This time on Roadkill, we bring Stubby Bob back from the dead
for its most brutal road trip yet.
Whoo!
And we love it so much. But we killed it again.
[engine revs]
-[David whoops] -[Mike] Wow!
[theme music playing]
[David] Our greatest achievement is back.
It is Stubby Bob, our 1950 Ford F600 dump truck,
that we turned into a wheelie machine.
Now, it's been like ten years since I've even seen this run
and seven years since you did an episode.
The last time I saw this vehicle, it was doing wheelies
like just a bald eagle, and then crashing down,
well, like roadkill.
Splat, broke stuff, everything, bent the axle,
motor nearly fell out of it, drive shaft did fall out of it.
-It needs some things. [chuckles] -It does.
So, let's review the build here.
First of all, we shortened the thing.
See the wheelbase, how it's all dinky?
Second of all, we decided to put
a 454 big block Chevy in the back
with a Weiand 871 Supercharger.
- The transmission is a Gearstar 4L85... -[Mike] Hmm.
[David] ...and then it's got a V-drive.
So, the engine is pointing forward
and then the V drive sends the power backwards to the rear tires,
which is a stock axle.
In the front, it's just got like, a Speedway Gasser front axle,
- that's way too flimsy for the truck. -[Mike] Way too light for it.
-Yeah, shouldn't be doing wheelies with that. -Yeah.
But we're not trying to do wheelies this time.
-Nope. -Sand drag racing.
We want to take it on an adventure for this Roadkill.
We are driving 300 miles to Yuma, Arizona,
to try and sand drag this thing.
But there is some work that needs to happen first.
It has been sitting for seven years.
I'm guessing the carburetors are junk,
- the fuel tank is full of crud. -[Mike] Drive shaft's dented.
-Is it? Oh. -Yeah, oh, yeah. It's the same one,
-that fell out. -I didn't know that.
Yeah, it actually needs replacing.
Maybe look at the front axle.
Here's a fun fact to know and tell about Stubby Bob,
it was going to be in one of the Fast and Furious movies,
-and we dropped it off at their shop. -[Mike] Hmm.
And they made us a new motor plate
so the engine wouldn't fall out of it.
It ended up not being in the movies,
but, there you go.
[Mike] She's a pusher right now.
[David] Yeah. Yeah. Ready to push it in?
[Mike] Yes.
There.
I'm going to start by pulling the carburetors and rebuilding them,
not because we know they're garbage,
but because we know they've been messed with.
People have borrowed parts and stuff,
so, we just want to make sure that they're okay.
And I'm going to drain the oil,
and I'm going to cross my fingers
that there's actually oil to drain.
[David] We are working in the new and palatial Hot Rod Garage shop.
We no longer have our old shared shop.
And so now, we're turning this one
into a shared shop against their will.
[Mike] Carburetor coming off.
So, like, eight years ago, when we built this thing,
I bought a stainless steel beer keg,
welded a filler neck to it and a bung on the bottom
and turned it into our gas tank.
Well, the filler neck has been rusting for eight years.
Look at all this stuff on the end of that,
that's in our gas tank.
It's probably in our carburetors, too.
A lot of surprises here on day one.
Rust coming out of the fuel tank
and oil coming out of the fuel line,
from the electric fuel pump.
I've seen a lot of things, right?
Things that cannot be unseen.
This is new to me.
Oh, dude. Bob.
Here's 102 Holley carburetors.
You can see why I'm taking it apart,
because the needle and seat was totally loose.
I know they've been messed with.
There's the gasket, still usable.
Wow, there's no crud in this.
Also no crud.
There's really nothing wrong with this carburetor.
As a matter of fact, I'm even going to reuse the gaskets.
I don't know if the rear one's okay, but I'm guessing it is.
[Mike] I took apart every fuel line in the entire fuel system
and they're all junk.
And when I look down in the tank,
it's just way worse than I thought it was.
And I tried to hose that with brake cleaner.
It's not coming out.
So I'm going to do what I don't want to do,
which is remove the keg from the truck.
Basically, I'm separating the heart of the beast,
taking it out, going to do surgery out in the parking lot.
Clean it as best I can, then put it back in
and then we're going to have to build all new hoses.
Ugh, look at the chunks coming out of there. Dude.
I always wondered when we wheelied Stubby Bob,
whether this was ever gonna hit the ground.
And it comes really close when all six wheels are off the ground.
