Rescuing An ABANDONED 1981 Trans Am! Will It Run and Drive After 18 Years?

let me cross these wires over and see if something happens which it may not even fire so this here is an 81 trans am this thing is a one owner car special ordered and it has been sitting since like the early 2000s 2003 to be exact been sitting for that long and where was it at was it at their house is that their house just waiting to be revived one day oh it's a is it a four speed it is i had no idea it was a four-speed four speed it's got the power windows that power locks too t-tops you get all the great options very original car mileage shows seven thousand that's probably a hundred seven thousand been rolled over but uh everything is all there and intact but our goal is uh we're trying to help get this thing to run just to see if the engine is okay it hasn't been running and well it's been off the road since 03 so it's been at least 17 years that we know of but we're going to try and get this engine to run put a hot battery in it real quick get fuel to it and check a couple things on it the starter wire is disconnected it's been chewed in half but we're gonna try and make this thing run real quick so first we need to jack it up reconnect that wire and see if it'll turn over by a key yeah i didn't know it was a four speed that's awesome that makes it even better because that yeah it's like this thing's gonna be automatic and it's gonna be the transmission's gonna be shot but no if it's a four-speed that'd be really cool um might be hard to see oh yeah they're they're in two it's in two pieces while he's checking that i'm gonna check and make sure we have oil in the engine itself dipsticks over here and looks good it's full so that's a good sign at least doesn't smell like gas so that's another good sign apparently this engine had 300 miles on it before it got shut down i don't know why it was parked did we know i was parked uh shifting issue oh okay so that transmission might come back to bite us then but anyway the engine's supposed to be good it's not the original engine and i'm not very well versed in the gm world but i just know that it supposedly is not the original engine i know that's a that's a therma oh gosh it's a quadrajet i'm trying to talk about chrysler's here but yeah drew's already put you said you put a cap on it and then plug wires already but he has not attempted to turn it over because of that wire issue so we got a hot battery in there as well and once he gets that done i'm excited to see if this thing can actually spin over because if that's the case it's going to make our lives a heck of a lot easier so i just made the most rigged way of hooking up a battery cable or to the starter for the power wire and it's terrible so it's probably going to burn down and i hope not do we have anything to like put a fire out yeah i got at least two fire extinguishers okay i actually i just made a the the problem is that the power wire for the the starter is actually chewed in half so i took a jumper wire and just twisted the ends together on each end so it's really not that great i'd show you but it's there's no space in there either so really hard to see so i'm hoping that this thing doesn't blow up when we try it but this is a brand new battery somebody's rigged up a new battery cable for us that makes things a lot easier so drew's got the fire extinguisher we'll hook up both cables and see if it'll at least bump over that's the door buzzer yeah listen i guess that's a good thing that's pretty cool that still works i bet the dome light works too set it on there let me see if it comes along no lights inside but we do have a a buzzer we'll just uh just bump it and see if anything happens at all nothing at all so i reconfigured our wiring showing what we did drew so i got power we have power to the battery and now when we cross this little wire over here that sounds so weak it is an awful starter sound but it spins over so now we can at least maybe we can check for power to the uh the plugs let's do that just to make sure we're you know taking all the yes work out of it so we'll pull a plug out and then spin it over and see if there's power getting to it all right drew's going to hold that spark plug there and i'm going to cross these wires fingers crossed this thing actually does have spark ready go ahead [Applause] look at this yeah it's hard that one's orange [Laughter] take that gas and then we'll pour just a little bit in the primaries you're going legit i literally just i think i can't just dump it in there i don't trust myself i have gas everywhere i haven't caught on fire for a long time i hate those they're so annoying i bought one fancy one from royal king yeah they're junk too are they i hate them to pour gas in you got to be like way up here because that next this long yeah just wish you could you can't before gas anymore it's not easy all right i ain't gonna put a little bit in there just in there yeah a little more you wanted it's probably good enough to see a little fire so the chick sees he's he's on something all right i'm gonna cross the starter over and see if something happens with it i don't know it's just like i lost a good connection down there at the starter let's see i'll tell you what uh let me just roll back up under there and try and reconnect it again because that's what fixed it i unconnected it and then reconnected it so he isn't on position if you can put that battery cable me cross