Rat Rod Jeep Death-Wish Trip! - Roadkill Episode 15
David Freiburger claims that this road trip on this episode of Roadkill is the most stupid thing that he and Mike Finnegan have ever done. Freiburger wanted to do a Jeep trip
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MotorTranscript
00:00 We bought a $3,000 Rat Rod Jeep,
00:02 (engine starts)
00:03 drove it from LA to the Desert Bar in Parker, Arizona,
00:06 (engine revs)
00:07 - Oh!
00:08 - And sold it to these guys for $407.
00:11 That's Finnegan Economics.
00:13 (engine revs)
00:15 (tires screech)
00:24 (rock music)
00:28 (engine revs)
00:31 On this episode of Roadkill,
00:41 Freiburger wanted to go off-roading,
00:43 so he said buy a Jeep, and I did.
00:46 Just not the kind of Jeep he was expecting.
00:48 I bought this Jeep in the dark in the dead of winter,
00:50 and I parked it under a tarp for the last three months.
00:53 Freiburger's never seen it.
00:55 I forget what it even looks like.
00:57 He's in for a hell of a surprise.
00:59 This is gonna be the least organized Roadkill ever.
01:07 And that's saying something.
01:09 It's gonna make a mosh pit
01:10 look like a precision military operation.
01:13 He bought something, and I have not even seen it.
01:17 So this is gonna be bad.
01:26 (laughs)
01:28 Hey, do you see your new Jeep?
01:31 - Hey.
01:32 - We're friends, right?
01:34 - This is the surprise?
01:36 - See your Jeep.
01:37 (laughs)
01:40 - Okay.
01:42 - You wanted to go off-roading.
01:43 I know of a bar that you can only get to by dirt,
01:46 and what better way to get to the bar than in a Jeep?
01:49 This is your Jeep.
01:50 - It's a flat rod, isn't it?
01:51 Jeep rod!
01:52 - She's not quite ready to get up for a test drive.
01:56 - No.
01:57 Oh, it's cool.
02:00 - It's cool for a minute
02:01 until you really start staring at her.
02:03 - Oh, it's a MB.
02:04 It's a genuine World War II grill anyway.
02:07 Huh, this tire's touching this fender.
02:10 - Oh, it's got airbags, it lifts up.
02:12 - Great, that always works out well.
02:14 - As long as they never leak, that's not a problem.
02:16 And because it sat here for three months
02:18 and I haven't looked at it,
02:19 it's puked all the guts out of the tranny
02:22 onto the pavement here.
02:22 So we're gonna have to remedy that.
02:24 - Oh, good.
02:25 That's not that much, it'll be fine.
02:27 - And there's no compressor for the airbags,
02:29 so we're gonna have to rig something up
02:31 a la Ranchero style.
02:33 - Chevy.
02:33 Does it run good?
02:35 - No, it needs a tune-up.
02:38 We need to obviously top off the fluids.
02:40 It needs a cotter pin for every single castle nut.
02:43 I am a little concerned about the fact
02:44 that the airbags are mounted single shear, no gussets.
02:48 - This is ugly.
02:49 - But I think if we put fluids in it and cotter pins--
02:51 - It can't weigh anything.
02:52 - Get air in the bags,
02:53 we could at least go drive down the street
02:54 and see if it'll make it.
02:57 - Where are we going?
02:58 - We are going to the Nelly E. Saloon,
03:00 a bar in the Buckskin Mountains in Park, Arizona
03:04 that you can only get to on a dirt trail.
03:06 - I don't know if you noticed,
03:07 but those are not BFG mud terrains.
03:09 - Well, I mean, we're not rock crawling,
03:10 but it is, you know, we may high center her.
03:14 - It looks cool.
03:15 - It's got style.
03:16 It has no substance though.
03:18 - So where do we begin?
03:19 Does it run?
03:20 - I don't know, it's been three months since I've seen it.
03:24 - Crank it over.
03:24 - No.
03:26 - Usual, the battery's dead.
03:28 Air compressor, lift it off the ground,
03:29 fluids, get a battery, test drive.
03:33 (upbeat music)
03:35 - I get the feeling that we buy the same stuff
03:40 over and over again every time we do this.
03:42 - How many jacks have we bought for roadkill?