If you watch the video, this comes real close, but doesn't actually hit.
Gravity...
was the only thing that stopped that truck
from rolling over backwards.
[David] Carburetors are done.
The only thing I found wrong was,
the power valve gasket was slipped off the side of one of them.
[clatters]
Perfect. I'm starting to re-figure out the linkage here.
I dropped a little tiny spacer,
but watch this.
That is stuck.
So it's going to take a little fiddling.
[Mike] Right now, what I'm actually doing
is removing the drive shaft because this tried to fall out
of the truck the last time Tony Angelo and I wheelied it.
And, uh, this banged around in here
and never got actually repaired.
It just got put back in there.
So that groove is gonna b the weak point.
And when we go sand drag racing,
and we do pop a wheelie with max traction,
that's where this is gonna break.
Drive shaft coming up.
[David] I'm trying to measure for the right U-joint.
But it looks like this yoke has been ground on.
The little tangs that hold the joint
from sliding side to side are gone.
So I don't know how successful this is going to be.
[Mike] This is strange. I just took the spark plug out
and uh, it looked great. It wasn't even rusty.
Bob just wants to go. Bob's ready.
We might not even fix the bent front axle,
so we may just hit the road here.
Bob has very sticky throttle linkage.
[Mike] Oh, well, we should probably fix that then.
Yeah.
That's as far as it goes.
[Mike] That's not even close.
Secondaries are just barely cracking open.
We'll still be able to get this to run today.
We just wouldn't have wide open throttle.
And that's no fun for racing.
Okay.
It's not hitting inside the blower
because it would lift up.
We would see the carburetor moving.
-[Mike] Well... -Now we've got wide open.
I think that a butterfly was hitting
the inside of the carb adapter on the blower,
and we just moved the carburetor a little bit.
-But... -If you push hard enough, you get there.
-But does it stick open? -Yeah.
[David] It's hanging up on that thing pretty hard.
What a stupid thing.
Oh, we're still fiddling around here.
It looks like this throttle position sensor is giving us the problem.
So we're gonna start to modificate it.
[Mike] This bracket that's holding our throttle position sensor
has this little ear right here.
And if you swing it over just enough,
it contacts the throttle linkage
and you can't go wide open.
So I'm going to go cut this off.
Baby steps.
[David] We solved the problem with the TPS sensor
by moving the bracket underneath another bracket.
Uh, it's complicated, but it works now.
Okay. It's not perfect, but it's better.
[David] Our fuel tank is a beer keg.
And therefore we just put the fitting in the bottom
in order to gravity feed it.
And the big deal is that if we run the hose up
and come back down to go into this pump,
which is tempting, then it's asking the pump
to lift fuel, which they don't like to do.
That tends to burn them out.
So this convoluted nightmare is our new fuel system.
This is the outlet from our tank.
This is a ball valve to shut the fuel on and off
because this fuel filter is guaranteed to clog,
I'd say within 12.7 miles of us leaving here.
Because there's still rust and there's still junk
and there's still stuff in that tank
that we don't want to go into our fuel pump.
So the plan is to shut the fuel off,
take this apart,
clean out that fuel filter, put it back in
turn the fuel back on and keep driving,
over and over and over again until we reach Nirvana.
[David] The last hose is made.
We just need to install it, and then we fire it up.
[Mike] Oh, things are humming right along.
Gas tank is in, carbs are rebuilt.
Believe it or not, that Duralast battery's been in here
for at least three or four years.
[David] We're finally ready to crank it over.
-Hit it. -Here we go.
[engine spluttering]
-Smoke coming out. -[David] That seems like no spark.
[Mike] So right now, the truck won't start.
It cranks, but it doesn't fire.
Dave says we have no spark.
So I'm trying to figure out why the MSD box is not firing the ignition.
And also our COMPUSHIFT transmission controller is not powering up either.
Something is stopping us
from making noise.
[David] No spark.
Did you hear a squeak?
[David] You think stuff's coming apart?
Let's crank it really slow.
Let me check compression at every hole.
[Mike] Okay.
[engine spluttering]
Nothing here.
Mike's cranking it and this one's barely pumping.
Pretty weak.
The squeaking is getting louder.
[squeaking]
You're guessing it might be cranking slowly
because something inside the engine
-is not wanting to spin? -Yeah.
So after a whole lot of troubleshooting,
we have narrowed our problem down to poor wiring on my part.
We had wires running through the floor of the truck.
