Rat Rod Jeep Death-Wish Trip! - Roadkill Episode 15

We bought a 3000 Rat Rod Jeep, drove it from Los Angeles to the desert bar in Park Arizona, and sold it to these guys for 407. That's Finnegan economics on this

episode

of Roadkill. Friedeburger wanted to go off-roading, so he said he should buy a

jeep

and I should. He just wasn't the type of

jeep

he expected. I bought this jeep in the dark in the middle of winter and parked it under a tarp for the last three months. Freiburger never saw it. I forget what it looks like. He even has hell waiting for him. What a surprise, this is going to be the least organized

roadkill

of all time and that's saying something, it's going to make a mosh pit look like a precision military operation, he bought something and I haven't even seen it so this is going to be bad right? look at your new jeep hey, we're friends, right, this is the surprise, it's your jeep, okay, you wanted to go off-road.

I know a bar that you can only get to by land and what better way to get to the bar than in a jeep this is your jeep it's a flat rod isn't it? jeep rod not ready for a test drive no oh okay okay for a minute so you really start looking at it oh it's a mb it's a real world war ii grill anyway huh this tire is touching this fender oh it has air bags it lifts up really well and always works fine as long as they never leak that's not a problem and since it's been here for three months and I haven't looked at it it's puked up. all the guts on the pavement here so we're going to have to fix that oh well and uh that's not so much, it'll be fine and there's no compressor for the airbags so we're going to have to fix something chevy ranch style works fine no, It needs a tune-up.

Obviously we need to top up the fluids. It needs a cotter pin for each castle nut. I'm a little worried about the fact that the airbags are mounted with a single cut and without reinforcements. This is ugly, but I think that if we put liquids and cotter pins in it, it can't weigh and put air in the bags, at least we could go drive down the street and see if it works. Where we go? to the nelly e saloon, a bar in the Buckskin Mountains in Park Arizona that can only be reached by a dirt trail, I don't know if you noticed, but those aren't mud fields, well, I mean, we're not crawling on rocks, but yes.

Do you know that we can center it high? It looks great, it's stylish, it's got no substance, so where do we start? Works? I don't know, it's been three months since I saw him start it. Not, as usual, the battery. dead air compressor lift it off the ground fluids test drive the battery it feels like we buy the same thing over and over again every time we do this how many jacks have we bought for road kill? I don't understand why they would do it. Don't let us clean the brakes and you know, airplane handles have oil, there's just a little bit of water on the beach, there's a lot of condensation, it tastes good, I'm the editor of Hot Rod magazine, but a lot of people aren't.

I don't know that I was also the four-wheel and off-road editor for a long time. I'm a really hardcore off-road guy and especially a hardcore Jeep guy. I have about seven jeep bodies with flat fenders and half wheels and everything. There's this kind of thing in my house and I've always wanted to do this to one, well, not exactly like that, but make a hot rod out of it. Oh, I can get the front wheels off the ground. Check it out, you can see how the shock absorber bends. While you're doing that look at the front axle look at the rotation oh we're dead I've gone 260 miles an hour in a camaro that scared me the most the first time I welded my mini truck right? after high school it looked better than what I'm seeing down here, yes I realize there's nothing about this, not even the start button is malfunctioning so it needs a little attention, we only had two days to get to Parker and this was going to It was the last day of the year that the desert bar was open and we discovered that there was actually a compressor on board and we got some air into the rear bags, but we had to get the engine running properly and it didn't help that the firing order was wrong.

I've seen more sketchy hot rods in my life. I just haven't driven them. Two cylinders were changed. I have a feeling that's not going to fix everything in this stack, although the airbag is rubbing against the frame and the impact is hitting the airbag. set it up so that as we drive down the road the airbag rubs the rubber against the steel it makes a hole in that bag and then it explodes and we crash we have to pierce this again to move this airbag further travel on This could be so miserable that you just long for the relief that only sweet

death

can bring, getting the shock out of the way so we can cut off this part of the saddle that's getting into the shock, this saddle that I can flex with my hand.

I was thinking to myself, why is this happening? It seems weird to me and I walked over here and said, "Oh, the shock is installed backwards, the doohickey batwing here is hitting the body of the shock, so when the shaft twists like that, which we know happens because it's a meth, It will bend and join together.” Quite the shock, which is why we turn it upside down again right now. You're supposed to put spacers between them when you solder them so they don't do that. He didn't do that. We put plasters on it. The suspension tuned the engine as best we could, we topped off the fluids and then it was time to hit the road ready for the first test drive.