03:44 - I don't understand why they won't let us take the break
03:46 clean and, you know, jack handles on airplanes.
03:50 - It has oil, only a little water in it.
03:53 - Over by the beach, there's a lot of condensation.
03:56 - Tastes okay.
03:57 I'm the editor of Hot Rod Magazine,
03:58 but a lot of people don't know that I was also the editor
04:01 of 4 Wheel and Off-Road for a long time.
04:02 I'm really hardcore off-road guy
04:04 and especially a hardcore Jeep guy.
04:06 I've got like seven flat fender Jeep bodies
04:09 and half rollers and all sorts of stuff
04:11 sitting around my house.
04:12 And I've always wanted to do this to one.
04:14 Well, not exactly like this, but make a hot rod out of it.
04:18 Oh, I can get the front wheels off the ground.
04:21 Check it.
04:23 You can watch the shock mount bend as you're doing that.
04:25 Look at the front axle.
04:27 Look at the rotation on it.
04:30 Oh, we're dead.
04:31 I've been 260 miles an hour in a Camaro.
04:33 I'm more scared of that.
04:35 The first time I welded on my mini truck
04:37 right after high school,
04:38 it looked better than what I'm seeing under here.
04:40 Yeah.
04:44 - I realize nothing about this is,
04:46 even the button to start it is red.
04:48 (engine revving)
04:51 - That runs bad.
04:55 So that needs a little bit of attention.
04:59 We only had two days to get to Parker
05:03 and this was going to be the last day of the year
05:05 that the desert bar was open.
05:07 We found out there actually was a compressor on board
05:09 and we got some air into the rear bags,
05:12 but we had to make the engine run right
05:13 and it did not help that the firing order was wrong.
05:16 I've seen sketchier hot rods in my life.
05:18 I just haven't driven in them.
05:20 Two cylinders were switched.
05:24 I have a feeling that's not going to fix everything
05:26 on this pile though.
05:27 - The airbag is rubbing the frame
05:28 and the shock is hitting the airbag mount.
05:30 So as we drive down the road,
05:32 that airbag rubbing there,
05:33 rubber against steel,
05:34 puts a hole in that bag
05:35 and then that blows and we crash.
05:37 - We've got to re-drill this
05:39 to move this airbag further outboard.
05:41 Riding in this might be so miserable
05:44 that you just crave the relief
05:46 that only sweet death can bring.
05:48 (laughing)
05:50 - Get the shock out of the way
05:57 so that we can cut this part of the mount off
06:00 that's wedging itself into the shock.
06:02 - This mount that I can flex by hand.
06:04 - I was thinking to myself,
06:07 why does this look weird to me?
06:09 And I walked over here and I went,
06:10 oh, the shock's installed upside down.
06:13 - The bat wing doohickey here
06:15 is hitting the shock body.
06:17 So when the axle twists like this,
06:19 which we know it does because it's a MAP,
06:22 it's gonna bend and bind that whole shock.
06:23 So that's why we're putting it back upside down right now.
06:26 - You're supposed to put spacers in between them
06:28 when you weld them together
06:29 so that they don't do that.
06:31 He didn't do that.
06:34 We put band-aids on the suspension,
06:36 tuned the engine as best we could,
06:38 topped off the fluids
06:39 and then it was time to hit the road.
06:41 - Ready for first test drive?
06:45 (grunts)
06:47 - Why does the steering wheel have to be this large?
06:49 - It's a stock Jeep wheel.
06:51 It's good.
06:52 - Ah, it's not good 'cause the brake pedal is...
06:56 Okay, so that's what I'm gonna have to do
06:58 to get to the brakes.
06:59 This is the Sailor Jerry car without a roof.
07:02 Look at this.
07:02 - It is.
07:03 (upbeat music)
07:06 I'm more comfortable than the Rat Rod, significantly.
07:12 - Well, that's 'cause you're not over here.
07:13 You don't have a steering wheel in your crotch.
07:15 When I run into the back of a semi...
07:18 - Let's go.
07:19 - We're leaving in the middle of traffic.
07:20 You know that, right?
07:21 - The slow speed will save us.
07:22 - Okay.
07:23 - So much for talking to each other.
07:26 - What? Yeah, it's great, I know.