They rubbed on the sheet metal,
rubbed the insulation off of the wires,
which then grounded out our ignition wire,
frying our ignition box, I think.
And that's why we had no spark,
and it's likely we've destroyed
the ignition box as a result, so...
All right, now we're gonna go do troubleshooting by replacing.
So, the Draguar next door has the same ignition box on it.
We're gonna go steal that,
and cobble it in here and see if we've got spark.
Remember the Draguar?
This is the Roadkill project car
that's been around almost since the beginning.
It's an XJ12 with a 383 small block Chevy,
and a 671 Supercharger.
Kind of notice a theme going on here.
This has the ignition box that we need.
So I'm gonna scab that off here
and we're gonna put it on Stubby Bob, and hope that it works.
Got it.
I think we're ready to test.
[Mike] Used, new to us ignition box.
Transferred from one car to this car,
and I believe it is wired and...
Let's see if we have spark.
-Crank it. -Okay.
[David] Nothing.
Well, that's weird.
[David] Either we have two dead boxes or a dead coil.
We can try the screwdriver thing.
[David] Okay. Ready?
-[Mike] Yep. -[David] Here we go.
Nothing.
-[engine revs] -Nope.
Crank it.
No.
-[engine revs] -[David] Nothing.
-[engine revs] -[David] Still nothing.
All that work, and we've got no spark.
Oh, it's all coming back to me now.
Once upon a time,
Tony Angelo and I took a road trip in this truck
and the battery exploded while we were driving.
Whoa, whoa!
[Mike] And we had to rewire it and relocate it
at the side of the highway.
So, we bolted one battery cable to seven others
and one of the seven broke off,
and it just happened to be the one for the ignition box.
All day long,
changing boxes, changing coils. [chuckles]
Now we have actual hope,
because electrical systems like a complete circuit.
It's grounded now, and it's going to spark.
-Ready? -[Mike] Yep.
-[engine revs] -[David] Yes!
-We got spark. -[Mike chuckles]
And now, we put spark plugs in,
and we make violence happen.
It's gonna run.
It's definitely gonna run.
[David] Ooh, you, watching at home,
turn up the TV speakers,
because the neighbors are going to be upset.
In all the cranking,
we no longer have the weird squeak inside the engine.
We're ready to just fire this thing up.
[engine revving]
This hole has nothing going on.
Cold air pumping out of it.
Should we take the valve cover off?
-I mean... -Sure.
[Mike] It's got broken valve springs or something.
All right, let's find out if something is broken.
-Yes! [laughs] -[Mike] Oh, okay.
[David] Uh, we found a bent push rod
and a rocker arm that was completely loose.
Oh! That is record breaking right there.
[both laughing]
That's a keeper.
The good news for us is I think this has a hydraulic roller cam,
which means that the lifters are linked together in there,
probably with a spider, I would guess
and so it wouldn't have kicked the lifter
out of its hole, which would be bad.
How's that, intact?
[Mike] Not much oil up here.
[David] I noticed that, too.
[Mike] Yeah, that one had nothing.
[David] Yeah, that's weird. It ran for a while.
So, we just have no oil at the top end.
We can fire it up with the valve covers off.
[engine revving]
Might get all of them.
[David] Oh, I just started to get some on this one.
I think it's just taking forever
-because it's idling so low. -Yeah.
[Mike] Oh, well, that's a relief
because we-we did get oil up top.
So, I think at this point, if we can find the right length push rod,
to replace this pretzel, we're good.
In the meantime, though, this showed up.
I can install our drive shaft,
and given that I've probably lost
some of the hardware for that,
by the time this is actually in and bolted tight,
maybe we'll have a push rod and we can keep on trucking.
The drive shaft is in.
But, now we gotta make sure it stays in.
So, what I'm gonna do is take this eight inch thick strap,
cut a section of it about that wide,
tack weld it to the yoke on our rear differential,
so that the U-joint caps don't spit out the side of it
because you can get away with just doing wheelies like that.
But actually driving from LA to Yuma, Arizona, probably not.
We found a local machine shop, and strangely,
they didn't have the spaghetti push rod.
But they did have this straight one,
which will probably work better.
And it's the right length.
So, I'm going to put this thing back together.
Here's something that weirds me out a little bit,
is this engine has guide plates on it,
and you're supposed to only use
a hardened push rod with a guide plate.
And these are not.
But, they don't seem to be chewed up.
