00:00 [MUSIC]
00:07 This Buick has been sitting in Rick Paley's backyard since 1978.
00:12 And we're gonna make it run, and we're gonna drive it home before Sunday,
00:16 which is Mother's Day, because our wives will kill us if we're not there.
00:19 [MUSIC]
00:21 Moves out.
00:22 [MUSIC]
00:28 [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:30 [MUSIC]
00:40 We're out on our first big drive hunting pawn shops and yard sales in the Buick.
00:51 We got on the freeway and it started to surge if you got into it.
00:54 This filter is clogged with all that junk right there that was in the gas tank.
00:59 And that's why we have one, two, three filters on it,
01:03 because we knew that was gonna happen.
01:05 It looks like the bottom of a fish tank.
01:07 [MUSIC]
01:12 Sir.
01:13 [BLANK_AUDIO]
01:16 Yeah, yeah.
01:17 [BLANK_AUDIO]
01:19 On to more adventure.
01:20 [MUSIC]
01:29 One of our wheels rusted through, and so we need to get a spare tire and wheel.
01:33 We're chickens that way.
01:34 [MUSIC]
01:37 I'm just bragging to the world on Facebook that I just got this bitchin'
01:41 Baldor grinder for 40 bucks with the old man's stand at this pawn shop.
01:47 Not helping us for our road trip, but had to have it.
01:50 [MUSIC]
01:54 Now the brake master cylinder is pretty much dry,
01:58 because it's been kind of self-cleaning itself for the last three hours.
02:02 But it looks to be legit now, and I think we'll be on the road soon.
02:08 Done.
02:10 All right, it didn't have a whole lot of flair to get all my road tools at one pawn shop,
02:14 but we're kind of in a hurry.
02:17 So we went and picked up just the bare basics.
02:19 40 bucks for all of this stuff.
02:21 I would say the best score of all of it was a box.
02:24 [MUSIC]
02:33 Wow, there's brake fluid pouring off the underside of the tire.
02:36 Look.
02:37 [MUSIC]
02:43 The thing that makes me dumb and lazy is that I anticipated the brakes being junk on this thing.
02:48 So I ordered all the parts from Raybestos, and we only used the master cylinder,
02:52 and now I'm paying for it.
02:53 So we're going to go through all the cylinders,
02:54 at which point we might as well change these old, dry-rotted, cracked hoses as well.
02:59 Either we have this covered, or this is going to domino into disaster.
03:05 See, this one's not leaking yet, but it will soon enough.
03:09 [MUSIC]
03:21 Well, we think but don't know right now that we're done with the mechanical part of the rescue of our '66 Buick.
03:28 Oh, God, why did you just say that?
03:29 I said we think.
03:31 We're not sure.
03:32 It's 7:30 right now.
03:33 We were supposed to leave 12 hours ago.
03:36 [MUSIC]
03:42 We just did the brake test.
03:43 We stopped once.
03:44 It's good enough.
03:45 We're hitting the road.
03:46 Finally, we got this '66 Buick convertible ready to hit the road
03:49 after it had been parked in that backyard for 30 years.
03:52 Here we go.
03:53 [MUSIC]
03:56 See ya.
03:58 [MUSIC]
04:03 [BEEPING]
04:10 It's acting like the filter's stuck again.
04:12 It surges when you try and cruise at speed, like it's running out of gas.
04:16 [MUSIC]
04:27 This is bad.
04:28 We're in the middle of nowhere, finally having left,
04:31 and it looks like something is clogging our main fuel feed line.
04:34 The pump isn't pumping.
04:35 Or the pump is pumping, but it's not sucking fuel up here.
04:39 This will be fun.
04:41 [MUSIC]
05:05 If anything is going to stop us here, it's the cooling system.
05:07 It's fine.
05:08 It's meant.
05:09 [BEEPING]
05:12 Red light came on on the dash, but we don't know what it is
05:14 because the lens is so fogged over we can't see.
05:17 I thought it was oil.
05:18 Clearly, it's water.
05:20 The radiator is just super plugged.
05:22 And we're in the hood.
05:23 Big time.
05:25 [MUSIC]
05:54 It's cold.
05:56 We went from 100 degrees to, what, like 40 right now?
05:59 [SIGHS]
06:00 Dying.
06:01 But we lived.
06:04 Sleep.
06:06 And tomorrow we will live to fight another day.
06:09 Secret of our success right here, no hood is good.
06:13 [MUSIC]
06:15 Happy Mother's Day.
06:16 I'm here celebrating with video guy Clint and hot rod guy Mike.
06:20 And the Buick is still in the parking lot, overheating really badly
06:24 when we drive on the freeway.
06:26 But we're not concerned.
06:28 Our wives are concerned.
06:30 But we're not concerned.
06:32 We're just going to have a good time.
