On this episode of HOT ROD Garage presented by Lincoln Tech
Category
🚗
MotorTranscript
00:00 (rock music)
00:02 - Welcome back to Hot Rod Garage, presented by Lincoln Tech.
00:22 Did you ever have an old project car that you forgot about?
00:25 Or maybe you found something cool that's been abandoned
00:26 forever behind a friend's house,
00:28 and you wanna know how to get that thing back
00:29 in action, how to resurrect that car?
00:32 Well, I've got a car like that.
00:34 It's my 1971 Dodge Demon 340.
00:36 This car sat for about 18 years.
00:38 And today we're gonna show you how to take a car
00:39 that's been sitting forever and get it fired back to life.
00:42 But first, stay tuned for this quick tech tip
00:44 from Lincoln Tech.
00:45 (upbeat music)
00:47 You know, here's a few things about automotive
00:52 spray primers you might not know.
00:55 Primers were developed to ready a bare surface
00:57 prior to painting.
00:58 They weren't invented to allow you to drive
01:00 your under construction hot rod around for 10 years
01:02 before, well, you get around to painting it.
01:05 So, how do you choose the right primer?
01:07 Well, that depends on the job you're asking it to do.
01:10 Think about it.
01:11 Wash primers eliminate the need for a surface coating
01:14 on bare metal.
01:15 You see, the reducer in the wash primer
01:17 contains phosphoric acid, which cleans the metal
01:20 to aid in bonding.
01:22 The vinyl resin in wash primer also provides
01:24 a level of corrosion resistance.
01:26 High build primers are designed to fill,
01:29 well, minor imperfections in the metal
01:31 so that when you sand it, the result is a flat surface
01:34 that's almost ready for paint.
01:36 Self-etching primer.
01:38 That's formulated with a small amount
01:40 of phosphoric acid and zinc.
01:42 The acid forces the zinc into the top of the metal
01:45 and this promotes adhesion and durability of your top coat.
01:49 Self-etching primer.
01:50 That's used on non-etched surfaces such as bare steel,
01:54 stainless steel, chrome, even fiberglass.
01:57 And finally, epoxy primer.
01:59 It's useful for filling small cracks and dents
02:01 and provides a good surface for paint to adhere to.
02:04 You can also apply epoxy primer on top of
02:07 self-etching primer to build up a level of surface.
02:11 Lincoln Tech can teach you how to have a career
02:13 working with cars.
02:14 See lincolntech.edu.
02:17 All right, so we're heading down to Hoonigan
02:18 in the company truck and trailer
02:20 to pick up my 1971 Dodge Demon.
02:22 Now I've had a ton of cars, but this car is my first car
02:25 and it's really special to me.
02:27 We're gonna show you exactly what it takes
02:29 to get a car that's been sitting forever,
02:31 back to running condition and back on the road.
02:33 All right, so there it is.
02:37 (upbeat music)
02:40 My 1971 Dodge Demon 340, four-speed.
02:48 It's an original matching numbers car
02:50 that I bought when I was 15 years old.
02:52 I worked on this car tirelessly through high school.
02:57 It hasn't been on the road since 1996.
03:00 You can see from the inspection stickers.
03:02 I loved this car when I was a kid
03:03 'cause of the bright colors and the stripes and the scoop
03:06 and it's just loud and obnoxious and it was very teenage me.
03:10 All right, let's get this thing loaded up
03:11 and take it over to our shop.
03:12 (upbeat music)
03:15 (upbeat music)
03:17 Just a sec.
03:36 Hi.
03:38 - One more tip, please.
03:39 - Zip it up.
03:40 All right, we're back in the garage.
03:42 We've got my Demon loaded in
03:43 and we've got this nifty checklist.
03:45 Now, if we work through this thing,
03:46 it's gonna show you how to get a car
03:47 that's been sitting forever fired up.
03:49 The first thing you wanna do is make sure
03:50 that the engine spins freely.
03:52 That means taking like a half-inch ratchet or a breaker bar,
03:55 put it on the front of the crankshaft
03:57 and make sure that thing spins by hand.
03:59 Let's do it.
04:00 All right, so I got a socket on the crank here
04:02 and yeah, this motor spins freely,
04:05 which I'm pretty sure it would.
04:07 But if it didn't spin, the next thing I would do
04:09 is I would take all the spark plugs out
04:11 and fill the cylinders as much as I can
04:13 with like ATF or Marvel Mystery Oil.
04:16 Let that sit in there about a day.
04:17 That stuff eats up corrosion, it eats up carbon.
04:20 Then come back, get a nice breaker bar,
04:22 put it on the crankshaft and try to break that thing loose.
04:25 Once you get it spun around, you can move on down the list.
04:28 Now that we know the engine spins freely,
04:30 we're gonna go to number two,
04:32 which is fluid check and change.
04:33 That means going through the fluids,
04:35 making sure they're present,
04:36 making sure they're in good shape
04:38 and changing them if we need to.
04:39 So let's do that.
04:41 So I stored this engine dry.
04:43 No coolant, no oil in it.
04:44 And then I put fresh fluids in it.
04:46 But if you come across a car you're working on
04:48 and it's been sitting for a while,
04:50 before you try to get started,
04:51 you wanna make sure that the fluids are viable
04:53 and worth using.
04:54 Really, if it's been any kind of extended period of time,
04:57 more than a year or two,
04:58 I would recommend just changing every fluid for fresh fluid.
