Restoration Blog: August 2016 - Jay Leno's Garage

welcome Emma so dove Jay Leno's the garage this is another one of our restoration blogs we do these every Oh five or six months or so people seem to like them we tell you about a project with working on projects that were in the back burners have come forward and projects you kind of put on the back burner they were working on the last time we're here but I want to show you something really amazing you might remember a while ago we shot a video with a 1913 Christi front-wheel drive fire inch and here it is here here's the vehicle yeah it's pretty neat it's a 20 liter four-cylinder engine well being 100 years old and driving it parts wear out things break and what happened was a rod came through the side of the block and blew a hole well bigger than my head actually and my head is pretty big I mean actually actually put my head in the hole you know so we figured well this thing is toast where we going to get another block there's a way to fix that there's a company called locking stitch this guy Gary Reed invented this process and it's pretty cool let me show you basically what it is now take a look at this piece of metal here okay can you see this block now watch when I loosen that okay what he does is he stitches the metal threading it you put these in well here here's a finished piece you see then you clean it up afterwards and it's stronger than original well another stronger but certainly as strong and and it's pretty amazing because I had an Indian motorcycle crankcase it was all cracked and if we tried to weld it we would have warped the case because this to precision said and we didn't know what to do when we contacted Gary and he fixed it for us and he can fix just about anything in fact they're doing the Capitol dome in Washington that's all old cast-iron and by stitching it all together like this see that boom yeah I mean it's it's it's it's pretty cool it's pretty amazing let me show you the stitching job he did on the engine block because if you have a block especially a rare one like a Bugatti or delahaye or something of this nature or even a just a regular Chevy v8 or four block that has some sentimental value or it's the original ones of the car and you put a rod through the side of it he can fix it take a look at this okay here is the engine block as you can see the sneeze is massive hey guys this is where the hole was right here rod came through there and well here's a piece that it blew out this it in there like that and you go how do you fix something like this well this has all been stitched there's no heat so there's no warpage it's really an amazing process if you've got a rare piece of metal especially cast iron I'd imagine he can do it on aluminum 12 the crankcase is aluminum yes yeah so it works out anytime metal but look it I mean it's not amazing you can't even tell what you can because it's cleaner but look at this look at this line along here this is the piece that blew out and that's the new metal it's put in he also fixed the similar to forest as well same thing just goes to show that any old piece of iron can be can be fixed using some of these new processes but but a check it out it's called walking stitch and it's it's pretty amazing you know we we love to do things like this for companies we we don't charge them it's not an advertisement we just like to help out guys in the Hobby because when you've got something like an engine block that's got a hole in it what do you do you might find another one but and it's not the original motor it decreases the value of the vehicle and all that kind of stuff whereas we can bring something back is 100 years old and make it as good as new just using this well it's not a simple process but it's pretty clever come on let's go look at some of the other stuff we've been recommissioning a lot of the motorcycles this is a 1923 brough superior SSAT fantastic bike to ride these are brough sand you all probably saw the Indian before and a brough I've had for 35 years is up on the stand right now this is a bike that has just needed a total rebuild and that's what we've been doing to it come on I'll show it to you this is George Swift you might know him as George with the steam mechanic will always become brough superior mechanic this is a bike I bought in the guide the mid 80s and I just drove it and drove it and just it wasn't in very good shape then but it's these things are pretty bulletproof we decided to just go through and do everything right now yesterday I shot some cell phone video because George moves very quickly as you can see he's got the thing almost assembled already so let me show you some of that here's the timing gears doing the cam timing on it it's kind of what it looks like a part is a cylinder head this is the Magneto and the Dino George is setting that up and this is going to be incredibly fast bike when it's done you probably saw it up on the lift the last time we did a we did the restoration rock this one here is a 1966 harley-davidson Sportster ch the CH was the high performance model it has been made into a chopper not by me and we're going to put it back to original so that's