Roadkill (2012–2020): Season 1, Episode 8 - Roadkill - full transcript

- This is a special collector's edition

of Roadkill, save it kids.

We didn't fail this time.

(engine revving)

(tires screeching)

(heavy rock arrangement)

This time on Roadkill, we are
going to take a '73 Suburban

that we've never driven,

and use it to haul a '55 Chevy body

1,100 miles to Jim Meyer Racing in Oregon

to build Finnegan's dream car.



- California thinks we own a ''55 Chevy.

- This is the
it's-legal-as-far-as-you-know

state of California. (laughs)

- California says, You own a car. (laughs)

- Is this a street?

- Yeah, this is nice.

He supposedly has like 30 cars here

I don't know where he's
going to fit those--

- 30?

- In a track.

- This must be the guy.

- Yup, that's him.

(heavy rock arrangement)

- This door's still full of water.



(door slamming)

- That'll teach us to wash the car.

- Hear it sloshing?

(water sloshing)

- Hey Don!

- How you doin man?

- Good to see ya.

- I'm David.

- It's been months but I'm
ready to pick up the car.

- Car's around back waiting for ya.

- Cool, all right.
- Cool, let's check it out.

- I've been searching
for a 19'55 Chevy Bel Air

off and on since I was a teenager

when I first saw the
movie Two-Lane Blacktop.

I bought this car four
months ago sight unseen,

and I'm really fired up to
finally see this thing in person.

The roof's good.

The quarters are--

- Quarter, not so much. (laughs)

- Yeah the quarters need a little help.

- Oh yeah, trunk's nice.

It's perfect for what we're doing.

- It'll make a great race car.

- Yup.

(grunting)

Okay yeah, this is going to be perfect.

(metal scraping)

- Whoa!

- We're going to take this up to Oregon

and actually plop the body
on a brand new chassis

up there at Jim Meyer Racing,

make a gasser out of it like that.

And what's really cool about it

is that we're going to put a
Chrysler 426 Hemi in this car,

and we have it in the
back of the Suburban.

It's like gasser kit
all right here with us.

(slamming)

- You okay?

- Yeah I'm good.

- We're about to leave Hemet,

home of Don Edwards, the guy
who sold me the '55 Chevy,

and it's all strapped down,

or at least as well as
we could strap it down.

So now we're going to drive a
thousand miles up to Oregon.

- Is it that far?

- Yeah.

1,100 actually.

- That's not good.

- (laughs) In that.

- Is the Suburban going to make it?

(laughing)

- We better find out.

- Let's go.

We're starting out while
it's still daylight.

- You drive.

- Alright.

(engine revving)

I've only seen two '55 Chevy's

with Hemis in them in my life.

- I've only seen them with
Chrysler early Hemis in them--

- Yeah!

- I've never seen a 426.

- Yeah, toth the cars I'm talking about.

- Did you bring the stack injection?

- Yup.

- We got to be real careful
not to smash that box.

- Yeah, am I going the right way?

- Sure, am I supposed to be directing?

- I think so.

There's an ostrich!

Holy crap!

I've never seen an ostrich in my life.

- You never have?

- I kind of want to stop
and go look at the ostrich.

- Make some ostrich McNuggets?

- Oh my God.

Look, buffalo!

Wait is that a, those are buffalo!

Holy crap!

- You're right, Have you
ever seen one in real life?

- I've never seen that or
an ostrich in real life.

I thought we killed almost all of these.

- We tried.

- Best day at work ever.

- (laughs) '55 Chevy, 426
Hemi, ostrich, buffalo.

- Yeah best day of work ever.

- Doesn't usually happen.

- No.

(rock arrangement)

- The first stop we're going to make

is at Rods West in Ridgecrest, California

because we've got to
pick up some cool wheels

that we're going to put
on the front of the car.

- It's a place that's owned by Don Waldon.

He's been here for decades.

And where we're standing
at one point was covered

by nothing but Mag wheels.

He buys and sells them
and refurbishes them.

And so there's a pallet of them there,

and back over here
there's a wheel graveyard

of a bunch of rare wheels

and now, he's become the wheelies king,

he's got a bunch of wheelies parts here,

he builds gassers pretty much
for everybody that wants one.

