Recycling the Best Junkyard Cars! | Roadkill | MotorTrend

when i am in a great old car junkyard i am in my happy place it is just like one of the greatest things on earth to me which is why i love this motor trend show called junkyard gold and there was a first season of it it's a show with steven yante walking around and basically looking at old cars and giving you factoids about them that you never knew before and so we're bringing it back it's going to be roadkills junkyard gold i'm using him as my eyes and ears to find the greatest cars in america in junkyards that finnegan and i can then go nab and make run and drive and here it is oh if this car was like a six cylinder a small block no way i'm with you yeah but the 390 and the stick 100 does it look about the same as it did in the pictures oh it's a lovely shade of neglect i love it photos add a hundred points of goodness it's not that good well look inside the money on this thing to me is right inside the four on the floor okay this is sweet yeah back in 1964 somebody brought this car home and showed his buddies the four on the floor in his new big block ford galaxy that was a big deal when this car was new look at that console yeah yeah it's cool it's cool you guys are making you guys hit the road in this thing is that power steering stuff take a peek there's not no air conditioning no no problem simplicity i'm going to guess is that was a big attraction the fewer accessories the easier the junkyard rescue oh it's got the single pot master cylinder with a booster yeah okay explain to uh such ignoramuses as myself mike in the audience why it says thunderbird on the valve covers well ford the thunderbird from 55 on up was ford's halo car and they often referred to their larger engines as the thunderbird v8 even though it wasn't in a thunderbird car and this does have something kind of cool that the chrome on those valve covers is not factory issue this is the z code 300 horse 390 which i think would have had just a blue or a black engine the chrome is probably 406 valve covers that some enthusiasts added well the ford is out of my hands mike and dave have taken possession of this car and i think um if they attend to the details of this car bleed the brakes make sure the wheel bearings are packed i would even prime the engine with electric drill motor get the distributor out run that pump backwards you know pump the motor full of oil they do that kind of stuff i think they're a good shot of getting this thing on the road and out of here dude there's so many turds on this a lot of turds look at it they're big too they're not raccoon they're large rodent yeah that's like chupacabra poop right there or something dude okay it's fixed fired up you restored it i feel i'm here to disappoint manyate because he had expectations of like us removing the distributor and pre-lubing this thing and doing everything the right way it's a good thing he's gone because we're about to just crank this engine that's been sitting for who knows how long i had to clean up all the cable connections here but i think it's gonna crank [Laughter] that's promising wow no clunking uh-uh okay so you want to try key yeah try it maybe the ignition works there we go no way no spark that's cool the key works yeah it seemed like i didn't have any spark because i put flammable brake fluid down the carburetor and it didn't go so now i'm gonna see if it does okay crank okay ah yes it has sparks probably just cold no way i think we have at least six and a half cylinders there wow this thing runs good it's alive we're gonna be good how long has this been parked like 40 years something like that that's awesome [Music] wow it's alive oh turn dust everywhere that's incredible that carburetor is not a fountain right now we don't have just gas pouring out of every orifice that fuel pump seems to work just fine i say we check the brakes check the gears hit the a rope of smoke in here i feel like chong you look more like cheech here's the better looking one i don't know if you've noticed but this thing smokes like a forest fire here's our problem the cab's filling with smoke because the exhaust pipes are cut off right here and there's holes in the floor right here that are there for filling the interior with smoke so i'm going to use this stuff clamp it on here and then stretch it out and puke all that smoke out the back i think the last time we put a carbon monoxide sensor in a car was in the he hate me and it never went off but this time it could actually be a thing okay all right let me see if it smokes out the proper orifice oh yeah i can still smell it in here though [Music] wow is it bad i'm not sure i've ever done anything in the smoke this bed that's coming inside still yep blowing right in here it's on my side we're gonna have to stop again we cannot sit in traffic the whole inside of the car just fills with smoke it's coming from the trunk look [Music] i think we're done [Music] i'm here with steve dolcich and we've got our brand new suzuki samurai you're probably wondering why so am i so let's review a little bit a few weeks ago we were shooting one of our other shows here at this junkyard it's called junkyard gold that's where steve beyonce walks around and looks at cool stuff and there's all these great american classics here but they're all basically just parts cars they're all pretty far gone but when i eyeballed the samurai i can't even tell you why i was like that's awesome i haven't seen one of those in a long time i want a samurai let's v8 swap it 750 bucks you know it's inconveniently priced but it is very conveniently located we don't have to pull anything out of a vehicle yeah and i also saw the transmission that goes with it in the storage shed oh really yeah the 440 is really good okay let's find the transmission straight back lower some more lower [Music] okay come out and take a look oh wow we have a 440 samurai we're getting pretty close we're at the point of fiddling with the tiny details like fuel pump hitting brake lines hitting and ultimately we went and got a different exhaust manifold instead of the center dump one this one dumps back here which we think is gonna help us more but if you look right through the floor you can see that the front axle of the samurai is really close to our oil pan we're gonna have to push the engine over and back in order to get it clear of that front axle right there i think that's it we finally got the engine in position it's way further back than i was really hoping for aesthetically and fabrication-wise but it's clearing the front axle i think we got the drive shaft angle where it's going to work it's going to be a big job building a firewall