So, let's just put it together and pretend we didn't see that.
[Mike] Drive shaft is in.
U-joints are reinforced.
Pretty sure Freiburger is done putting a push rod in the motor.
Which means after I tighten this switch back down,
I think we can fire it up,
maybe throw some water in it and see if it moves on its own power.
Which is huge, because I have not driven
this truck in like, seven years.
We're gonna fire it up and attempt to put it in gear.
This is it.
Will it move? Come on.
[engine revving]
[Mike] Whoo-hoo!
[exclaims]
[Mike] Reverse.
Oh, it goes in reverse.
Brakes work.
And it goes in forward.
That's all we need. We're out of here.
-Yes! It works! -I'm gonna shut that off.
We get to go on a road trip with Stubby Bob.
[David] Wow, that was great.
I think that cylinder works now.
Yes, it does.
There was hot, hot heat coming out of that.
[David] Stubby Bob lives!
Whoo!
Tomorrow we ride. [claps]
[David] We're gonna hit the road
in this garbage tomorrow morning.
We're outta here.
We are driving 300 miles to Yuma, Arizona,
to try and sand drag this thing.
[Mike] I believe that's officially the furthest
this truck will have ever gone on a public highway.
-[David] Sounds right. -[Mike] Yeah.
-Ignition, fuel. -[Mike] Yep.
[engine revving]
[David] We are doing it. We're moving.
Well, we're out of the shop now.
-[Mike laughs] -[David] It's official.
[Mike] Drive. Oh, it's official now.
We're going forward.
[laughs]
[David] Oh, here we go.
[laughing]
The trans is not shifting.
Yeah, and the front end is uh,
darting all over the place.
[David] So, the toe is all out.
Hey, it wants to pull right really badly.
This is sketchy.
[David] So not freeway ready, I guess.
[Mike] Definitely not freeway ready. Okay.
[David] We're going straight back?
-Want to get gas first? -[David] Yeah.
[Mike] Good news, we're out of the shop.
Less good news,
the truck's gonna kill us if we drive it on the highway.
This wheel has a bunch of positive camber.
The top of the tire is sticking out.
Both tires are toed in,
maybe a little more than they need to be,
but uh, it's darting all over the place.
It almost feels like it has a combination death wobble,
and if you let go of the wheel,
it wants to turn right.
[David] It looks way worse than it did inside the shop.
We're headed back.
That pipe's not smoking anymore.
Oh, good. So either, it stopped firing
or it melted everything out.
Uh...
I think we clogged our fuel filter.
[laughs]
-Okay. -[laughs]
[engine spluttering]
[David] it's running on pump shot. That's it.
-[Mike] Yeah. -Our electric fuel pump is running,
but obviously there's no gas in the carburetors.
We're thinking we already clogged the fuel filter.
[Mike] Okay. Ah!
-Oh, dude. -Oh!
-[David laughs] -[Mike] I swear, I cleaned this tank out.
I mean, I knew there was stuff in there,
but I didn't expect that much stuff.
Hey, I got an idea.
Why don't we just turn the ball valve
and dump this into a pan and flush
whatever's left in here with the junk fuel that's in there?
[David] That would be pretty good.
[Mike] Oh, so much rust coming out.
It's Thursday.
We're supposed to be in Yuma, Arizona,
300 miles from here tomorrow night.
We still have to go back to the shop
because after we get the fuel system right enough
to drive three blocks,
then we have to go put a new front axle in this thing
because it won't go down the highway safely,
let alone a sand dragstrip.
[David laughs]
[Mike] All right, back to the shop.
Three blocks. We can make it.
And we're up.
-Why are you swerving? -Wow!
-Huh? -Why are you swerving?
It's bad.
[Mike] Can't stop that.
[David] We made it.
[Mike] Whoo-hoo.
Perfect.
[David] See that right there?
There's the death wobble.
In fact, the shaft going through the frame rail
is wiggling in the frame rail a little bit, I think.
[David] It looks like we have a lot to fix.
I want to get the thing on the lift,
so that we can really have an eyeball at it.
Here's our new axle from Speedway Motors.
It is for a gasser-type solid axle conversion.
And I didn't realize that
it says right here on the sticker,
it's for a "Chevy Spindle."
We're gonna reuse our spindle and brake assembly and everything,
and the king pin bushings are already in there,
so we don't have to hone or anything.
It's gonna fit pretty good.