- There's also Austins
and Anglers and all sorts

- There's Henry Jays, Austins, Tims.

- This is amazing. Stop
talking so I can go look.

- Yeah.

(country western arrangement)

- People would lose their mind

if you gathered all this up

and went to the Pomona Swap Meet.

Oh my God, died and gone to Heaven.

Just want to take it all with me.

Don is hooking us up with
a modern interpretation

of the old school Ansen Sprint Wheels

which'll look perfect on the
front end of our '55 Chevy.

- When I first built the
wheels and had the wheels done,

I gave the option to the guys

about putting the valve
stem on the back side.

- Yeah.

- Cause the wheel was
originally a sprint car wheel

and it could go either way.

- Flip them.

- Right, drag race guys wanted this side

then the sprint car guys
wanted the other side,

so you see the wheel with the valve stem

on the opposites sides.

- That's going to look killer
on the front of that thing.

- You have to talk him out

of putting smoothie steelies on the back.

They're the kind with no hub cap bumps.

- Oh no no it's going
to have the other one.

- Told ya.

- Yeah.

- Visiting Rod's West here
was just completely amazing.

I could easily spend a full
weekend rifling around here.

I love taking pictures
of all the old things

that are sitting around but
unfortunately we need to hit it.

We burned so much time
that we're going to have to

cannonball in the dark.

How long do you want to drive Finnegan?

Like, two in the morning?

- Till we're there.

- Till we're there.

Cause we got to get to Oregon posthaste.

Let's hit it.

(country western arrangement)

(engine revving)

The Macho Grande's been
doing excellent so far

but it does need some routine maintenance.

Spark plug wire kept falling off

and it only runs 7/8ths
as well as it should

on seven cylinders.

- We're going to save
that plug wire we took off

Cause it's still good.

And we're going to put it,

right here with our spare dipstick

in the fender where it belongs.

- Yep with the old man rag,

maybe a couple wigs stuffed
in there for quieting it down.

- It's a good hiding spot.

- Yeah that's not short, alright.

- We can just run that way around the road

and come back twice.

- You know what, if you wrap
this around this a couple times

I'm thinking that it
might magnetize the inlet

and give us better fuel mileage.

- Lines up all the molecules?

- Right.

- Well we're going to get at
least six miles to gallon now.

(laughing)

- Pour fluid in, let's go.

(rock arrangement)

(cricket chirping)

- We found a blown fuse for
the accessory circuit, which--

- Twice.

- is why all the lights just turned off

so we replaced the fuse,

with,

one we found in the glove box,

one of many, which tells us
this has happened before.

So now we're actually going to try

and troubleshoot why it's happening.

- Yeah the used car forensics tells you

that when there's four
packs of 20 amp fuses

in the glovebox,

there's a frequent issue.

For sure.

- I can't say for certain who wired it,

but whoever they are should
be kicked in the nuts,

drug out in the streets and shot

cause there's about nine splices

to connect this much wire.

So we just hacked a bunch of it out,

taped up what we could.

I don't know if that's going to fix it

but we'll put another fuse in

and see how far we can get this time.

- What time is it and how many hours

do we have until Oregon?

- We need to be there
Friday, today's Wednesday.

- Oh no problem.

- Yeah.

(engine revving)

- Still got lights!

(smooth jazz arrangement)

- Well we just made a nice loop

in and out of the parking lot

and blew the lights again!

For some reason when we're
moving it blows lights

and when we're parked it doesn't.

So something is pinching somewhere.

By unplugging the trailer we'll isolate it

whether it's in the
trailer or in the truck.

I was right!

It turned out that the
stock wiring harness

was like jiggling in a
little clip on the frame

and I was able to crawl under the car

and I saw it sparking
and I just wrapped it

with some electrical tape and we're done.

Now we're going to hit the road to Bishop.

(engine revving)

Yesterday we got our new project car,

'55 Chevy.

Didn't get very far down the road

cause of some electrical gremlins

with our tow vehicle the Suburban.

But after rewiring it on the
side of the road at midnight,

she's dialed.