in there i was able to scalp the whole harness i need plugs into the control unit the balsa resistor plug's broken but i've got my charge wire all out of the yard all right we've about had it for the night we got quite a bit done today but not enough tomorrow we're gonna have to really crank it up yeah i mean we've got the motor mounts done we got the trans cross member done you got the accessory drive done but yeah tomorrow you'll at least make it run right oh the wiring wiring's all figured out all right oh yeah the train knows seats done brakes done wow this is pretty good okay we have to solve the drive shaft nightmare one way or another i'm getting pumped we're close i know i can't wait to drive this thing man did you check the lap of luxury on these yeah man look at this oh yeah man look at that oh it's really good you know and you never need a hotel room with this because you could just uh snooze in here [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's moving yeah wow it's got 16 oil pressure oh wow oh man oh that was fire yeah you better crank it out [Music] you can let it warm up but [Music] we built the 440s camera [Music] it does now [Applause] [Music] that was a good one yeah [Music] pretty good gotta be honest uh we've got major problems we have a fire fire fire still burning quick battery disconnect it's electrical yeah the issue here is all day we've been fighting with this dollar fifty toggle switch that would never work right and it was shutting on shutting off causing running problems and everything and now it caught us on fire and it's overheating because the fan didn't work [Music] [Music] welcome to the pacific northwest it's very wet here picked a convertible for that reason dude this is cool i like this a lot me too this looks like we did it but better hmm maybe not that much better this is pretty nice actually like i don't feel threatened by it the doors don't open that makes sense i guess we'll be doing this for a week this is a nash metropolitan yeah it's a 56 nash metro on a 78 toyota truck chassis stretched a foot plus and it has a 88 thunderbird super coupe 2.3 like pinto motor with a turbo on it and the t5 speed oh it's so weird i love it it is i saw it i was immediately like this is roadkill the floor is wood whoa dude that floor is plywood you're not kidding and sit down because your head is going to be above this really yep oh yeah i'm looking at a roll bar ariel henderson's i don't know i like it wait look where the pedals are dude my feet are under the pedals wait a minute and the steering wheel's off-centered well what'd you expect it's a toyota truck frame with a national metropolitan body on it oh yeah you're right what was i thinking this is how it's supposed to be right will it run it's priceless let's find out that super coop fuel injected yeah runs good ignition aha fuel pump you need fuel pressure for fuel injections there we go ooh not bad [Music] i like it it's cute it's about all i can say about it i like it does it have seat belts oh yeah it has racing harnesses let's go to california let's go all the way one time in my life where i wish god was my co-pilot no offense dave but this is sketchy i'm pretty good but not that good i i can't decide whether to duck down under the bar to see or just harry into henderson's over the bar yeah and go [Music] it's kind of spunky oh it's funky dude the thing that takes some getting used to is the brake pedal legitimately 12 inches off the wood floor yeah so you go for it and you realize oh no wait i got to go up uh-huh i see that 1169 miles in this yeah we can make it this sucks which part the smoke yep it's bad we need to break clean it and get rid of the oil okay surprise we're broke down um it's raining we can't drive any further there's way too much oil smoke it's filling what would be the cabin of the car but there's ironically there's no roof and yet we're still suffocating it's physics we've got a bunch of brake parts cleaner we're going to try to get the oil off the front of the motor if dave will get out of the car tag team it and then hit the road and go to the hotel see the problem is we can't see where the oil is leaking from it all seems like it's in the front i think it's the front seal you want me to fire it up you can look uh now i'll do that i'll get in the car into the thing for you let me know how it goes all right little does he know that i'm now gonna like catch an uber out of here oh yeah has a really bad hard starting problem too battery's not dead starter just isn't happy no it can leak oil if it doesn't run it's got to be better we can just drive [Laughter] he goes from let's fix it too let's just drive it's got to be fixed right fixed we were doing so good [Music] hey i just noticed we have no wipers you just noticed that yeah you tell me if there's no cars coming i'll try to pop start it in reverse there's no cars coming [Music] hop it why aren't you popping it i did you couldn't tell you can do it this is uphill any time now wow we're not really going fast enough yes we are okay ready yes oh that's all you get okay downhill ready you really want to go backwards why not okay i like the party [Music] we're about to get really wet yep does this do burnouts i bet it does oh yeah it does do burnouts there we go this is one of our sketchier things ever yeah i hope there's tread on these tires well think of it this way the tire will have less traction on the fender so it won't pull the left as much oh good that's what i was hoping for how can the window fog up there's no wind there's no roof i don't understand this [Music] all right turn one here we go i'm in third gear he's coming off the circle track he's on the return road going into the pits all right here we go trash can number one trash can number two there he goes number three yeah he said he's gonna clutch kick it around the pole oh that fumble can't get that so [Music] he's stepping it up now [Music] here he comes down the straightaway here we go last turn all right i got to pay attention to stopping him he's got to come to a stop and cross the finish line oh tired of smoking boom that was so fun one minute 1403 for finnegan i really think they should make the finish line of every motor sport including nascar a stop box you imagine that

Channel: MotorTrend Channel

Views: 607,673

Keywords: motortrend, motor trend, motor trend channel, automotive, auto, roadkill, junkyard cars, junk cars, roadkill full episodes, motortrend full episodes, motortrend+, motortrend on demand, motortrend plus, roadkill junkyard, junkyard rescue, junkyard gold

Id: MD-QE9fvRZs

Length: 18min 54sec (1134 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 23 2022