This is the king pin,
and it goes in the end of the axle like this.
And it is the pivot upon which the spindle rotates,
so that you can steer.
[Mike] I feel pretty good about this actually.
Uh, the front end came apart easily.
We might just reweld new tabs
to go with our new axle mounts,
and, uh, we'll be back in business.
[David] Okay, measuring.
We're about to measure the toe angle of the front tires.
Sixty and an eighth.
[Mike] Okay, let's check the front one. I think we're there.
Three-sixteenth shy of 60.
-Good enough. -Yeah.
[Mike laughs] Done!
We are so close to hitting the road again.
And I don't know if we'll be successful,
but we're gonna put some ATF in the trans,
and go outside and find out.
[engine starts]
[engine sputtering]
-[engine roars] -[David] Whoa!
-It does wheelies, too. -[Mike] Yeah.
-The front end's a lot lighter now. -[laughing] I can tell.
On first gear!
Suspension's already better.
That's not shifting.
[indistinct]
-Whoa! -[laughs]
All right, that's second. Going good.
That's third.
That is fourth.
I wonder if the rear end is a bit low.
It must be.
What's happening here is that,
it's driving at 3,000 rpm on the street
at like... 35 miles an hour.
This has two-speed rear end.
And so, we're gonna try and shift it to a higher ratio.
[Mike] It's puking.
I bet we have an air pocket in this thing.
[David] Yeah, me too.
So, drive up and down the street
and see if you can put it in high gear?
I might've put it in neutral. I don't even know.
So, yeah, if you wanna jump in, I'll...
-[engine starts] -[Mike] ...stand back here.
[engine roaring]
[spluttering]
[Mike] The carburetors might not be happy now.
We clogged the fuel filter already.
[Mike] 299 and three-quarters miles to go.
[engine starts]
Apparently, I started it in here.
[Mike] It's like a phoenix, just rising.
Look at that thing.
-It looks incredible. -[engine roars]
[Mike laughing] Whoa! He did it. He did it.
[David laughing]
-[laughing] -[engine sputtering]
-That was epic. -[laughing]
Little baby wheelie.
And you think it's in high gear?
-[David] It's in low. -Still low.
-Yeah. -[Mike] Okay.
[David] First of all, we thought the two-speed rear end
was in the wrong gear.
I took it for it's test drive.
The thing is still dying. Like, the fuel filter is clogged again.
But none of that matters
because I popped a little wheelie.
-[laughs] -That big.
-That'll help! -[Mike chuckles softly]
-It did. -Oh! It did work.
-Thank you. -[laughs heartily]
I'm just gonna take my bow right now.
Whatever is in the bottom of that tank,
-it's settling on that pickup and just clogging it. -[David] Right.
We need to take it out one more time,
and clean it one more time.
[David] It needs the chain trick.
7:30. We've got an hour.
Let's do it.
[engine starts]
-[David] That already went to second gear. -[David] It did.
That's because the rear end is about an eight-eighteenth, the ratio.
Well, we've driven it half a mile, and I got to say
the steering is way better
than it was the first time we drove it,
so that's a win.
We went shopping, then they broke the news
that they are gating off the parking lot in, like, 20 minutes.
So, we got to get out of here.
I'm thinking that we're gonna hit a hotel somewhere locally,
-and probably fix this junk in the morning. -[engine starts]
[David] Yeah, right now we're at 2,500 rpm,
and we're in fourth gear.
[Mike] Oh, it's not right. I think we're going 60.
Well, I think we can get to the hotel like this.
[Mike] Okay.
Uh-oh.
-[David] Surging. -[Mike] Yeah.
We're running out of gas.
-Oh. -[engine whirring]
[spluttering]
[David] Uh... I guess, we roll through.
[Mike] I'm trying. [chuckles]
[David] Yeah, come on. Come on.
It tastes very much like antifreeze right now.
And we're out of gas.
And the transmission doesn't shift properly.
It's a rare moment on Roadkill.
We're admitting defeat.
We are one mile from our hotel.
And instead of wrenching here at the side of this busy road,
we're gonna have producer, Taylor,
haul us home with his rental junk.
See the yank strap?
[Mike] We'll fix it in the morning, you know.
Stubby Bob! Whoo!
I wonder if we're hurting the transmission by flat towing it in neutral.
-Nah! Everything's all right. -[chuckles softly]
We're not going that fast.
It can run dry a little bit.