that should be an interesting project and this one over here is the 66 BSA 650 scrambler remember the ads called this the hot one back in the day it was a pretty nice bike but had been sitting in Florida for years and years you probably saw it in the last restoration blog we did one it's all assembled we're just taking everything apart slowly and sending stuff out to the chrome shop and just slowly taking our time with this one another vehicle that we've been working on was my cunningham come on i'll show you that this is our 53 cunningham we put the engine in since the last time you saw it Jimmy has completely reconditioned the grille which was no easy feat look at this beautiful piece of artwork here yeah bring it over here very cool look at that and makes a fine barbecue too you just can use it as a grill then for the bank in the car but yeah you know I always get a kick out of these I thank you that's great I always get a kick out of these shows where guys restore a car in two weeks you know it can't be done this thing is it's probably going to be a year year and a half but it's coming along let me show you the interior we've got the rugs in and a lot of the interior I love these gauges any car I don't need to wear my glasses to see the speedometer because the numbers are so huge is fine with me but you know when you're doing a project like this you put it together then you got to take it apart together apart just to get everything to fit you know you've got to put take doors on and off a half a dozen times just to shim everything and make sure it's proper but we're getting there we're getting there and of course you know the number one rule is don't start a new project you finish the old project well that's a rule we break all the time around here because stuff just comes up that's too cool like right behind it this is a 1971 mercedes benz 3.5 you know I got a soft spot for these cars because I used to work for mercedes-benz when I was a young man and this is the last of the coachbuilt mercedes-benz cars these 3.5 coupes and convertibles I like the coupe a lot of people like convertibles they get more money but I just like the rigidity of the coupe and it's a one on a car 80,000 original miles doesn't appear to have been damaged there's no rot there's no rust in it rather but because it was in Nevada for a long time the leather was pretty much cracked and gone but we're replacing that it runs fine it needs a few thing you know with what you deal with mercedes-benz want to show you something okay now these are the two knobs that go on the air conditioner okay see those fit right there on the air conditioner and this plants and the plastic is all correct so I said well let me call I'll order a couple of knobs how much you think these two air conditioning arms are there four hundred ninety dollars a piece it's an air conditioner now so through the miracle 3d printing we're making our own knobs on the 3d printer will machine a little stainless steel piece to put in there and you won't be able to tell a difference in the cost that's about five bucks apiece something like that so just don't tell Mercedes pants 3d printers will save the world now I'm going to show you something really incredible something that has been sitting here for a while and we finally made some real progress on it come on I'll show you if you saw the last restoration blog you probably saw this car this is our 1921 Benz Mercedes not a Mercedes Benz this is a 1908 mercedes chassis with a Benz one of those big grass zeppelin aero engines in it this car ran at Brooklyn in 1921 it went 113 miles an hour which doesn't sound like a lot but you go out at 30 Wells darling this thing it's pretty scary a massive engine look at the size of these Pistons look at this I mean good god it's about it was it 18.8 liter something like that big massive six-cylinder now I'll tell you the problem with this car it ran but water always leaked out of it coolant leaked out of it because you had these handmade steel water jackets and porosity and year you know almost over a hundred years of neglect they tend to rust away and it's a huge deal to replace them that's what I was able to buy this card I think anybody whatever wanted to try to tackle the job of hand making water jackets for that but that's what we've done here and we finally got it come on I'll show you what we're doing well these are the soldiers off the Benz Mercedes as you can see there's no similar to head it's all one piece easy to get to the combustion chamber you've got to go up through the bottom it's a bit like going to the proctologist to get dental work done you know you can't do anything from the top you got to go into the bottom and what this had was had these steel water jackets around here see and then the coolant would flow around here and cool the cylinders when as you can see after a hundred years or rusted they got holes in them they probably didn't see a lot well in the first place so we took on the challenge of making new ones and the guys have just done a terrific job Jimmy is our metal man and let me let me show you what he's done this is pretty amazing come on hey Jimmy how you doing