine man you've done a lot of you know that who's done a lot of extra work paul paul built all this and then robbie took it all apart and painted it my dad you know the suzuki that's in the impound yard of eric's these are the axles wasn't that eric's yeah well we bought it from eric everybody's in on it ed man jump in it let's see look at that it's an automatic it's an automatic now wow i'm really impressed that's amazing yep it's the same the same title same vin number it's all it's all been fixed robbie robbie worked on this every night for a month i can imagine with all that work and everything gee wow do you fit in it isn't that [Music] let's pull it out of here [Music] [Music] there's a lot of people watching [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh you made it yes i did lay it as always you should have seen me though sliding around the corners i made it how many maverick stops did you make what's up welcome to the party well thank you good to be here am i the last one no we still waiting on fabrics so what do we got here i'm craig bike some beards glad you could make it yeah thanks for having us this is a that was a fun project to be a part of for sure mr upholstery himself how's it going james i got to drive that i drove that down here it was so fun you did it was so fun why would you take it so far oh man you gotta drive a clear back to here oh we're loaded in a trailer i think we can get aid on it let's do it let's break the record yeah that is nice never be able to thank your repay and yeah don't even worry this was a debt we're paying off ed you have been the best guard dog ever aren't you impressed with the way they've been there oh yeah man we were watching this i hope a lot of people watch it because there's a lot of work in this and i appreciate everything they've done and nice [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i don't think i've ever seen anything as nice as this and all you people here is great uh they've done a great job and everybody's done a lot of work on it and uh i really appreciate it it's well we appreciate you that that's what this is about we do for sure ed [Applause] so these guys were all in on the jig everybody here how long has it been he's the one the storyteller's right over there robbie i think you owe ed an apology i'm sorry ed everybody's been telling me stories but yours was the biggest but it was worth it i told that he got on the scent a couple of times and we had to knock him off i had to go buy a rokon to throw you off kept asking him oh where's it at oh it's a salt lake being sand blasted yeah yeah yeah you've done a beautiful job on that door well thank you ed what we're gonna do like there's a little lunch everybody's eating lunch we're just gonna take it easy for a minute and then there's some things that people want to present you with so there's even more to come there's more to come so if you want to sit down or take a break or look around whatever you want to do man i think i'd actually like riding in this thing now i don't know yeah not like when you drove it out of the river up the hill no it turned out nice i like it looks like paul just showed up how are you today man what are you doing i'm good paul you owe this man an apology i've only lied to him a little bit i told him there was a scramble when he went out there with skeeter hide it in the garage we did it was there yeah i went 10 minutes before you got there when you were driving away i'm like paul you've got to hide the golden nugget ed's headed out there right now he's like oh man we had the tires off of it on the lift and i had to put them all back on that's pretty amazing how you stuffed this motor in here and got it to fit and yeah everything worked it's pretty dang cool even all the dents you worked so hard to put in it for robbie they've all been worked out of it so chad came to paul's shop and worked on the wiring on this and he also went to robbie's shop and sanded and did body work yeah he's done a great job thanks so craig's from bikes and beards so he's the one that rebuilt it he rebuilt the engine and did all the work on that thing got it running so good i started up a minute ago and it runs good great good to hear well let's let's get some food and just kind of relax for a minute then we're going to set you over there under the tent and everybody has stuff they want to present to you that thing turned out awesome [Music] [Applause] [Music] crap i'd like to thank everybody that worked on this project i'd like to thank ed for bringing us all together and i'd like to thank you for making this all possible by watching our videos i'd also like to let you know that these golden nugget shirts are available right now when they're gone they're gone so get yours fast you can get them at matsoffroadrecovery.com thanks for watching all right we have had our fun with these things we were able to take them out and play with them but now it's time to put them back where we found them thanks for watching

Channel: Matt's Off Road Recovery

Views: 1,919,477

Keywords: Off road recovery, Rescue, Matts off road recovery, Sand Trap, road recovery, Recovery, Difficult rescue, Winder Towing, Towing, Sand dunes, dunes, Jeep, Sand Hollow, utah, off road recovery fails, off road recovery truck, Rescuing, matts off road recovery, morrvair, banana, off road recovery, jeep recovery, off road towing, off road fails, broken down, sand trap, jeep fails, off road sand dunes, operation golden nugget, 40 year rescue, golden nugget reveal

Id: ryNMsRsxv4Y

Length: 17min 28sec (1048 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 24 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Zillergrizz]

Matt looked like he was on the verge of tears at one point. The trolls who think he's a scumbag are outrageous. What an amazing set of folks to dedicate their personal time (and money, likely) to a loveable old veteran.

[u/gregk610]

Revealed! So cool! Lots of great work for a cool guy!

[u/Sail4]

Really outstanding work and gesture, you guys are great.

[u/[deleted]]

Awesome to see it all come together soon. I wish it would've been a little less of Matt and more recognition for the team that pulled it all together. Choosing a time when Paul couldn't even be there to see Ed's reaction felt criminal to me. Would've loved to see more of Ed's interactions with Paul, Robby, etc.

All that said, super fun to watch.

[u/SnooGuavas4531]

It was cute how befuddled Ed was they brought him out to the woods.