[engine whirring]
[whirring stops]
-Oh. -Ooh!
What was that?
-[Mike] Gear "nirvana"? -What just happened?
I don't know, dude.
I'm afraid to even look down.
[David] This thing was making a gnarly noise rolling along,
and it just stopped.
[Mike] That was the V-drive that stopped making noise.
-[David] Really? -[Mike] Yeah.
It's not spinning.
[Mike] It's dead quiet, like right before a tornado hits.
[David] Yeah.
-[loud thud] -Oh!
-[laughs] -Did we just blow up our V-drive?
[David] Did we blow a drive shaft?
-[Mike] I know. -[David] Do you see where we're going?
-To the sheriff? -Yes.
-[chuckling] -We're directly in front of the sheriff's station.
Ace job bringing us right here, Taylor. [chuckles]
-[thudding] -[David] Oh, oh, oh. Easy on the bumper, Kojak.
Well, that happened.
We've got a lot of work to do tomorrow.
But for now, we're walking away.
We made it.
[David laughing]
[Mike] Good morning, Bob.
[chuckles] Good morning, Bob!
Great. We got some wrenching to do.
We're in the vacation wonderland of Carson, California.
-Last night, we had multiple problems with Stubby Bob. -Mmm-hmm.
So I think what we're gonna do first is
take our beer keg out of it,
and try and clean it out with that chain right there.
[Mike] So what the chain is gonna do is,
once it's in there, we'll take the keg,
put it on the lawn, roll it all over the place,
and the chain should slide around
and break up the rust.
Then hopefully, we can fill the thing with water and get all of it out.
-See. -[David] Ooh.
Look at that!
That is nasty.
It's getting better.
Good thing these guys let us use their hose.
This is key.
All of that work paid off.
It's really clean inside now,
which I say until we drive it,
and it loads the filter with crud again.
-But for right now, it's an upswing. -Dude, that is...
Wait till you guys see inside there.
We've got some cool camera
that'll put you right in there with us.
-And, uh... it's beautiful. - [David] Yeah.
-Absolutely beautiful. The chain, mmm, money. -[David] Good.
We're about to put the fuel system back together,
and then we've got a few more things to do. And remember,
we wanted to be in Yuma, Arizona... tonight.
And it's 295 miles from here.
We've accomplished about five miles,
and I think I'm actually being generous.
Ta-da!
Remember, last night, this thing was puking coolant all over the ground.
We weren't sure why. We didn't even troubleshoot it.
And right now, the radiator is about half empty.
There's probably air in the cylinder heads
that you can't displace just by filling the radiator.
And what happens then is it gets hot
because there's no coolant flowing across the metal.
- [engine sputtering] - [David] So, what we're gonna do
is park up on a hill, and fill the radiator.
And the theory is, with the radiator higher than the engine,
the bubble will work its way forward.
[engine sputtering]
-[David] I think we're good! -[Mike] How much went in?
-A lot. -[Mike] Oh.
Nice.
Now we're rocking.
-Much better. -I think so.
-That's still revving a lot. -Yeah.
You know what?
I think it would default to first or second
if there's something wrong.
So, maybe we're in second gear.
Maybe.
Maybe the shifter is not adjusted right either,
because it doesn't seem to go to park.
Maybe.
You smell it?
Yeah.
[David] I wonder if the fans are on.
Hey, our fuel system hasn't clogged up.
-Hey! -There you go!
-All right. -Just when I was starting
to worry about overheating the transmission,
and gears.
We fixed one thing.
That's 25 percent of our problems.
Look what we did.
Well, we overheated. But the good news is we know exactly why.
The thermostatic switch, which is gonna send the ground pulse
to our relays for electric fans and trigger them,
is not actually functioning.
How I know this is,
I took the wire off the thermostatic switch,
and I just touched it right there to that bolt.
Yep, I hear the fans running.
So, all I'm gonna do is bypass the crappy switch,
and, uh, we'll have full-time fans. We'll be fine.
[engine sputtering]
[Mike] Well, so far, we're not overheating. That's good news.
[David] As far as we know.
[Mike] I can see through the hole in the floor.
-Nothing's leaking yet. -[David] Okay, good.
That's already fourth gear.
Yeah, it's shifting fast,
and we're not even doing 20 miles an hour.
Yeah, this is wrong.
2,700 rpm, and what are we doing? 30?
[Mike] We're gonna blow this up, if we keep driving like this.