07:28 - This is not connected to anything, you know?
07:34 - I haven't, it feels better using it, you know?
07:36 - Okay, yeah.
07:37 - Is there any brake fluid in this thing?
07:39 - There was.
07:40 - 'Cause I'm having to use both feet to stop.
07:43 - Oh yeah, we've never tried to stop before.
07:46 - No.
07:47 - Will it stop?
07:47 - No.
07:48 - That's fine.
07:49 - Yeah, with two feet.
07:50 - We can make it the whole way like this.
07:52 (car engine revving)
07:55 - That's good.
07:56 (laughing)
07:57 - Sort of.
07:58 - I need to set up a car alarm.
08:00 (laughing)
08:03 Okay, here we go, ready?
08:04 (upbeat music)
08:07 (car engine revving)
08:10 - Woohoo!
08:12 (car engine revving)
08:14 - Oh my God, that's loud.
08:17 - No turn signals.
08:18 - It's surprisingly slow too.
08:20 Not that I'm challenging you.
08:22 (laughing)
08:24 - Oh wait, we're in the wrong lane.
08:25 - Get back over.
08:27 (car engine revving)
08:29 (laughing)
08:30 - You wanna know what death looks like?
08:32 This is what death looks like.
08:35 (car engine revving)
08:36 (car alarm blaring)
08:37 (laughing)
08:39 (car engine revving)
08:41 - Oh shit, this is gonna hurt.
08:43 Oh, railroad track, hold on.
08:45 (car engine revving)
08:46 (laughing)
08:49 - Okay, I'm gonna test the brakes now.
08:53 I had to push my knee down
08:54 to make the brake pedal work good.
08:56 This thing's hater-proof.
08:59 (car engine revving)
09:01 - Oh, dude!
09:03 (laughing)
09:06 - That was fun, that was a prank.
09:07 (laughing)
09:09 (car engine revving)
09:11 - Oh, you're getting played.
09:14 Whoa!
09:15 - It doesn't break.
09:15 - Little bump steer.
09:16 - It doesn't break straight.
09:18 (car engine revving)
09:21 - We headed back to the office
09:26 to meet up with our official naysayer,
09:28 KJ Jones from 5.0 Mustang Magazine.
09:31 - Look at all that travel.
09:32 - Nah, bro.
09:34 No.
09:34 - No?
09:35 - No, no, this is gonna be--
09:36 - You don't like the Batman theme, the shotgun?
09:38 - Really, man, look at this right here, bro.
09:40 - What are you saying?
09:41 - Come on, Dave.
09:42 (laughing)
09:43 Come on, bro, it's got a ladder bar, man.
09:46 - Yeah, but they're attached well.
09:48 (laughing)
09:50 - No (beep) way.
09:51 (laughing)
09:54 - Then there's this problem.
09:55 (car engine revving)
09:58 - Open headers.
09:59 - Guys, we've really done it this time.
10:03 - So, while KJ headed inside
10:04 to take out a life insurance policy on us,
10:07 we needed to go over to a local hardware store
10:09 and fix the suspension before hitting the road.
10:12 But first, we were gonna live up
10:13 to one of Finnegan's dreams
10:15 and take one of our utter piles of garbage
10:17 and valet it at a high-end restaurant.
10:20 (upbeat music)
10:22 (car engine revving)
10:26 - Oh yeah, oh, dude.
10:28 - Let's make this place.
10:30 - Gonna eat good tonight.
10:34 - Okay.
10:35 - You sure you gotta work it?
10:36 - I don't know.
10:37 - Who can blame the valet guy
10:38 for not wanting to park this thing?
10:40 He was a bit confused when he went
10:41 to put the ticket on our windshield
10:43 and discovered we didn't have one.
10:45 - We lost our window.
10:46 (laughing)
10:49 - This is swank.
10:51 - We have to celebrate.
10:53 - Yeah.
10:54 - When we've done roadkill with beater vehicles
10:59 for like the past year,
11:00 every single time we've wanted to go
11:02 through the high-end valet.
11:03 So we finally did it at that steakhouse back there
11:06 and they were unfazed.
11:08 But now we're at the hardware store
11:09 because we still have to fix the ladder bar mount
11:12 and ratchet strap down our junk.
11:14 And what else?