these wires over and see if something happens which it may not even fire [Music] hey not please of fuel that wasn't bad no it didn't i'm surprised it didn't that easy well if that's the worst that we have to do to make this thing run then let's let's see if we can make it odd at least we'll hook up that uh because i'd get out of there pretty quick let's hook up our stick up our fuel jug and then get actual good fuel going to it i don't know what's going on with this car so whenever i actually cross the wires so i'm sending power to the starter it'll work so that's why i'm having to crawl under the car so i thought maybe let's try to be a little safer and run a jumper wire that's why i have my wires sitting up here i had it run into power and what i was doing i twisted it down at the starter twist the two wires together and then just sent power to the battery it worked every time we tested it it would work as soon as we go to start it we turned the key over it quit working and now it'll do is just spark no idea why the starter still works that's why i had to crawl under to actually make it fire but uh what we're going to do is fill up our gas jug and actually hook it up to our quadrajet here get it full of fuel into the bowl and maybe it fired up and ran so i'm pretty hopeful at that point but uh i don't know what's going on with the starter i know the comments are gonna blow up telling me that i'm being stupidly dangerous i gotta agree with you so anyway it runs at least i'm gonna disconnect my fuel line we had already disconnected our fuel pump and it does work we found that out the hard way is that a lot of phillips yeah phillips that'll work and we found that out the hard way because our fuel pump started dripping there's no hose clamps on this thing is that normal is that a gm thing i've never seen that before where there's zero hose clamps anywhere i was able to just pull the hose off of the pump itself how's it going it's trying i'm not trying hard enough i guess that's the ticket right there i love these things there we go break this up there's no flare on me with that i think they might replace that line there going to the oh yeah pump the flat head real quick i said i couldn't there we go yeah i pulled this off my maverick before i come over here because i got it to run but we know that the fuel pump works so you can use it at least just rig it up to like an external tank and then run a run the fuel pump you'll have to do something with the return oh you can talk about the center unit tank no the fuel pump down here oh okay gotcha it actually works so you can use it you'll just have to figure out what to do with the return well i'm not what about the electronic fuel pump you'd bypass that okay you bypass it all together you can get a block off it's not expensive you guys know the deal we've got our electric tank running in here got our inline filter fuel pump running right into our quadrajet so now once we send power to it we should hear the bowl should be dry i would assume there's our ground we should hear the fuel pump engage once it gets quiet like that that means our bowls are full so we will shut it off just for right now just for the testing purposes of it all so if it does catch fire at least run out of fuel but here we go we'll see if it'll idle all right here comes the danger is the key we have the key on let me pump the throttle a couple of times oh we got accelerator pump no weight that's hot that's like something you don't ever see that's pretty wild and it's not even leaking either the accelerator pump whenever we whenever i hit the throttle it's squirting gas you know it actually works and isn't leaking so that's a good sign you might be able to actually hear it idle and rev up a little bit all right wish me luck [Music] [Music] right here [Music] hey come back here look what shot out of the mufflers sounds pretty good my lifters are a little noisy but might have to beat the trash in it or something you'll see if it'll go in gear put it down in gear see if something happens i don't want to go in here oh no brake pedal does it go to the floor at least it's not stuck they didn't go to a full wheel hey cut it off before we get it too hot that's pretty awesome i'm surprised that it idled like that that's hard to actually do and especially not have any well we gotta connect to it we got a leak right here i think that was some of this stuff oh yeah yeah you're right you're right i seen it earlier and i was looking it was dripping out that old hose yeah well we can do you want to try and drive it or do you want to wait no matter whatever you think we can try just to see what happens i don't know how you get under there i don't either that's going to go get some water yeah that's whatever you want to do we might wait until we can try and rig up something better as far as like starting it it'll fix those wires one yeah and then once we do that then we can that that way we can start and shut it off if something were to happen to and we shut it off way out there in the middle of the field we wanted to crawl up under it to start it again but it's okay just for testing purposes at least dang that was that was easy it was one of the easier ones i've had to do so they've got these fancy little power window switches here i'm gonna try and see if this one will go down that's all i'm doing we'll try the other side i'm not going any further but they at least work that's pretty cool it's been a