Junkyard Rescue! Saving a 1950 GMC Truck - Roadkill Ep. 31

this time on roadkill two junkyard rescue of our latest project vehicle we call it Pigpen we restore this thing in just four days that's like magic that was like magic today we're rolling into Turner's Auto Wrecking in Fresno California this place is run by Jerry Turner and I could not believe he's lived on this property since 1932 and he's been in the junkyard business for so long that he's collected a bunch of property around here he's got 75 acres and literally thousands of cars we're gonna pick one of them and make it run and drive this is obscure welcome to Mecca friend and corner the locals inside there is stuff like a 64 Impala with only 1500 miles on it really yeah yeah it's not junk there is no junk here but except maybe the RV the Army's pretty crappy no I really like that storage unit right there all right we need a plan why it's right killer no no look look 75 acres that's true it's tough to even get through this and one day I think so so what do you want the goal is find a car or cars out of here we basically got three days right we have today Tuesday Wednesday well no Jay what is today Tuesday Wednesday Thursday we have two days two days plus two days to fix a car and get it home visit the ER right go find registry we need a new project cars that we can use either for the stock car body swap or the boat engine debacle or something like that so I won't know until I see it and I want to see it all so the guys think we could use the Tahoe I say we just drive 75 acres right now and pick what we're gonna do all right let's do that all right here's the gate to paradise there's a Mazda rx-7 over there not that I want one of those but there's a Mazda rx-7 over there I'm Sal Caen the problem is I have so many different plans in my head for so many different kinds of cars virtually anything I see here I could go oh I've always wanted to do this that and the other with one of those wow there's a 66 Chevelle invest here I've seen more rear ends their phone that were seen as many naked rear end Wow or in one place though look at all the rotors and even in Vegas dress this bridge I trust the duck that's very scenic Wow there's a lot of in Pontiac we've been prowling Turner's here for probably only about 15 or 20 minutes but we have a guy from the yard helping us and the discouraging thing is that we told him yeah we're looking for something we can make run and drive in two days and the guy paused for like a solid 30 seconds he's like wow I don't think he quite gets our mojo but at the same time looking around the yard a lot of the stuff is really really far gone no no he was going through the mental checklist of every car in the 75-acre largest yard that's why it took out so much time we're fine there's optimism there's something here keep it up yeah yeah this sides got character this is there's a story to tell you oh I was it up I was gonna point out the trunk key was there but when I pulled it out I got the whole trunk yeah dead body you have one of those already yep sort of not quite as good as that one look at the like psycho house they have going on here too Wow what's it say Montecito Sequoia this was like a hotel shuttle vehicle this thing is hammered that is a Cosworth no way this is a Cosworth Vega I wonder a few headers and everything that's a legit cause where the thing is we never get this running ever are you sure factory mechanical fuel injection no that's amazing right there that's roughly a 1930 Ford firetruck it sounds pretty good the long bed it has no compression whatsoever it turns over see that compressions over it there's a starter on it make this one run it's pretty cool we have all the parts we need right there there's our winner I'm not sure but it's either a 49 or 50 GMC I'm told it's missing one of the brake drums it looks mostly complete need some wiring supposedly ran one part we're gonna find out we've got two days to make this run and drive back to Los Angeles so we picked out the car we're hoping to take home but we really need to see if we can make the engine run because if that doesn't happen there's no reason to doing anything else not the car for you or me but it turns over check this out I can grab the fan and actually spin the engine we'll have to go find another Jimmy six in the yard and maybe even pull the whole distributor out of it cuz this is fairly jacked the engine we're dealing with here is actually a GMC inline 6 often in hot rodding known as a jimmy 6 these things were popular for hot rodders because they came in a 302 inch displacement which was kind of a big deal for an inline 6 at the time I actually know guys who've gone 200 miles an hour and more with these things on nitromethane this one's either a 248 or a 270 and the thing that you need to know is this is completely different than the Chevrolet stove bolt 6 we're gonna be screwed when it comes to replacement parts but we do have a cool piece of hot rodding history here we're working again this engine running after it hasn't been fired up in at least since 1988 which is the last tag on the license plate so what do you do we're gonna change all of the fluids we need to make sure that we've got fuel air and spark obviously for fuel we're not gonna bother with a fuel tank or anything I've got my little clickety clackety electric fuel pump that we're gonna use does it suck out of a 5 gallon jugs to feed the carburetor so what do you wanna do alright just hit it we'll just see what happens crank it can you be somewhat prepared maybe to pull one of those off in case it sticks yeah okay I'm hoping it's in neutral I'm standing off to the side just in case you mow over the valium ready sure nope there it's stuck they cranked over dude yeah I did crank good started works well we need a rotor and some oil wire up the plug wires and we could find out if this thing run I don't know where we're gonna get a rotor actually that's what we can do tonight is drive around find the GMC or the rotor well there's still daylight we should do that yep there's a few GM C's in the yard not many there you go see a coil I see a distributor good thing about being in a junkyard is everything you need is right here it's a virtual smorgasbord of free parts I can see us putting this engine in our truck later on yeah maybe um so there we found the rotor I broke in this GMC and we almost fell in love with his Cheatham to see right here when wait-wait-wait the 4950 we were looking at I don't know this thing's pretty awesome that breaks we take it home yeah it's got a dump bed and mud tires so that's it for the night we're gonna come back in the morning and try and fire it up yeah it's day two wrenching on the GMC and we didn't get fired up last night and so we're gonna work on that this morning we've already poured oil in we need to do some ignition system modification there's some weirdness about the distributor and rotor okay so let's recap here this is new right now that's the only rotor we're aware of that will fit this engine after we cut it with a death wheel that's gonna wobble that works I will be very impressed with myself there's never had a chance of working why the rotors way too big look it's sitting above past the terminals okay look what I got apparently there is an early and a late distributor cap and rotor that's the one junkyard magic here's where we stand we have spent approximately seven hundred dollars to figure out whether our GMC straight-6 with parts robbed from a Chevy and another GMC will actually run if that will be the deciding factor on whether we abandon ship here barkeep gun so we're gonna pump fuel on the carburetor right now and see if it looks like a El Toro lawn sprinkler or not I hear it here the bolt filling happy bowl up there's our first leak but I'm good with it I have to simultaneously man the wire running the fuel pump of the ignition the battery cable going to the starter cuz that's probably gonna stick and the fire creator do you have a hammer for the starter oh yeah I'm using all eight of my hands right now okay it seems safe yeah all right okay that was funny all right give it a shot ready yep Wow that wanted to run do you see that like that saddle on that wanted to run yeah I really did I'm running it ran okay how can I cut power to the starter and not kill the ignition so I got a side terminal no no okay so alright I got this I got yep there you go exactly there you go okay are you ready yep starting fluid I can't believe it's fired up and it's idling look at that dude it's alive that is like new there's no water in it so let's kill it that is a literally like new it's not even smoking it's alive this thing has three two one compressions another gun we're driving boom Wow I feel like we should having