06:34 [MUSIC]
06:35 We're in the parking lot, overheating really badly when we drive on the freeway.
06:39 But we're not concerned.
06:42 Our wives are concerned.
06:45 We'll be fine.
06:46 She'll get over it.
06:47 Love you.
06:48 [MUSIC]
06:52 So we are at Hill's Garage behind the McDonald's in Wickenburg.
06:56 And these guys are helping us out figuring out how to flush this thing.
06:59 [MUSIC]
07:03 A little bit of whisk will do you.
07:05 [MUSIC]
07:08 We were going to go buy some Presto and stuff or anything,
07:10 but old man says, "No way."
07:12 He breaks out the whisk.
07:14 So we got laundry detergent cleaning out our radiator right now.
07:17 And now we have a recovery tank that we never had before.
07:21 [MUSIC]
07:29 We flushed the radiator out and didn't get a whole lot of stuff out of it.
07:32 So hopefully it's decent.
07:34 [MUSIC]
07:44 Thank you so much.
07:46 Hope we can come see you next time we roll through.
07:49 Yeah, thank you.
07:50 Hitting the road.
07:52 [MUSIC]
08:05 Oh, [bleep]
08:08 This is going to suck.
08:10 [Laughter]
08:12 That wasn't that bad.
08:13 [MUSIC]
08:22 Oh, there it goes.
08:23 Look at that.
08:24 Yeah.
08:25 Woo-hoo-hoo.
08:26 [MUSIC]
08:30 It looks like 58 miles an hour is the magic number on the Buick's new revised cooling system.
08:35 I was pushing a little hard, almost to 70, and we paid the price.
08:39 From the driver's seat, I can see it puking into the tank.
08:42 And then if I lift and back off a little bit so that it cools down, it starts going back the other direction.
08:47 That's the benefit of running whisk in your radiator, you know, because the bubbles are the key with the plastic hose.
08:52 Yeah, not only that, but it's, yeah, summertime fresh.
08:56 [MUSIC]
09:01 We mount our garden sprayer here, like so.
09:04 I can reach over here and pump it, which may or may not have ever had garden chemicals in it.
09:09 And then, voila, air conditioning.
09:12 [MUSIC]
09:41 [MUSIC]
09:48 Bone dry.
09:50 [MUSIC]
10:01 It's like it loses spark after cranking.
10:05 We ran out of gas at the side of the road, and a completely unrelated item, our starter switch has been getting really hinky.
10:13 And now the thing won't run unless you're cranking it because we're losing spark when we let go of the key.
10:20 The switch is junk, so we're just going to hot wire it right to the coil.
10:23 [MUSIC]
10:39 We forgot to put the trunk down.
10:41 [MUSIC]
10:45 Our hose broke a little bit.
10:47 Apparently the clear plastic is not the way to go at 220, 230 degrees.
10:52 [MUSIC]
10:57 The fun never ends with the Mike and Dave show.
11:00 Can't be stopped.
11:01 We're in Quartzsite right now.
11:02 We're about to get on the road and go straight up I-10, climbing, I don't know, a few thousand feet, testing the limits of our cooling system.
11:09 [MUSIC]
11:26 You're never going to believe this, but it overheated and then ran out of gas.
11:30 At the same time.
11:31 [MUSIC]
11:53 We've gone from 110 to about 40 degrees.
11:56 We're in Chiraco Summit, home of the Patton Museum.
11:58 And we hear there's rain ahead in Indio, which is good because man, does Finnegan need a shower.
12:04 [MUSIC]
12:06 Yeah, you know what?
12:07 If it's going to rain, I'm going to make sure the window is damn clean for my driver here before this trip all goes to hell.
12:12 [MUSIC]
12:19 How much more did we spend?
12:20 [MUSIC]
12:22 Who knows at this point?
12:23 What does it really matter?
12:24 [LAUGHTER]
12:25 That might be our problem.
12:27 See, the plastic doohickey that should be a metal doohickey is hanging outside the hole that shouldn't be there at all.
12:34 Okay, yeah, look at that.
12:36 That made a big difference.
12:38 Yeah, that removed a lot of pressure off that.
12:42 Wow, that's a fail.
12:44 [MUSIC]
13:06 So we just took a car that hasn't been on the road in 33 years.
13:09 And in two and a half days, with the help of Rick Paley and Video Guy, drove it all the way to California from Arizona.
13:15 Not too shabby.
13:17 And completely restored almost every system on the car except for the electrical, which is still a little bit needy.
13:24 But look, we fixed the cooling finally.
13:26 Yeah.
13:27 The goal was to bring it back alive, and that's what we did.
13:30 So check out the story in the September 2011 issue of Hot Rod Magazine.
13:34 [CLICK]
13:35 Bird.
13:36 [CLICK]
13:37 All right, let's go home.
13:38 [MUSIC]
13:48 (glass shattering)
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