couple months since we last talked to drew with the trans am and since then he's done quite a lot of work to it he's actually replaced all the fuel lines fixed all the brakes on it and uh i went over one time since then and figured out and we were both working on it got it to actually turn over with a key turns out that the ignition switch on the column was bad so we fixed that got it adjusted properly and uh he's got the steering wheel back all together and now hopefully we can drive this thing out of the shot he's uh he set it up and waited for us to get there and this may be the fateful day finally i drop i brought the challenger over for a little inspiration for him because i i thought he'd like to see it so uh what we're gonna do is set these two side by side and get a really cool picture but anyway i'm excited to see what this thing can do i said it's got good oil pressure and everything's running all right there she is trans am drew's been working hard on her we've got uh brand new spark plugs plug wires oil change under the hood full of antifreeze a hot battery and you can see over here we've got a brand new master cylinder all the the brakes are good on this thing we've got an oil pressure gauge to make sure she's healthy we'll check that once it starts running uh what else you've you've put a new fuel tank in it too let's take a look at that whole purpose of this is uh going to efi i'm going to go for a phi tech efi he did a 3 8 supply 3 8 return on the inside the whole issue that we were having if you remember earlier we were having an issue where i had to cross the wires out at the starter turns out it just ended up being that ignition switch on the top of the column and when we changed it properly adjusted it everything actually works and now you can start it with a key so drew if you want to do the honors we're going to see if this thing will actually go and move at this point [Music] he had it idling earlier so it's warm but that's good oil pressure right there that's probably like 35 psi warm yeah it did get a lot quieter it's really quiet now first time it sounds pretty rowdy out back [Music] drop her in gear see how this thing goes hey that's one brake light that's all we need [Music] it looks good outside don't it and [Music] hard to beat this body style trans am this is kind of nerve-wracking i'm not gonna lie i'm so excited to see if this thing can drive we've got first gear and brakes [Music] all right oh i can't wait clutch a little chattery yeah drew's got a brand new clutch for this thing let me cut doughnuts in this field here soon on it right now the second gear yes look at that how are the brakes very sketchy that's third gear right there we got any speedometer no ah we don't need to know that's fine it's all about the glamour shots is it running hot no it ain't been over where it's at right now that's fourth gear right there drives pretty good it really does wow i'm just amazed that this thing sat for 18 years and that quadrajet is not stumbling it's not breaking up no issues at all that's actually impressive [Music] oh yeah it's a little heavy [Music] probably the biggest hood hinges i've ever seen in my life i think this is the first time i've ridden a trans amp i've never ridden one got the t-tops whistling that's how you know you're doing it right i get a lot of people like these things though they're pretty easy to find with the four speed in it i've seen a lot of these cars ever since you started working on this thing [Music] so yeah you can hear that quadratic moan [Music] that's pretty awesome to sit that long [Music] what we gotta charge an alternator that's a good sign yeah it's charging at 15. maybe it won't leave us stranded no fuel gauge we don't need that though [Music] i have five i didn't realize that [Music] i don't think i've had one run this smooth sit that long really no i guess i should start working on [Music] pontiacs [Applause] [Music] [Music] oh god [Music] so you just took all that abuse now it's looking like a proper transam got mud on dirt all over it yes look at that this thing is awesome i want to trans am so bad now well that's a wrap on the 81 trans am uh we've had a lot of good luck with this one this is a rare one where you actually can take it out and have some fun immediately drew did a lot of good work on this thing and he's going to continue to do good work for it what they're going to do now is actually take this thing to the body shop and completely repaint everything and then drew's going to bring it back here finish out the brakes and then run that new phytec system so it's pretty much set up and ready to go but drew's going to have some more fun with it in the meantime so uh if you like this video please leave a like down below if you have a question for me feel free to leave a comment order your t-shirts and your stickers and hopefully if you guys stick around we can do a lot more stuff like this thanks again and i'll see you next [Music] you

Channel: Dylan McCool

Views: 376,712

Keywords: dodge, ford, chevy, plymouth, gmc, motor trend, roadkill, hot rod, revival, abndoned, rescued, restoration, rebuild, first start, old start, cold start, 1320, cleetus macfarland, drag race, ls swap, ls1, challenger, charger, dart, demon, hellcat, redeye, helephant, d100, d150, ram, chevelle, nova, c10, camaro, mustang, f100, f150, car, truck

Id: gOK0IB7E0xE

Length: 28min 52sec (1732 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 26 2021