- And now we're in Bishop,

which is one of my favorite little towns

and a local told me where he thinks

there's an abandoned 50's
truck out in the desert

so we're going to go check that
out before we hit the road.

(country western western arrangement)

- There's a lot of trash
in the desert here.

Like old, old, old trash.

- I bet we'd find something good out here.

There's a barrel.

There's a gas tank right there dude.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- So we're getting warm?

- Yeah.

- I hope that's not it.

- Oh hell. That might've been a truck.

- That used to be a truck cab.

- Is that a fender?

- That guy obviously
had greater appreciation

of our skills than we do.

- Wait, wait, wait. What did
he tell you was out here?

- He said it was an old round pickup truck

and that is,

an old round pickup truck.

Look at it, it's destroyed.

- There ain't a round
surface left on that thing.

- I see a fender, or no?

- Oh my God.

- Okay there's good
news and bad news here.

The good news is I have
complete confidence

that we could get that home
on the back of the trailer.

Bad news is there's
absolutely no reason to.

Oregon bound.

(engine revving)

(rock n' roll arrangement)

(engine revving)

(indiscernible dialogue)

- Don't floor it!

- I'm not!

(compressed air blasting)

- Oh it's bad.

- Long grade, old truck.

- We put a new radiator
in the Macho Grande

before we even left,

but it was no match for this
big long grade wide open

trying to get out of Bishop and so

we overheated, and overheated pretty bad.

We've been worse though,
I think we'll be good.

Is it walkable down to the water place?

- Couple miles.

- Every road trip the hood comes off.

- I know, I know!

Let's strap the hood to the roof! (laughs)

- That would fix this.

Alright, now to walk down the hill.

(country western arrangement)

Better get a raise for this.

Oh thank God.

That was the easy part.

Carrying this up that
hill is going to suck.

(water pouring)

Suddenly I have to pee.

There could've been a
bigger spout on here.

Just saying.

Up the hill.

Well somehow this is Fry Burger's fault.

I can't pinpoint how or why,

given that he was pretty much in a coma

in the passenger seat when I drove us

up this hill too fast.

But after hiking all the way down the hill

to get the water and to
come all the way back up

I've decided it's definitely not my fault,

it's all his fault.

And if that's enough water,

he's hiking down the damn
hill to get the rest of it.

- How much oil should be in the water?

- I know how we can do a Roadkill

and never boil over once.

- Don't leave home?

- Get a Volkswagen.

What bugs me is that we were actually

proactive about it this
time and put in a radiator.

New one, not even re-cored.

- That's amazing it still
has that much pressure

after this long.

- Just means the freeze
plugs are still in there.

Good news.

- This reminds me of the Alaska trip,

this reminds me of the Jaguar trip,

this reminds me of--

- Buick?

- This reminds me of--

- Told you deja vu, this is every trip.

Any minute now we'll cut
to a clip of us driving

with the hood off this thing.(laughs)

- One time I had a friend Tony who,

his 340 Duster did this,

and he like leaned way
back and got the cap off

and nothing happened, nothing happened,

he goes like this,
(blows) right in the face.

Melted, literally, skin
was hanging off of him.

It was pretty bad.

So go ahead and pop that.

(shouts)

(laughs)

- At least I didn't scream.

You put the water in.

(laughing)

(rock arrangement)

(engine revving)

Cap it off, let's go.

Before something bad happens.

- Our tow rig is a '73 GMC Suburban

and the guy I bought it from swore

that it has 340,000 miles on it.

And it doesn't really seem like it,

it runs pretty good.

It's got a 454 and a Turbo 400 Automatic.

We put some brand new
Micky Thompsons on it,

but the thing is I paid
1,500 bucks for this thing,

it sat for a year,

and we never drove it until
the day we put the tires on it

and left for this trip.

(classic rock arrangement)

Our route here is the
395-North in California

which takes us all the way up to Reno.

It's a great drive, lots
and lots of wilderness

and neat little towns.

This is Mono Lake which
is actually a salt lake.

It's actually the same place we drove

when we took that El Camino trip

a few episodes back.

Our overheating problem fixed itself

once it stopped being
100 plus degrees outside

and once we stopped
trying to full-throttle it

up steep hills.

