1969 Chevelle 500 mile Rescue - Vice Grip Garage EP20

Well, you asked for it, so you're going to get it. This is another online car purchase sight unseen, I think it's in Iowa, but it turns out it's in Illinois, which apparently is a big difference. Spending all day driving there to find out the car hasn't made it. It has been plated since 1979 and is many, many years old and I have two days to fix it and drive 500

mile

s home. This is going to be very fun. Well, what we have here is a surprised

1969

Chevrolet Chevelle two-door. It's not a four-door, I'll give you a little tour and then I have to start thinking about this thing.

The interior is in pretty good shape, although it smells like moldy carpet and Taco John's. It has a lot of weight reduction in the rear. needs a quarter on both sides plus maybe not like reduced weight very nice guys and he put these fenders those are interchangeable fenders 50 dollars he said you have those for windshields you don't have to do the old cellophane wrap supreme so that's good leave it I'll see if I can find the keys and we'll get into the trunk here. My optimism level rose a lot. It's quite rare. I have keys to anything I have.

Oh wow, that's a very, very good sign. In fact, even in exchange, I get two hubcaps. air filter which probably means the carbs are uncovered, big speed hole, probably the distributor, oh boy we could have our hands full when I open the hood here, it might even be factory red, let's take a look under the hood Illinois 1979, another good sign, oh my. Yes, current situation, you have a fuel tank of vegetable oil or pesticide, that worries me a little, although it is not closed, do you have a distributor? That's good news. The water pumps are not broken, it seems complete, there is no water, so overall pretty much.

Good news, I might work from this after reviewing it. I think I have a list in my head. First thing is we're going to turn it over to see if it spins or if it's stuck, it's not stuck, we're going to pull the spark plugs out, take a look at the plugs, see what they look like and while the spark aids are out, Mazal we test the compression to see if the engines hurt or if we have any chance of doing one of those 500

mile

s and then From there we will probably use a battery to see if we can start and if it fires we will solve the fuel problem, then we will move on to the transmission and I think I'm going to start Interweb and some wheels. because I really don't think that flat donut from the 80s is going to make it home and yeah, today we have like eight hours, so cool, I don't know how many times they had to tell you, but any project starts with the battery on. the charger and my good unit from Walmart here, the old negative post finally gave up the ghost, but the best tool in the world came to the

rescue

.

We're talking about a GM, so if I can make this work, I'm in my eighties. six point seven percent confident that it will fire, so let's dig into the old crank bolt here. I'm coming, just calm down, yes please baby Jesus. Oh it goes like butter, okay we have positive twist, which is fantastic, but I heard the valve train and they're just going away, which is a quick way to tell that the engines have been sitting for a long time. , a long, long, long, long, long, long time. Step 37 B, subsection a is pretty simple, you guys have been here for a million million.

Sometimes we go to pull out the plugs we just try to read them, we put our eyes on those things. I could say a lot of things to a guy, you know how to read plugs and then I can't believe what I'm saying. This twice today we're going to try the above compression, which is something I normally never do, but hey, I took out all the Lightning triggers. The good news is that everyone is firing, but the bad news is that I have very heavy deposits on 3 and 5. & 2 & 6 so it will probably smoke like a chimney could rise it could be rings, we will play with a little more, maybe if we shoot it and we'll see, and then I'll bring you back here, you'll see this might have to clean up some of these things so we don't light one of their fires and it won't smell too good when those things start cooking and then the house silicone in the old water and then a good gift looks factory, of course if you are reaching the old maximum optimizations you want to do a compression test with the engines hot and obviously that will not happen in this case and Since it hasn't worked in fifty-eight million years, technically we'll do a wet test. compression test because I'm going to pour some Marvel Mister oil in the old throats so we have a little lubrication of the upper cylinder in case it works, yeah, and for you kids at home, don't forget to open the old carburetor to get the right amount. of air I see a lot on the networks and as far as actual compression, I don't really care, you know, what if it's only ninety, as long as they're all within ten to fifteen percent of each other.