Why does the steering wheel have to be so big? It is an original jeep steering wheel. It's good, ah, it's not good because the brake pedal is fine, so that's what I'm going to have to do to brake. This is Sailor Jerry's car without a roof. Look at this. I'm more comfortable than the Rat Rod. Significantly well, that's because you don't. Around here you don't have a steering wheel in your crotch when I crash into the back of a truck, come on, we're going in traffic, you know that, sure, slow speed will save us, okay, so much for talking to each other. another one, what, yeah, it's cool, I know this isn't connected to anything, but it feels better if you use it, okay, you know, yeah, is there brake fluid in this thing because I have to use both feet to stop?

Oh yes, we have. I never tried to stop before now it will stop, it's okay and with two feet we can go all the way like this, that's good, I need to set a car alarm, okay, here we go, ready, oh my god, that's loud, no there are turn signals. It's surprisingly slow too not that I'm challenging you oh you want to know what

death

looks like this is what death looks like now I had to push my knee down to get the brake pedal to work right this thing is hate proof it's not like this We go straight on, back to the office to meet with our official detractor, KJ Jones, from Fibo Mustang magazine, look at all those

trip

s, ah, bro, no, no, no, you don't like it, Batman is going to break the feminine man , look at this right here, oh.

What are you saying? Come on, Dave, come on, bro, it has a ladder bar, yes, but they're securely fastened, so while KJ came in to get us a life insurance policy, we had to go to a local hardware store and fix it. suspension before hitting the road, but first we were going to fulfill one of Finnegan's dreams and take one of our piles of trash and valet at a fancy restaurant. I'm going to eat well tonight, okay, I'll show you how to do it. I don't know who can blame the valley boy for not wanting to park this thing.

He was a little confused when he went to put the ticket on our windshield and discovered that we didn't have one. We lost the window. Oh, this is ostentation. We have to celebrate when we've been run over by beater vehicles for the past year, every time we wanted to stop by the high-end valet, so we finally did it at that steakhouse over there and they didn't bat an eye, but now we're at the hardware store because we still have to fix the ladder bar bracket and ratchet strap on our junk and what else fluids, gas, again, my junk is fine, but yeah, let's go get some things to hold things together, the Most bolts have nylock nuts which are great for holding vibrating things together, except when the bolt doesn't stick out all the way from the end of the nut so the nylock can grab it, they tend to fall apart and when they fall apart in the hanger, you die, so that we are going to remedy that situation with longer bolts is 9 p.m.

From the first day, we have traveled a mile, we keep turning the jeep, it remains to be seen if we will hit the road tonight or end up crashing into it. the morning was late and we had to go to bed, no one took it, damn I don't think they could figure out how to work. Did you call your wife and tell her it was nice meeting you? I called her and said I love you, you'll be happy to know that all the work we did yesterday wasn't for speed or efficiency, it was just to make sure we didn't die today and she thanked me because she said she would like to have another child. and she wants that child to have the same father all those rabbit droppings in the bottom of this car make me feel like i need more safety gear than usual dig in your heels someday i'll be able to hear my baby he's all set, okay?

Did you listen to me less? no, that's it. The good thing about that is that I'm going crazy with Darth Vader. Well, oh yeah, this is comfortable. This is like riding down the highway on a skateboard with a Briggs and Stratton on the back. I think this is the first time in my life. I have wanted heavy traffic 3.18 gallons and 51 miles do you plan on keeping it or selling it? I'll have a lot of fun going to the bar after that. I don't need to drive this anymore. I'm fine. throw it away, so this is what we do right: we turn on peek so people can follow us but they don't know where we're going and we tell them to follow us to this bar, whoever is in the seat at last call, which is six o'clock. at this particular bar we have to pay our bill and they can take it home right now.

It makes me a little sad to think he'll be gone but after another 400 miles I think I'm looking forward to it so I'm going to put it on Facebook we just say you have to follow us or figure it out yeah let's go to a bar let's go to a bar, We really weren't sure how many people were going to show up to buy this. jeep, but within an hour we had 500 people following us online. Finnegan seemed happy to drive and I think it's because there's a steering wheel to hold on to, you don't sit in this thing, you sit in it and there's one of a hundred things.

That could break on this thing and then just throw us to the pavement. There's oil on the floor coming out of the floor coming out of the crack right there like it's not through the firewall from below yeah how is that possible? That kind of pink appearance. yeah it's transmission fluid okay transmission fluid catches fire it'll be fun we'll just drive faster it'll put it out no come on at one time this was the largest military installation in the world it was from here in California, the whole Arizona Road is where Patton trained like a million guys to go fight in Africa and a lot of the surplus jeeps in California came from here.