[David] What we're doing here is attempting to count
the number of pinion rotations
versus the number of tire rotations,
so we can estimate the gear ratio.
The problem is it has an open differential, so...
This is folly.
-That means-- -Oh! Dude!
[mimicking Mike's drawl] What, dude?
[in normal voice] Tony and I didn't drive to Eagle Field with this V-drive.
We drove with another V-drive.
[David] That maybe had overdrive, and this one doesn't?
-[Mike] Yeah. -[David] Oh, that's right. You changed it.
[Mike] We broke it there. Put the other one in.
-This could, in fact, have a low gear in it, right? -[Mike] Yeah.
-[David] Okay? -Okay, I'm watching.
[David] So stop when you see one turn.
-[Mike] Okay. -Go.
[Mike] Stop.
What we just discovered is that the V-drive that we have in it
to reverse the direction of power
'cause the engine is in backwards,
has a gear ratio in it that we think is two-to-one.
And if the rear axle ratio is,
let's say, 6.3-to-one in high range,
that means it's effectively more than 12-to-one.
So, putting it in terms of a rear axle ratio gear,
you can see that we have way more rpm,
and not much road speed.
[Mike] We have the wrong gears in that V-drive,
and they're so wrong that there's no hope of us
ever getting on the freeway unless we can find other gears
or flip the big gear and the little gear, the other direction.
So, we're off to Balto Performance to take the V-drive apart.
I still think we can get to Yuma.
We're off to fix the V-drive!
Well, we made it another few miles.
This is Balto Performance.
We're gonna use their parking lot,
and probably put fluids all over it,
and try and get the V-drive out of this thing.
There's a couple different types of V-drives.
This one is what they call "parallel,"
which means the input and output yokes are parallel with each other.
A true V-drive is because the lower one
can have ten or 12 degrees of output,
and basically, that's designed to go on a boat,
and drive the propeller shaft.
Look at the gears inside our V-drive.
Very, very tiny one here and huge one here.
We're going to swap the two,
and it's gonna go from two-to-one
to 0.5-to-one.
Oh, is this gear even gonna fit up here?
[Mike] Oh, the shaft is wrong.
-Yeah. -Is it? Yep. That's not gonna work.
That's two different shafts.
See how this one has larger diameter, and has a bunch of splines.
This one's smaller diameter with a few splines. So, you can't do that.
So we're gonna need gears.
That's gonna be tough to do at 06:00 p.m. on a Friday night.
But we shall overcome.
[Mike] We have some leads and hopefully tomorrow morning
we will have a new set of gears
that we can put that back together,
and make this a freeway flyer again.
[David] Good morning from not-in-Yuma, Arizona,
where we're supposed to be right now,
sand-dragging Stubby Bob,
and instead, we've got our V-drive
scattered all over the ground.
[Mike] We can't re-gear this thing.
At least, not today in the parking lot.
So now we're gonna attempt to flip it upside down.
[David] This is two-to-one,
so if you flip it upside down,
it becomes 0.5-to-one.
So, we're gonna have a lot of overdrive.
As long as the U-joints fit,
as long as the drive shaft doesn't hit
-our quarter-inch, thick transmission tunnel... -Yeah.
[Mike] ...and then we don't end up with any weird driveline angles,
when all this moves up.
We're gonna take the whole V-drive
and flip it upside down.
[Mike] Four new holes, two of which didn't even exist.
We had to weld tabs on there to get them to go.
But I think... we are now ready.
We can put our V-drive back together, and install it upside down.
[David] This is gonna be us guess-timating
how much fluid goes in this thing,
Because remember, the drain plug is now...
inverted, upside down.
[Mike] Okay, it's resting on the cross member...
Back.
All right, V-drive is in, upside down even.
Now, all we've got to do is connect the drive shafts,
and with those bolts up, we can test drive.
Nope.
Uh...
The lower drive shaft is currently too short,
and the upper one is too long.
The, uh, drive shaft won't go into the yoke,
but I think it will
if you can just loosen the bolts
that hold in the V-drive.
[Mike] Okay.
[David] Okay.
Tilt again.
[straining] And... now put it back in.
Yes.
Uh, no.
Top drive shaft isn't gonna make it.
The problem is that the rear drive shaft is now too short.
You can see that I've pulled it apart,
and it's completely out of its travel on the slip and spline.
Conversely, the upper one is now too long.
It is ramrodded in between the V-drive and the transmission,
meaning this slip yoke is crammed
all the way into the trans.