this is Jimmy our metal guy he's just done an incredible job as you can see he's made these water jackets out of brass and it's it's really amazing so tell us what's involved here basically we're doing James were stripping off the old sheet metal which was made out of steel which rotted and you know went really bad right wasn't intended to last that long and we're making replicating the whole thing out of brass sheet now and we're silver braising it onto the original Siller so here we've got a naked one that we're prepping right and grinding it clean and then we're making the pieces from scratch again and templating everything which that's what this is here right and then we'll take that transferred all the brass and then braise it back on the cylinder after cylinders clean now this is the original metal on this one correct original student that's the original steel and it's cleaned up but you can see there's some rust holes and lots of repairs and when we get this together we're going to use our Evans coolant in it that's that non water-based cool and so this will never rust again and the way these work is these are right together and then there's an o-ring the fits here oh there you go Oh ring goes in between like that and that seals it and then a clamp goes around here I'm glad this is not a v12 or it'd be another 50 years ago I get to think that but yeah hey cuz when these were built they weren't expected to last that long I imagine 100 steel not at a steel so so cool so anyway hopefully this will last more than another hundred years oh yeah and but as you can see Jimmy does beautiful work and once this is all really cleaned up it's it's it's it's it's it's pretty amazing I mean it shows you how much hand labor was involved back in the day and today - yeah so then we're replicating everything we're having to make our own dies right and everything to make all the markings the rolls in and even these are hand machine here yeah you know I got a Bernard here machine doll all new headings for us here we go show all the money sit right here yeah that even the infinities to go to the radiator so we're doing everything from scratch oh yeah oh this is gonna be a great engine when it's done this thing is gonna be just just why when you up net hood it's gonna look like oh you know pretty cool should we want to throw it back huh yeah maybe yeah maybe leave the hood off soon okay Jimmy thanks I'll let you go back to work come on I'll show you some more stuff notice the vehicle I've had for a long time this is a chain drive Frazier Nash a very rare car especially here in America most of them don't really leave England you know they always say that the cosmetics are harder to do than the mechanicals but in this case it was the exact opposite because the body was pretty straight actually we've painted it we've done the wheels the brakes everything the interior there's no engine right now the engine next door this engine was well it was just pretty beat up but it's a very special engine six cylinder one 1/2 liter Blackburn twin cam if it said Bugatti on would be a million bucks but it's just a great great motor and I'll show you what we what we had to do with it we have make a new crankcase for it this was the well here come on I'll show you Oh before I show you the engine for the Fraser Nash here is uh some more of that number I said a rod came through the side of the block of that 1913 Christie as you can see it bent the rod look at that look what it did here and look at the size of that piston look at the flywheel oh my god we've got to make new connecting rods and do the whole bit but we'll get it then okay here's the head for the Fraser Nash it is a Hemi head a little heavy there I see there's the block there - 2 valve per cylinder twin cam as I said 1.5 liter come out of the engine room ok this is the original crank case for the Fraser Nash it looks okay until you look inside it's a crack runs here to here here to here now we started this before we knew about locking stitch so we just decided you know integral part of the motor if this lets go you lose everything so let's just make a new crank case so what we did was we made a brand new crank case from scratch come on I'll show you well this is a brand new crank case which is pretty exciting what happened was Jim hall a fabricator he scanned the original remember we do we send it to where it went to a foundry that did a an investment cast they made a clay or a a porcelain mold of it right on cast and then casted from that so aluminum casting yeah and what Bernard is doing here as well puts it to machining for seal yeah we're born to the front hole a lot larger so we can put a seal and a seal but we'll have something that's brand-new won't leak won't crack the biggest fear with that one is you put it back together and Road flex and yeah and it's got so many cracks in it yeah leaks in it start you run out of oil and boom the loose end but it's almost impossible to repair yeah yeah I mean but not impossible that's it that's just he worthless impossible now Bernard you might remember Menard won the sidecar championships not long ago he might remember I went for ride in his sidecar