11:15 Fluids, gas again?
11:17 - My junk's fine.
11:18 But yeah, let's go get some stuff
11:19 to hold things together.
11:20 Most of the bolts have nyloc nuts,
11:24 which are great for holding things together that vibrate.
11:27 Except when the bolt doesn't protrude
11:29 all the way out the end of the nut,
11:31 so the nyloc can grab it,
11:33 they tend to fall apart.
11:34 And when they fall apart on the suspension, you die.
11:37 So we're gonna remedy that situation with longer bolts.
11:41 It's 9 p.m. on day one.
11:46 We've gone one mile.
11:48 We're continuing to wrench on the Jeep.
11:50 Remains to be seen if we're gonna hit the road tonight
11:53 or we're gonna end up hitting it in the morning.
11:55 It was late and we had to hit the sack.
11:59 No one took it.
12:03 Dang it.
12:03 I don't think they could figure out how to work it.
12:07 - Did you call your wife and say,
12:10 "It's been nice knowing you?"
12:11 - I called her and I said,
12:13 "You'll be happy to know that all the work we did yesterday
12:16 "wasn't for speed or efficiency.
12:17 "It was just to make sure we didn't die today."
12:20 And she thanked me 'cause she said
12:21 she'd like to have another child
12:22 and she wants that child to have the same father.
12:25 All those rabbit turds in the bottom of this car
12:28 make me feel like I need more safety equipment than usual.
12:30 - Check my hearing so I can hear my baby someday.
12:33 All right.
12:35 Ready?
12:36 Can you even hear me?
12:39 - No, that's the good part about that.
12:42 - I'm going full on Darth Vader.
12:44 - Good to go.
12:46 - Oh yeah, this is comfortable.
12:49 - This is like going on the freeway in a skateboard
12:51 with a Briggs & Stratton on the back.
12:53 (engine revving)
12:56 (upbeat music)
12:59 - Hey, how fast are we going?
13:06 - I can't hear you.
13:07 I think this is the first time in my life
13:17 I've wished for heavy traffic.
13:20 (laughing)
13:21 - Don't worry, we'll be fine.
13:22 - He's like a champ.
13:25 (engine revving)
13:28 - 3.18 gallons.
13:31 - And 51 miles.
13:33 What do you think, keep it or sell it?
13:34 - I'm gonna have a lot of fun getting to the bar.
13:37 After that, I don't need to drive this ever again.
13:39 (laughing)
13:40 I'm fine with disposing it.
13:41 So here's what we do, right?
13:43 We turn on glimpse so people can follow us,
13:45 but they don't know where we're going.
13:47 And we tell them, follow us to this bar.
13:50 Whoever's in the seat at last call,
13:52 which is six o'clock at this particular bar,
13:54 has to pay our tab and they can take it home.
13:56 - Right now it makes me kind of sad
13:58 to think of it being gone,
13:59 but after another 400 miles,
14:00 I'm thinking I'm anxious for that.
14:02 So I'm gonna put it on Facebook.
14:04 We're just saying, you gotta follow us or figure it out.
14:06 - Yeah, we're going to A bar.
14:07 - We're going to A bar.
14:08 (upbeat music)
14:11 - We really weren't sure how many people
14:13 were gonna show up to buy this Jeep,
14:15 but within an hour,
14:16 we actually had 500 people following us online.
14:19 (engine revving)
14:21 - Woo hoo!
14:22 - Finnegan seemed happy to drive.
14:25 And I think it's because there's a steering wheel
14:28 to hold on to.
14:29 You don't sit in this thing, you sit on it.
14:32 And there's one of a hundred things
14:34 that could break on this thing
14:35 and then just throw us right out onto the pavement.
14:38 - Oil on the floor.
14:43 - Coming up from the floor?
14:45 - Coming out of the crack right there.
14:47 - Like not down the firewall from the bottom.
14:50 - Yeah.
14:51 - How's that possible?
14:52 That kinda looks pink.
14:55 - Yeah, it's transmission fluid.
15:00 - All right.
15:01 - Transmission fluid catches on fire.
15:03 That'll be fun.
15:04 - Will this drive faster?
15:06 - It'll blow it out.
15:08 - No, come on.
15:09 And, go!