I don't care if it makes a fire and sounds out of the exhaust pipe ready to rock. You know, the trick here is to just try to shoot him back. You know that since the cylinders are tilted, everything will escape through the spark later. bring it up so she can come back down, that makes some sense to you and I like to give her anything between two and seventy four pumps of the old oil, you can listen to whatever you feel, unless it's Wednesday and you want to go. a three, the only reason I brought this battery is because it has a gold handle, but you know what I probably should have done was test it to make sure it was a good battery and then I brought an extra clamp for the battery post and I'm glad I did because I'll dive in if she's not missing one so just put the new clamp on here even after two new battery clamps.

Are you getting any juice? I have to take out one of these magic machines to find out what's going on. I'm going to be here all month. I forgot that digital is falling into this tripping hazard. These are very good machines for dummies like me. Hulka grinds mana and the old light bulb lights up. You have juice and what I like to do is just come here. to the fuse panel and if I have no power on one side of the fuse, I know I have a starter problem because the power is coming from the battery to the starter, from the starter to the fuse block, let's see what do we do.

I don't have light bulbs, kneeling on rocks is probably one of my favorite pastimes, well, nothing makes me feel more alive than incomplete work with a cat, kids don't do that, but this is enough to reset them and place them under the frame, so I can my belly down there, well I used every foot pound of diagram and engineering experience I have and that leads me to believe that the ignition cylinder is defective so I'm going to cut this one off quickly to take a nap and move on forward. here, get that one, I'll spend some money on some other crap, maybe buy a new battery cable, write that down, that's never happened before and then we'll see where we are and it's already two o'clock and I.

I haven't done anything right if I did my digital geometries right. I think the starter solenoid was bad, so a new positive cable from the negative cable of the starter, both of which are a way to short out the battery hanging incorrectly. Yeah confirmed that there is a neutral safety switch and I check that it was working so if all goes well we're going to get a crank here it's definitely cranking it probably needs this stuff but okay let's click on the compression test and Let's put some plugs in it and see if we can get this thing to turn on.

I'm losing light quickly so I had to look for a 200 throttle opener, something like that got me hooked and I fired it up a couple of times 150, planning so cylinder number five was a little low and that correlates with the spark plug if I am Reading that right, this one should have a lot of compression, yes it was almost 180, well I went ahead and finished the compression tests and we definitely have a sick engine, we have variants from 140 to 180 which is too much. extreme, I mean it will work, but we definitely have some rings or a valve train problem and I have it etched here on my fender, so I don't forget which ones, which cylinder, but it correlates to the spark plug, so this is going to function.

Really interesting 500 damn miles. I'm an idiot. Now it's time to put some spark into this thing. Yeah, and see if he can shoot. No guy on the spaced page asked me if I had my spark plugs after watching that Dodge video. Of course yes, I just went with no, skip to the next space, but actually the Chevy small blocks like around 35, but every engine is different, it depends on their compression ratio and the lift and duration of your cam and all the other local stuff diagrams. I'd like to know how many of you know more of a dismissal order to talk to your head other than the old eight four three six five seven to put it in the comments box down there while you're clicking to navigate through them, do you? what do you have?

Mazal, go ahead and click the old button and subscribe. I'd sure appreciate it if the guy went ahead and installed the I'm a Lone Wolf 600 trigger. These are really handy if you don't. I don't have a good one, oh, we need a fire generator, when I know I'll most likely be cranking something for 50 days. I add some cycle oil to my gas or just run the chainsaw mixture, whatever works for you, but this will work. Give the old top end some lubrication while you fix the engine. I'm thinking I normally have a checklist set up by a priest, but it's blank, so I'm going to shove some of this down my throat. and at least see if we can get it to fire and then I'll try to figure out the most important things kion and I need that mission cable it has to have a battery for the distributor we're in business tons of smoke that's the mystery of Marvel Oil or a bad engine or both.