a beer but it's eight o'clock and might not matter ok wheels are on we don't know if the trans works we've not put any water in the radiator for break for guaranteed the brakes don't work come on baby hold water you know badness yet that filled it exactly how far'd had it ago really for now mm-hmm that means the rest of the pack was dirt well the cap was on it might not be cap wasn't on it I don't know oh we need to fix the shifter it's unscrewed from the column I just need to find another truck it has a screw okay here's the truck like ours already gone actually it's because it's a four on the floor there's another one ah I failed because I have the wrong tool I found the part but I have a Phillips and it's a flathead this is funky in here let's give it a battery lamp oh my god there's a battery in there still let's put the new battery in there fail when broke the screw that's genius how much time am I gonna kill finding one tiny screw I broke that one yes that's all I'm looking for is it an amazing that that can stop your vehicle from being drivable we want to drive this thing though we don't know if we're fully committed to this truck in so I think I'm gonna strap our makeshift gas tank to the bumper here it's like factory it's in there solid right through the core support fuel line electric fuel pump gas tank Wow broke that one - done zip ties given up going to zip ties I think it's pretty clear to anyone watching that we should have just started here like it see the action on that thing right after rube locate that a little bit okay that's good firing stuck holding starter down that's that's almost too easy it's like we're driving yeah I Laflamme buggers around yeah Jimmy runs perfectly good Wow that mean that gauge is working we have 40 40 pounds of oil per group until the ignition and see if the gauge no way we had over 40 pounds of oil per hair friend Wow and the door opens good I'm I'm so committed now I'm almost thinking clean out Tibet imagine the dust cloud the first time she gets on the freeway let's see what is this day - not bad sure front brakes are together we toured the yard in our new truck got a fuel system yeah nice cans thank you tomorrow we're gonna have to put brakes on this thing the master cylinder is locked up completely solid but we've got one coming in in the morning and four wheel cylinders we have to do that wire up some taillights put a six volt battery in it and all happening tomorrow here on roadkill nice out all right here you go yeah day three and we're doing pretty good we found a local place a one electric strange name because that's where we got all the brake parts we were missing got a rebuild kit for the master cylinder new wheel cylinders for all the way around this thing and today we're gonna attempt to fix the brakes if that works we just have to wire up some tail lights and hit the freeway I think we're gonna make it is about the amazing news for the less than amazing news you've got it off I did I did I got it off and I actually understand how it functions that's the wrong rebuild kit and it's the wrong rebuild kit no surprise yeah I have good news though which is all the brake lines and weld not all the brake lines I've cleaned so far have been fine that's good news because I took this line off and ran a wire through it no issues okay go back there was even a little bit of liquid in there so I trust those right this means we're hunting the graveyard yeah going Junkin oh I didn't see this one before why you got to walk the yard this one's a long bed look at it look at the linkage up here it has a bigger brake line going into it like a 5/16 huh it probably means that that masters are different more also how about that place near you're near Orange yeah they would have it what's the next day well that's anybody's ever laid under a car in a junkyard we're giving up this is our third day of working on it and we're not gonna drive away first thing tomorrow morning we're gonna have to put our FedExed master cylinder on first thing tomorrow morning install it bleed the brakes and then hit the road and drive home with no issues whatsoever that's the plan then he gets on the phone ordering that master cylinder right now all right it's the third day of our journey and technically we've only made it about 300 yards around the junkyard but on the bright side we've rebuilt almost entire break system wiring plumbing she's ready to rock one more piece tomorrow morning the master cylinder and I think we'll be on our way stay for and thank God for classic performance products because they had perfect master cylinder for a 1950 GMC and this is the last piece of the puzzle once this is in the truck we can drive it out of the yard we might not have any lights haven't really tested that yet but at least we can drive out of the yard and get home to our wives because we've been in this junkyard for almost five days and they're over it we're not but they are one two three holding hold on ah not good way not good it blew out a line back here that's gonna be two hours it's the line that exploded right there we're replumb the whole truck right now fortunately it's pretty simple I think overall line replacements probably only going to take us about 45 minutes I'm gonna go over to the left front and bend that one and then we can bleed the brakes again and then leave and then leave we're leaving and drive home in three hours okay take two open it's pretty solid fluid okay I'll move to the next one the thing of it is after all of this we're anxiously trying to drive away to go pay Jerry and leave we've never started this thing on six volts before so hopefully that works coming down it's 5 o'clock we were supposed to leave roughly 8 hours ago in that 8 hours we've blew through the entire brake system of this truck 2 or 3 times and we're good at it Finnegan's ultimately solved the fuel system here we're about to fire it up go see Jerry paid for this junk and hit the road it rolls good just stop there I worked really hard on that let's find out ready yeah yeah brakes all right let's go see Jerry I never cared about brakes in my entire life but after you suffer for two days on some yeah a little bit of pride in that well what do you think Vasia is it there was the license plate on it 1988 we fell in love with it over the past few days for sure it's a tinkering with it let's go inside and make it ours yeah hey your money so what do we owe you in total I think mm oh yeah that's right just keep the change on that we stole enough bolts and stuff it's getting dark and we've never figured out how to actually make either headlights or taillights work on this thing we figure we can probably live with no taillights we're not gonna live with no headlights so the plan is we're going to sort of make a bed here out of some scrap that we found strapped our generator in it from our video crew and run an extension cord out to the front and put our work lights on the front of the thing so we'll probably get pulled over for having our lights too bright obviously that's really impressive fire it up Wow that's really good it's awesome it's overheating not good look at that the rear main feels pukin pretty good yeah the clutch cans all wet brother about 20 miles from Turner's Pigpen finally told us why she's been parked for 30 years we've been beaten unfortunately Pigpen has probably seen its last mile miss motor this is probably why I was originally in the junkyard the thing idols around really great but you get it up on the highway and it's starting to rod knock and this right here is basically crankcase pressure it's not overheating it's not overheat it's oil coming out of the valve cover so we're gonna leave it here and now we got a trailer and drag the thing home and hey we'll rebuild it yep it's an awesome truck we still rescued and recycled that truck they make speed parts footage they do we can put a GMC 302 on it and turbo it see see there's a reason for everything it's hard to declare a big win in this episode of roadkill a win would have been driving this thing all the way home but I'll go with a half win the thing had been sitting for 30 years and we did make it run and drive and we did make it leave the property where it had sat forever eventually we'll probably make this truck run and buy eventually I mean another 30 years from now this is roadkill we know how to make junk flip we know how to make junk run we don't necessarily know how to get it all the way home this time on roadkill it's the clapper Wow fixed it by driving backwards dude back with a 30 year old toy oh yeah tomorrow we're gonna show everybody how to turn a three hour drive into a two-day adventure I'll make my way more Bank in the fire you know I'm getting guaranteed on this trip a sunburn oh yeah