on Jay Leno's Garage here's a clip from that this is like nothing I've ever driven Oh gravel in your face what's more fun than that well what happened was it caught fire it burned to the ground didn't it it did yeah errantly last April last April we'll show you some of the remains of that wreckage but from the ashes the Phoenix has arisen and but now I've made a brand new one and what come on we'll show you I'll show you here we go come on it's just the old chassis do you have to put a lot new pieces in it no this is the original chassis okay I got burned opted yes in pretty good shape so we basically cleaned it and sand black little bead blasted it right okay we're ready to go back together and this is a brand-new a brand-new shell here in it I have a new shell coming out of Canada yeah that's going to go on to that chest oh this one's not going on there this one goes on pump today well that one goes on that one okay oh that's the one that burned up but this is the one you built since that's my replacement yeah this is a replacement one okay that's just my my right for the year okay well let's show you the one that burned up is that on back there yeah pretty ugly come on well this is the shell that caught fire have you seen not a good omen to put flames on the front of your vehicle yeah yeah it's probably doing that again now no more flames on the front because people guys that I'm firing up no just painted on yeah well as you can see luckily nobody got hurt and that's the important thing but pretty much toasted this and what did we lose just some wiring harnesses brake line stuff like that everything plastic rubber burning platform no problems on the wiring harness a lot of the engine pieces are gone this is self it burned all the epoxy out of the thing so all we got it left yeah well there you go don't over start all over come on let's go ahead and see what the other guys are working on come on they're doing their projects too it's kind of fun watching the guys work on their own projects this is Jim's Cortina you might remember this from the last time we checked in you're just doing some metal filling and whatnot now it's it's primered correct yeah no actually it's getting very very close to putting the paint on it so now it's the final sanding so we went through doing all the steel work so did all the fenders had a lot of help from some good friends now we're into using our lazarette primers yeah and now this is the final primer right so this is a polyurethane primer it's block sanded out a few little bits of fine tuning in the next couple of weeks we'll probably start putting paint on and the most amazing thing about this project I'd come in the other day and Jim's wife Rachel is actually sanding on the car as well which that never happens that's true love I mean when you get your wife David up that's fantastic and I said to her you know the second car will be easier and she gave me a dirty look but but anyway that's okay can we tip it up a little bit show them the underside you know I was going to notice people to say they did a frame-up restoration all I did was change the battery and putting the carburetor gasket on this is the classic definition of a frame-up restoration because there's really no frame essentially but from the bottom up we didn't the rotisserie it makes it easy to get underneath last night we found there is a little bit of an issue with this rocker panel yeah so we kind of had to step back and do some more work but still next couple of weeks can be ready for paint yeah pretty exciting and it's going to be the classic Lotus colors of white and green correct correct yeah is that like a Wimbledon white is that what it is it will let's see they call it ermine white okay but it's a lot like the Wimbledon what is on what Mustangs Yeah right exactly exactly the Greens supposed to be Sherwood green yeah yeah so yeah we think Robin Hood Robin Hood let's see what else we got well this is the 1914 Detroit electric this has kind of got put on the back burner while we did some other projects the Porsche 911 doing the Mercedes as you can see we've got some of the electronics involved but we haven't put the engine in so this has been kind of sidelined for about five months but we'll get back on this pretty soon but anyway that's a bit of an update for you the 911 I talked about earlier is back on the road but that's a little special I'm going to wait until we really do the motor and probably paint it before I show you that one but anyway so that's that's pretty much where we are right now and yes I'm wearing the same clothes and I haven't called my hair so see you next week

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 491,019

Keywords: jay, leno, garage, restoration, cars, vintage, Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, compares cars, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, car gear, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, Camaro Z28, jay leno garage, jay lenos garage, car collection, cnbc, episode, motorcycle, ford, corvette, tour, dodge, lexus

Id: qZUGghzkwVQ

Length: 22min 49sec (1369 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 08 2016