The other way, she lights the fire. Yes, the fuel tank on this one was bypassed, which probably means it's rusty, full of junk, or leaking, or all of the above, but I can't get it to work well on a boat tank at 500 miles. I mean, guys, Rob Lee, well, let's give it a try, so I'm going to put this filter before the fuel pump in hopes that I can go 17 miles and then we can see if it goes up. from the tank I'm also going to have to do a loop so she's getting nipples out here there's some gas that was running and unfortunately we probably just filled the gas pump with that but there's my new one we're going to give that a shot instead it helped me and that came out now usually you have a fight with these filters this moron wants to remove that is actually a good sign and it creates pressure if it's billowing from the top and there's no viscosity left on it like if it gets wet and it gets paint with that. pretty easy don't get the right keys just get up wrench don't do anything not even hammer for yourself if you want I'm still in shock this engine after who knows how many years since this last starter started fine Probably why I'm a diehard fan of GM Buick, not to say I don't like Ford or Mopar, but they never gave up.

Wow, this got really interesting. The sun is about to set and I was going to bottle feed him a little more. I'll get the oil pressure back after the oil change and I'll dive into the field started and just leave me so I'll pull this one out again and run to the auto zone and take another one I guess and hope that one lasts more than ten tries great grandpa Can I tell you about Illinois? Parts stores are a million miles away. It's cold. Someone burns grass and bushes at eleven at night and I keep hearing a circular saw so they know how to have fun.

To start, I think the plan is to just put a water bottle on it for a while and see if we can get to the fuel post on the tank. I have three point two seven gallons in there, probably not enough, but I want it to work. anyway, bottle feeding, so let's go ahead and work on that, see what we get, Jim again hmm, I'll try to fill the container again. Wow, well the fan clutch is definitely tripped, it sounds pretty decent. I don't hear 1 or 16 lifters hitting each other. that's pretty good, but I need my carburetor adjustment tool, here it is and we're just going to tap or tap there, just tap it.

I was pretty good, yeah he runs like a champ, well now that he's running a little I think I'm going to go ahead and get him some gauges so he can keep track of the victuals so I can get him a temperature gauge and at least a oil pressure gauge that will make a guy feel a little better, well now that I really have a problem. I went ahead and turned it off and now all the coolants are working on the side of theengine. I'm sure it will stop right where I don't need it, and tomorrow I replaced the starter for the third time.

Brilliant. hello guys starting to lose strength and it's too late the cold is like I'm going to put the wheels on that will give me a little motivation and now I have to go to a hardware store to get some easy outlets for that brass accessory. It broke my mind, I've never done that and I put in fifty-eight million pairs of meters, but of course it's this weekend and I don't know, I think that'll probably be it for tonight. We will have to arrive as early as possible tomorrow morning. We've got some old school craigers, we'll go 2:15 up front and of course the rear we'll go 255, they need to be cleaned up a little bit but I think they'll look really awesome in this car so I'll put them in super fast.

This will be very good for the neighbors. You should learn your lesson and look at the wheel bearing. Take out the dust cap opener. Well, this it seems. be a common occurrence for me at Chevelle's for whatever reason, do you ever have days where you just wonder why you are doing what you are doing this. It has a broken strut, but let's let it go. I can't see anything, oh that's not good, the guy didn't check the old thing called backtracking and that's it for me tonight. I'm exhausted and it takes um drinks, the car looks amazing with the wheels on, boom, they're tight, they're going to work, so go eat some dishes and get about three or four hours of sleep.

I'll be back in the morning, well I already investigated this morning. with a bunch of little things that you guys probably wouldn't want to see anyway, like using an easy-to-remove fitting on the broken brass fitting, taking out the broken part at new temperatures, taking out the old dummy oil pressure switch and putting it in in a new one. brass the plastic line I hate plastic lines they didn't have brass so it is what it is all the junk was removed from the engine the fuel gauge sending line was repaired which is probably a moot point because I think the fuel line is clogged.

We'll probably end up running the old boat tank, see how it goes, and right now I'll put a tachometer on it so we know how many digitals it's turning. I have no idea what the rear gear is on this thing, probably. run it at 2500 just to be safe, so if it's an engine I built, I run it at 3500 all day, but I'm in uncharted territory here. I always mount my tacks with zip ties, but apparently these hose clamps are mountable only. like this the internet says, so I'm going to try it. I'll put it right here in my teeth so that a guy, when he drives, falls asleep with one eye and I was watching his engine digitals.