We're in the Reno Sparks
area now and we're so close

that we thought that we would come here

and visit the scene of the crime,

at Summit Racing where
we did our engine swap

on the El Camino a couple episodes ago.

You think there's still a
big stain in the parking lot?

- No these people care too
much about their facility,

I bet they streetsweeped it.

- Let's find out.

I spent a year in this
parking lot one day.

Wow, you'd never know we were here.

- No it's right there.

They did a better job of
cleaning it than we did. (laughs)

- Yeah.

I scrubbed it but wow, impressive.

Summit Racing on the ball.

- That was fun.

- Okay.

- Let's go get dinner.

- Let's.

(classic rock arrangement)

(engine revving)

- We're in Klamath Falls, Oregon.

Got up this morning, got
pulled over by the cops,

and now I'm waiting on Fry
Burger to answer some emails

cause he's kind of a big
deal on the Internet,

and we're going to head to
Lincoln City hopefully today.

So you'll note that the car is running,

and we've been getting about
6, 6 1/2 miles to the gallon

so far in this trip.

That's not helping our costs. (laughs)

I can't turn the car off right now.

It's custom.

Here we go, piling down.

Come on baby, stall.

Okay throttle's backed all the way out,

it doesn't want to stall.

In gear.

And it won't die.

I'm going to have to reach in there

and disconnect the power
wire to the distributor.

(engine stalling)

I'm going to have to do that
everywhere we go now. (laughs)

Alright we got a full tank of gas,

a radiator with water in it,

- That's amazing.

- Under 300 miles to go and
it's still daylight out.

You were supposed to turn on the 39.

- Okay, where we thought

back there that sign that said 39.

- Okay we're going to turn around again.

- Fantastic navigating, Mike Finnegan.

- I told you what to do,
you just didn't do it.

- You know I can't remember anything

for more than three seconds
I have the attention span

of a gnat.

- You were 3/10ths of a mile from the turn

when I gave you the directions.

- I know, I told you.

Gnat.

(rock arrangement)

It's really cool to be here in Oregon

instead of in the desert
which is where we normally

do our Roadkills.

Right now we're heading sort of northeast

across the state and we're
headed towards Lincoln City,

which is right on the ocean.

(rock arrangement)

(engine revving)

- It doesn't sound happy.

Here, pour some oil.

Yesterday we got within
60 miles of Lincoln City,

stopped for the night,

and when we parked the Suburban,

it was running really good.

This morning we fired it up,

started heading for Jim Meyer Racing

and the engine just started
clattering really bad

so we pulled over and checked the oil

and there wasn't any oil in there.

I don't know where the oil went.

But the camshaft and the lifters

are not happy about our
severe lack of lubrication

so Fry Burger's putting some more in

and now we're hoping that we don't

flatten the cam loads before
we get to our destination.

- Why was it perfectly fine last night

when we stopped?

That's what I don't get.

- Maybe guys that don't like our critique

of the Lamborghini drained
the oil out last night.

- Maybe guys who don't
like your goatee. (laughs)

That could happen.

(rock arrangement)

- Oh we're 15 miles away,

we are so close.

- Are you excited?

- Dude, I'm about to piss myself.

- (laughs)

Please don't.

Truly the greatest thing
about this project is

by the end of today,

it's going to look like a car.

It's not just going to
fester around forever

hoping that it's cool.

- Ask me how close we are.

- How close are we?

- 1.8 miles to paradise.

- Let's stop for breakfast, I'm hungry.

- I'll push you out the
car door and keep driving.

(rock arrangement)

- Jim Meyer Racing is
like a gear head paradise

right near the cool tourist
area of Lincoln City.

He's got this great shop
tucked away in the woods.

He's been here like 25
years just doing cool

gear head stuff.

He's got old motocross bikes,

weird old hot rods,

but the main thing that they do here

is they make complete rolling
chassis that you can just

slap under your car.

I've heard of this place forever

and seen their ads and stuff

but it's always cool
to show up and find out

that it's a real place with
real, genuine hot rodders.

- The better you can get
the car to start out with

of course the better
your build's going to be

and the less expensive it's going to be.