Channel: MotorTrend Channel

Views: 15,707,221

Rating: 4.7656856 out of 5

Keywords: roadkill, motor trend, motortrend, freiburger and finnegan, david freiburger, mike finnegan, hot rod, hot rod magazine, 1950 gmc, 1950 chevy, 1950 gmc truck, vintage truck, junkyark, junkyard build, jerry turner, fresno, shortbed, pickup truck, engine build, junk parts, spare parts, 1950 chevrolet, chevy truck, turner's auto wrecking, junkyard stash, motor trend channel, roadkill 31

Id: NLmt_VmPwKE

Length: 24min 15sec (1455 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 08 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/gaydogfreak]

Favorite show on you tube 

[u/gaydogfreak]

what is the red car that was parked in front of the gmc?

[u/[deleted]]

That was sweet. Those old GMC's are hard to come by. I always prefered the grill and emblem on those over their chevy counterpart.

[u/[deleted]]

When will we get to see the subaru shootout?

[u/v1be]

Grandpa MuscleTruck

[u/AllHailTheDead0]

WTF they were in Fresno and I missed it???

[u/mythicavanger]

Turners in fresno is a good place to get hard to find parts

[u/jrp07f]

Best show on YouTube.

I do wish they would go back to the longer running length, though.

[u/dasreactionary96]

I wait eagerly every moth to watch this show