15:11 (engine revving)
15:15 (upbeat music)
15:21 - At one time, this was the world's
15:24 largest military installation.
15:25 It went from here in California, all the way to Arizona.
15:28 It's where Patton trained like a million guys
15:31 to go fight in Africa.
15:33 And a lot of the surplus Jeeps in California
15:36 came out of here.
15:37 This is a genuine World War II Jeep.
15:38 It's like a 41 to 45, which you know,
15:41 'cause it has a different grill, blackout lights,
15:44 the hood doesn't say Willys like the civilian ones do.
15:46 Bantam initially came up with a design
15:48 for the World War II Jeep, and they were too small to do it.
15:52 And so, Willys ended up getting the contract,
15:54 and they were too small to build them.
15:55 And so, the government actually had Ford
15:57 make a bunch of them too.
15:58 This could be a Ford.
15:59 So yeah, it's a Willys or a Ford.
16:02 It's a hot rod.
16:03 (engine revving)
16:07 (upbeat music)
16:09 (engine revving)
16:12 We were cruising down the highway at the end of the day
16:27 and getting passed by every car,
16:28 and I'm even falling asleep.
16:30 So I pulled over to hand the keys to Finnegan.
16:32 What does he do?
16:34 Gets us stuck immediately on flat ground.
16:39 How pathetic that a Jeep is stuck here.
16:42 This Jeep sucks, man.
16:44 See, this is why the Jeep rod concept is completely wrong,
16:47 'cause you remove the front axle,
16:48 you make it two wheel drive,
16:50 you take all the Jeepness out of the Jeep,
16:52 and then you get it stuck at the side of the road.
16:54 Because we didn't fix the shifter earlier today,
16:57 we're gonna fix it now with a cotter pin and a zip tie
16:59 to connect the linkage back together.
17:01 And here comes someone offering to help.
17:03 Hope they got a toe strap.
17:04 You need a hand with anything?
17:07 You have a Yank strap?
17:07 You got a Yank strap?
17:09 (clicks tongue)
17:10 We're gonna strap his car to our car
17:12 with an extension cord.
17:13 That's right, an extension cord.
17:15 That's what's gonna get us out of this mess.
17:17 We just traded four gallons of gas
17:27 for a three foot toe with an extension cord.
17:28 - How did you end up coming to the edge like that?
17:31 - We're making a U-turn.
17:32 (laughs)
17:35 (engine revs)
17:38 Right now it's 11.15 and we're in the middle of nowhere
17:49 fixing this thing 'cause it's puking so bad.
17:51 The desert bar opens at noon and closes at 6 p.m.
17:56 Hopefully this junk is gonna make it
17:58 on a 12 mile dirt road all the way out to this bar
18:01 in the middle of nowhere.
18:02 Wow, that's leaking bad.
18:03 Once I cleaned everything off,
18:05 it was really hard to tell where it's coming from
18:07 'cause it's not running and the fountain's not moving.
18:09 David wants me to start it up on the jack right now.
18:12 Genuinely afraid 'cause I think this thing's
18:13 just gonna ghost ride itself off into that field
18:15 and then it'll stop when it hits the ditch.
18:18 At that point I'm leaving it.
18:19 I'm not even gonna pull it out if it ends up in that ditch.
18:22 (engine revs)
18:24 Flashlight's right there, have fun.
18:28 Okay, eight.
18:30 It is the transcooler line.
18:31 It wasn't leaking out of the fittings
18:33 so the line must have a hole in it.
18:35 It must 'cause it's squirting up and then running down.
18:39 Okay, we're not fixing that so it's fine, right?
18:41 I'm okay with it, just keep buying more ATF.
18:44 When you know the rules, you're allowed to break them
18:46 and we know that that's not supposed to leak
18:48 so we're good.
18:49 Like that.
18:52 Oh my God.
18:53 (upbeat music)
18:56 There's the car wash.
19:00 And there's nobody in line.
19:02 That means it's all ours.
19:03 We need this cleaned.
19:05 They're all like, what in the hell is that?
19:10 Notice how nobody's jumping up to wash.
19:11 You're not leaping to action.
19:13 (laughing)
19:16 They're like, we're not washing your car.
19:18 See, we're selling this today and we need it to be spiffy.