This is a genuine WWII jeep. It's like a 41 to 45 which you know because it has a different blackout lights on the grill the hood doesn't say willys like the civilian ones bantam initially came up with the design for the wwii jeep and they were too small to do it , so willie ended up getting the contract and they were too small. to build them so the government actually had Ford make a bunch of them too this could be a ford so yeah it's a willys or a ford it's a hot rod so we were going down the road at the end of the day and they overtook us. every car and I'm even falling asleep so I stopped to hand the keys to finnegan and what he does immediately leaves us trapped on a flat piece of land how pathetic that a jeep is stuck here this jeep sucks look that's why it's that the jeep rod concept is completely wrong because you remove the front axle, convert it to two wheel drive, take all the jeepness out of the jeep and then leave it stuck on the side of the road because we didn't fix the shifter today.

We'll fix it now with a cotter pin and a zip tie to reattach the link and here comes someone offering to help oh I hope they have a tow strap you need you need a handle with anything do you have a strap? leash, we're going to tie your car to our car with an extension cord, that's right, an extension cord that's what's going to get us out of this mess. We just traded four gallons of gas for a three foot toe with an extension cord, how did you end up? We're making the U-turn now it's 11:15 and we're in the middle of nowhere fixing this thing because it vomits so much that the desert bar opens at noon and closes at 6:00 p.m.

Hopefully this garbage will arrive at 12:00. One mile dirt road to this bar in the middle of nowhere. Wow, that's leaking a lot once I cleaned everything up. It was very difficult to know where it is coming from because it doesn't work and the fountain doesn't move. David wants me to turn it on. in the cat right now really scared because I think this thing is just going to ghost off into that field and then stop when it gets to the ditch at that point I'm going to leave it, I'm not, I'm not even. I'm going to get him out if he ends up in that ditch.

Theflashlight is there, have fun, okay, eight. It is the transcooler line. It wasn't leaking from the fittings so the line must have a hole because it is leaking. and then running down ok we're not going to fix that so ok I'm ok with that just keep buying more atf when you know the rules you can break them and we know that's not supposed to leak so that "You're fine like this, oh my god, there's the car wash and there's no one. online that means it's all ours we need this cleaning everyone's like what the hell is that notice no one's jumping you're not jumping into action they're like If we weren't washing your car Look, we're selling this today and we need it to be fancy I want you to use the good soap, not the one you use on everyone else's car, that's right, are you brothers No, that's my dad? , yeah, don't forget the chrome, right?

It's like the only nice part overall car, there we go, thanks, thanks for the donut, this thing is a smoke machine, so of course we did burnouts before we did. off the pavement for the last time. I think more speed might help. I thought this was bad on the pavement, but I hit the ground and felt like I was inside a paint stirrer. That's why I told you I wanted a jeep. Know? The funny thing is that these people think they are having a bad time. They don't have a hood on their rock-filled jeep. They don't know what life is about, you're a nature lover, have fun with your radio communication, yeah, remember, no front or rear brakes, what was that?

It must have broken, right, the bag could have exploded. Yes, the stock market support broke, wait, no. You won't make it worse, you knew that was going to happen, it will make things worse, we're close, let's keep it good, so now we don't have any suspension because now that bag broke, this one is also flat, yes, they are together, they are teeth. together, so I have no air in the front suspension, I don't care, let's go to the beer, the desert bar is legendary and I had this image in my mind of what kind of oasis it was going to be and we turned the corner. and there it is, wow, let's do it.

The only problem is that this place has no phone or internet so we couldn't call them ahead of time to get permission to shoot

roadkill

there and when we got there they said there were no cameras, no way. The problem with this deal is that we arrived 45 minutes before closing time. We didn't feel like we could really pay a bill worth the jeep, but we tried. You don't want to see what it looks like when Finnegan and I. drank 400 dollars of alcohol in 45 minutes, a couple of people showed up who had driven from Phoenix and Scottsdale just to look at the jeep and see if they could buy it, yeah those guys took a look and hit the road. but there was a guy at the bar who recognized me from hot rod magazine.

I told him the story. He walked out to the parking lot and made the sudden decision. He had to own this thing. The most incredible thing is not only that we live. but we made it to Arizona without being arrested, without a windshield, without mufflers, without seat belts, without license plates, without registration, without common sense, now that I think about it, that's pretty normal here, in a hit-and-run, look for the best beer at work, the best burger. work, wait, wait, wait that drunk that sounds, that is spinning in the economic phenomenon, spinning comics, the drunkest roadkill of all time, all the ladies come back, why would you want them to go out? wait, you're not in a photo, you have to come to the front because they're not all right, you two in the front because they're not, your phone moves are good, this is like yeah, yeah, all the girls on my side They want to do that again.