You know for even the dents and the,

quarter panel the way it is

it's not going to take much to
put this thing back together.

- We've got about I don't know, 24 hours

before we've got to hit the road.

So we should probably get to work

and throw this thing together.

- Yeah we'll get a plan
going here I've got,

five guys here today so,

I don't think we'll have any problem

getting this thing going on.

- Oh man that's nice.

Wow.

That's way too good for you. (laughs)

- I really don't deserve this.

It's better than I imagined it.

I mean I've been drooling over a photo

that big on the website for a year now,

way better in person.

Amazing welds, the
construction's really nice.

These guys don't mess around.

- We're going to roll
the chassis out and back

the trailer all the way in.

And try and,

get it straight onto the lift.

(heavy rock arrangement)

So far it's like happening really fast.

Got the body off the dolly, on the lift,

and now what we're doing
is trying to center it

over the chassis and eyeball
what's going to happen

with the rear tire fitments so we can

cut out the quarter panels.

- I've been looking forward
to going to Jim Meyer Racing's

place for a long time
because these guys know

what they're doing, they've
been building hot rods forever,

just being around mills and
laves and plasma cutters

that just makes me warm and fuzzy inside.

So it's awesome to be here.

(heavy rock arrangement)

In a traditional gasser-style car,

the rear quarter panels on a '55 Chevy

have to get radius cut

so that the 30 inch slicks will fit.

And then they stick out just a hair

which is part of the reason
why the cut is so tall.

So that

when you drive the thing down the road

if you hit a bump and
the suspension compresses

the tire has room to go up
without damaging the body.

That is awesome.

I love the sidewall on that tire.

- Looks like a truck tire.

- Yeah.

We've already cut that side out,

made a template of it,

now we're going to
transfer it to this side,

cut this side out.

(heavy rock arrangement)

(ratcheting)

- We really wanted to mock up the hemi

and the transmission and the chassis

but we ran into a couple problems

that prevented that so
here we're just going to

mock it up so it sticks
to the car on the way home

on the trailer.

- We're so close.

(heavy rock arrangement)

- Break out the intake manifold.

- Yes.

- This is the key to the look of this car.

I've had this Enderly
mechanical fuel injection set up

on my shelf forever,

and when I knew we were
going to build the car

I knew I had to give it to Finnegan.

This thing looks right.

(ratcheting)

- And I didn't get socks
this year. (shouting)

- The car turned out exactly the way

I've always envisioned.

It's cool that we took just
a bare body on a trailer,

and showed up here,
plopped it on a chassis,

sort of threw a hemi into the thing,

and made it look like a complete

radical gasser in a matter of hours.

- I may just sleep in the car tonight.

- I can already see
myself at the drag strip.

- This is the best day
at work ever. (laughs)

Once again, this might actually be.

I got to agree with you.

- The ultimate goal for this build

is to have a kickass
gasser that runs low 10's

and hopefully does wheelies

and I want the car to look a lot like

the Two-Lane Blacktop '55 Chevy

except my car's going
to have a hemi in it,

just to piss off Chevy guys.

- This is going to motivate us.

We got to get this thing
done and when we do,

guaranteed that's the
ultimate Roadkill episode.

(heavy rock arrangement)

- We've had a lot of fun but this might be

the most enjoyable Roadkill yet

just because it was a great drive,

I love the Macho Grande,

and we made an incredible car.

- Lot of success.

Very few breakdowns that were speedbumps.

So yeah.

- We're pretty sure it'll be
much worse and more violent

on the next episode of Roadkill.

- Word.

(engine revving)

I froze my nuts off in this parking lot.

- Maybe you can find them
and put them back on.

- I know right?

- You do the speech, go for it--

- No you're doing great actually.

- No be funny.

- You're doing great.

I'm number two.

- Still rolling?

We completely failed again?

- If the front tire's
mounted on the wheels,

cut the firewall and get
the body bolted down.

- I don't know cause I
won't be there, right?

- You're going to punk
out and leave early?

- Thank you. (sighs)

(laughs)

- That didn't,

that didn't fit right
look you got lice now.

- Yeah.

- Merry Christmas.

- Whoa, whoa, dude.

Dude.

Careful, alright?

- Oops.