19:21 I want you to use the good soap,
19:23 not the stuff you use on everybody else's cars.
19:25 That's right.
19:25 Are you brothers?
19:27 No.
19:27 (laughing)
19:29 That's my dad.
19:30 Yeah.
19:31 Don't forget the chrome.
19:32 Right.
19:32 It's like the one nice part on the whole car.
19:34 There we go.
19:35 Thank you.
19:36 Thank you for the donut.
19:38 This thing is a smoke machine.
19:46 So of course we did burnouts
19:47 before we left the pavement for the last time.
19:49 (engine revving)
19:52 (upbeat music)
19:54 I'm thinking greater speed might help.
20:13 Here we go.
20:16 (laughing)
20:19 Oh, brutal.
20:20 I thought this thing was bad on pavement,
20:26 but we hit the dirt and I felt like
20:28 I was inside a paint shaker.
20:30 This is why I told you I wanted a Jeep.
20:32 You know what the funny thing is?
20:36 Is these people think they're roughing it.
20:38 They have no top on their full on rock crawling Jeep.
20:41 They don't know what life's about.
20:42 You're a rugged outdoorsman, dude.
20:44 Have fun with your radio communication.
20:48 Yeah, remember no front brakes or no rear brakes.
20:51 What was that?
20:53 It must have broken, right?
20:54 The bag might've blown.
20:56 Yep.
20:57 Bag mount broke off.
20:59 Don't make it worse.
21:00 You knew that was going to happen.
21:01 Make it worse.
21:02 We're close.
21:03 Let's just keep going.
21:04 Okay, so now we have no suspension at all.
21:07 'Cause now that that bag broke.
21:10 This one's also flat.
21:11 Yeah.
21:12 They're teed together.
21:13 So we have no air in the front suspension.
21:15 I don't care.
21:16 Let's just get to the beer.
21:17 (upbeat music)
21:20 The desert bar is legendary.
21:28 And I had this picture in my mind
21:29 of what kind of an oasis it was going to be.
21:32 And we rounded the corner and there it is.
21:34 Wow.
21:36 We're going to make it.
21:37 The only problem is this place has no phone, no internet.
21:41 So we couldn't call them in advance
21:43 to get permission to shoot roadkill there.
21:45 And when we got there, they said, no cameras, no way.
21:48 The problem with this deal is that we showed up
21:51 45 minutes before closing time.
21:53 And we didn't feel we could really run up a tab
21:55 that was what the Jeep's worth.
21:57 But we tried.
21:58 You do not want to see what it looks like
22:00 when Finnegan and I drink 400 bucks worth of alcohol
22:03 in 45 minutes.
22:05 And there was a couple people who showed up
22:06 who had driven all the way from Phoenix and Scottsdale
22:09 just to look at the Jeep and see if they could buy it.
22:12 Yeah, those guys took one look and hit the road.
22:14 But there was a guy in the bar, though,
22:16 who recognized me from Hot Rod Magazine.
22:18 I told him the story.
22:19 He walked out into the parking lot
22:21 and made the flash decision.
22:22 He had to own this thing.
22:24 Sucker.
22:25 The most incredible thing is not just that we lived,
22:30 but that we made it all the way to Arizona
22:33 without getting arrested.
22:34 With no windshield, no mufflers, no seatbelts,
22:37 no license plates, no registration, no common sense.
22:41 Come to think of it, that's pretty normal
22:43 here on "Roadkill."
22:44 Go for the best beer at work ever.
22:49 Best beer at work ever.
22:51 Wait, hold on.
22:53 That sounded drunk.
22:54 (laughing)
22:56 That's Finnegan Economics.
22:58 Fin-onomics.
23:01 Fin-icomics.
23:02 Most drunk "Roadkill" ever.
23:04 All of the ladies come back.
23:08 Why would you want them out?
23:09 Wait, you're not in the photo.
23:12 You gotta come around front.
23:14 No, both of you, all the way in front.
23:16 'Cause you're not in the photo.
23:17 Oh yeah, boobs are good.
23:17 This is like, "Grawl Boy" kind of thing.
23:20 Yeah, yeah.
23:21 All the girls on my side.
23:22 You wanna do that again?
23:24 (water bubbling)
23:27 (water bubbling)