Mmm.
[Mike] Our short one is not the problem.
We can space the V-drive forward.
[David] Yeah.
Man, it's been like an hour lying under the truck,
trying to figure out what to do about the problem
we created with the drive shaft lengths.
We now have a brand new drive shaft.
A friend of Balto's was able to come in on a Saturday,
and make this happen for us.
Uh-huh.
And this is gonna fit,
even though these caps need to be squeezed together more.
Driveshaft is installed, but not tightened.
We're gonna be good.
It's fixed!
Well, we're leaving anyway. [laughs]
Yeah, it's fixed. Let's go.
It's totally fixed.
300 miles. No problem.
[engine starts]
[David] Let's see how our new half-to-one V-drive works.
It's probably not gonna be as snappy.
It hasn't shifted yet. That's a good sign.
[David] Yeah.
[engine accelerating]
First gear!
Second gear!
-Third gear. -This is much better, bro.
[David] Way better.
It is as if we have 308 rear gears,
-and 38-inch-tall tires. -I love it.
Oh, we're going straight to the highway.
We're not messing around, baby!
-405 South! -Let's go!
I do smell oil now.
I think it's coming out of the front seal.
It's leaking out the water coolant line.
We must have an internal leak. Argh, that hurts.
[engine spluttering]
The problem is, I'm just getting sprinkled
with boiling hot gear oil out of the V-drive
out of this vent over here.
Instead of fixing that problem,
I'm going to shield that problem.
I dug this cardboard out of the trash.
Right there.
That's quality. Fixed.
[Mike] Thanks to cardboard and some tape,
and... we're back on the road.
I feel like there's no reason why we can't get to Yuma.
We're gonna make it.
Ah, man. We're on a roll.
Uh-oh.
Rear end came out of gear. Pull over.
Stubby Bob has problems.
Not only does it pop out of gear,
but, uh, it drives sketchy.
We've got a ratchet strap that I'm gonna use
to try and hold the lever back on the two-speed rear end,
so it doesn't pop out of gear all the time.
We've still got 260 miles to go. That's not good.
-But we're doing it. -Oh, we're not quitters.
Let's drive.
[David] We're cruising now.
Sixteen hundred.
Sixty miles an hour.
Is that the fuel system?
No, I think that's the converter.
Something went wrong.
[Mike] We're shaking a lot.
Yeah. I think we should get off.
[Mike] Okay.
[David] The, uh, U-joint
could be coming apart.
Oh. Yeah.
-[David] This is convenient. -[Mike] Yeah.
-[engine sputtering] -[Mike] Just in case.
[David] All right. More problems.
It's shaking. It's leaking.
It smells like burning.
Can you roll the car?
[David] Oh, yeah, look at that.
[Mike] Oh, the pinions are moving.
[David] Pinion bearing is wasted. Oh-ho!
[Mike] Oh, that explains all the grease and stuff coming out of it.
[David] Yeah, it does. Look at it right there when it moves.
That's the showstopper right there.
-You see that? -[Mike] Yeah.
[David] This thing is now just shaking so bad.
We're trying to figure out if it's the pinion bearing
which is wobbling around,
or if something's gone wrong with the V-drive,
or one of these other drive shafts.
And as you can see,
it's just gushing ATF everywhere.
[sighs wearily] I gotta be honest.
This is the moment of defeat.
[Mike] It's a new day, which means we have new opportunities
to craft an entirely new plan for this episode.
If you recall, on Friday, we were supposed to be in Yuma.
Sunday, which is today,
we could still be in Yuma, except we're not.
We're in Huntington Beach, California,
270-ish miles away,
with no hope of getting there before the track closes.
And so, what we're gonna do
is something that seems damn-near impossible at this point,
which is, cover the same amount of miles
that we barely covered in three days in just one day,
so that we can get back to the MotorTrend headquarters.
-We're gonna double our miles today. -[Mike] I know.
Yeah. That's another 26, right back to the office.
It turns out Stubby Bob has issues
that we don't really have the ability
to overcome anymore this week.
It's got a lot of problems. It's not really worth...
I'm gonna drive.
[Mike] I didn't see that coming. Okay.
[David] So there's another chapter in the life of Stubby Bob,
but the story's not over.
Finnegan and I have plans
to get this thing back together
and back to Yuma for the sand drags.
You will see it in an upcoming episode of Roadkill.