I have it. All went well. I think this morning I'm back to a point where I'm going to see if it starts. I'd really like to try to get it to idle and then I could start testing things like the alternator. If she's charging, then I also want all the seals and gaskets and everything to warm up nice, see what kind of leaks we find and I'd also really like to see fuel coming out of the gas tank, which would be spectacular. and I might try to avoid the 600 death trap by putting a boat tank in the passenger seat with me so let's see what happens, nothing much different from yesterday so I'll make sure I have power to the dealer if I can find my stick of magic jab has been here dormant for about five minutes look, it smokes like a chimney.

I'm really watching the temperature approach. I think the thermostats are definitely going to be gross, but I really don't want to take that apart because one of the bolts that hold the thermostat housing gasket on is about to break off of our felt mic, so I'm going to keep wrapping this neck of water here, I'll try to loosen the thermostat. You'll notice it when I hit the mat immediately, idle I definitely think. The needles stuck there say it's 190, but normally when there's no water moving like that, it's probably even hotter. I'll put my hand on the front of the head here.

I'll be fine for a while longer. must be charging. I haven't put the meter on it yet, but if it's been running that long still in the water, I might have to turn it off to get into the danger zone. It has oil pressure everywhere. It has another mosquito like a car. to keep them down drive this through the neighborhoods no more water flowing it's definitely the driver's place that's smoking so I'm going to give it a double whammy here let's let it eat some miss roy from marvel and then I'm going to follow up with some money from Barry.

I'm going to favor this side of the engine, see if we can. I'll stick with Berryman, that's how you make them eat a little, maybe she'll snap out of it. I think it's time for us to test the transmission, we'll let it sit like this for a moment, let the transmission warm up, we'll definitely have reverse and drive, but this was a quick way to know that I have no rear brakes and about 4% of the front brakes. I'm really thinking about changing the name of this little channel, the

garage

without brakes. Well, I got it out about six feet and I'll be damned if the old front brake line didn't blow out, of course, no one has anything. almost in stock so I bought these little short lines here and I'm going to work on some kind of ghetto replacement of mine and now it's become extremely dangerous to drive because I'm sure all the brake lines are in that condition so definitely en It's not going to stop me from trying to drive 500 miles.

I also came up with the name of this car. I'll call him Rocky because he fights with me. All I know, I'm stuck. Well, that's not ideal or pretty, but will it do it? work, yeah, well here we go, first time this car has pulled out of this driveway in 40 years, from what I'm told, I'm still trying to wrap my brainstem around, this is crazy, everything's going well, do a little test drive, look at sort of problems we come up with, then I got a hit, I've got 500 miles left to go a couple of last minute things, we're hitting the road through an air filter, we changed the battery, we fixed up some grounds, we have a working lighthouse there Had some rust problems.

The bolts were held in, so that will cause the master cylinders to leak horribly. They will continue to pour oil. I added some zip ties to my fuel line. I took this apart and fixed it, so this is it I guess. oh yeah, okay, hit the road. I guess my first deal stopped. You should check and see if there is a seat belt. I know I'm fine so far, fingers crossed it's got some oil pressure and enough temps I've got. At about a hundred miles I am clearly poisoned. I have a strong headache. I can't see with my right eye, but I thought I'd better check the nuts here and left my breaker bar at the guys' house.

I have this cheesy little one. friend here, but it's better than nothing, so I'm going to push them for the remaining one hundred and seven kilometers to fill the oil and check the gas. I actually don't see any leaks and it's working, knock on wood, fantastic, no heat. or something like that, a lot of things I did saying it burns oil, I think that's putting it lightly, it's completely dry, well, I'll put a little bit of snake oil in it, a little bit of diesel oil, no lead, 500 miles it we managed, this is still crazy. running driving probably too good for me I actually have no problems on the way here other than burning oil.

I'm always so crossed with Chevy sitting for 40 years 1979 gave me a little trouble going or going, but I listened like a kid all the way here, yeah. I don't think there will be enough interruption in the power outage, but we'll find out alright, thanks for watching a great ride, make sure you hit that button down there.