05:03 Oil, coolant, gasoline are the most important,
05:05 at least what we're focusing on here
05:07 to get a car running and started up.
05:09 Next up, we've got the radiator.
05:11 Now, this has been sitting without coolant in it
05:13 for like 18 years.
05:14 Does have some corrosion in it.
05:17 I'm hoping I can take this to a local radiator shop,
05:19 have them clean, hot tank it and pressure test it
05:22 and we can get it into usable condition.
05:24 So with this car,
05:27 the one thing I didn't do was drain the gas out.
05:29 So that means I left a bunch of gas in the tank in the 90s
05:32 and it's probably turned into awful gunk and varnish by now.
05:35 So I'm gonna yank that out.
05:36 I'm gonna put a fresh gas tank I got from year one
05:38 and a fresh sending unit
05:39 because you'll see the socket itself can also degrade.
05:41 So let's do that.
05:43 All right, so first thing
05:43 before we can yank out this fuel tank,
05:45 I've got to pull out the fuel filler neck.
05:47 We got some screws back here.
05:50 All right, so we'll raise the car up,
06:05 drop the tank out, have a look at it,
06:07 install the new tank.
06:09 (upbeat music)
06:12 So for a couple of years in '70 and '71,
06:19 Dodge had this overly complex ECS evaporative control system
06:23 which was four different vents
06:25 in different parts of the fuel tank,
06:26 this sub tank and a bunch of lines
06:29 which looks like somebody already cut.
06:30 All right, I yanked out the old fuel sending unit
06:37 which is this piece.
06:38 So this old tank actually doesn't look too bad inside.
06:40 It has some gunk and some varnish
06:42 but I probably could have cleaned it out and used it.
06:44 I'm instead going to upgrade to a later tank
06:46 which has a single vent setup
06:47 which is really easy to deal with
06:49 that we got from year one.
06:50 All right, before I hook up the fuel line
06:54 to the new fuel tank,
06:54 I'm gonna blow it out with some compressed air.
06:57 Try to get any sediment I can out of there.
07:00 All right, now we can hook the tank up.
07:03 (upbeat music)
07:05 So now we've got the brand new gas tank in the car
07:18 and I cleaned out the feed line as best I could
07:20 before hooking it up.
07:21 So we should have good gas in the car.
07:23 We know we have good oil
07:25 and I just got this radiator back from our local shop.
07:27 It's all been cleaned and hot tank.
07:28 It's ready to bolt in.
07:29 So I'm gonna bolt that in with the accessory drive
07:31 and we'll know that we have coolant, fuel and oil.
07:34 There's a couple more things we'll fire this thing up.
07:37 And so I'm gonna toss on this Mopar Performance
07:39 eight blade aluminum upgraded water pump
07:42 that year one hooked us up with.
07:43 (upbeat music)
07:46, I'm gonna take this ancient Excel super coil off,
07:51 put in a compact modern coil.
08:11 So now we know we're happy with the fluids
08:12 that are in the car.
08:13 We'll go to number three,
08:14 which is pull plugs and inspect cylinder.
08:16 Means we're gonna yank the plugs out.
08:18 We're gonna have a look at them.
08:19 So let's do that.
08:20 If you want to really get a good look in there,
08:24 you can grab one of these.
08:25 This is an inspection camera.
08:27 You can get this under a hundred bucks
08:28 at those import discount tool stores.
08:31 And they are seriously awesome.
08:33 We're gonna stick a little flexible camera on here,
08:36 jam it in the cylinder in the spark plug hole
08:38 and we'll actually be able to see what's going on.
08:40 (upbeat music)
08:42 (upbeat music)
08:45 So it looks pretty much brand new.
08:50 You'd be looking for, yeah, corrosion,
08:56 signs of like detonation,
08:57 any damage to the piston for maybe anything falling in there.
09:00 This seems to look good
09:02 and the cylinder walls look nice and clean.
09:04 So now we have an engine that spins freely.
09:07 We're happy with the fluids and the plugs look good.
09:09 What we can go to next is number four,
09:11 which is pull the distributor and prime the oil system.
09:13 So on these American V8s,
09:15 you can yank that distributor out,
09:16 gain access to the oil pump drive gear,
09:19 put a special tool in with a cordless drill
09:21 and circulate oil throughout the engine.
09:23 That makes sure everything is pre-lubricated
09:24 before you start cranking this thing over.
09:26 So these little tools are available everywhere.
09:29 I actually made this one, which you can get them wherever.
09:31 I'm gonna drop it in place of the distributor,
09:34 spin the oil pump with a cordless drill
09:35 and circulate engine all over the place.
09:37 First thing I did was turn the engine over
09:38 to the top dead center so that I know where it is.
09:41 Now I'm gonna pull the distributor cap,
09:43 pull the distributor out,
09:44 yank out the distributor drive gear,
09:46 drop this in its place and spin it with a cordless drill.
09:49 Pull the distributor cap off.
09:52 Which number one is here?
09:53 Yep, I'm right on.
09:55 Beautiful.
09:56 (upbeat music)
10:10 So I'm gonna remove the stock oil pressure sending unit
10:13 and we are gonna spin the pump just to confirm
10:16 we're getting good oil flow through the motor.
10:18 Yep, there she go.
10:24 Flowing already.
10:25 All right.
10:26 I've got the distributor drive gear lined up.
10:31 So this distributor should fall in.
10:34 Got the clamp on so I can just move this thing,
10:39 but it should hold in place.
10:41 I'm gonna ballpark at about 15 degrees advance
10:44 so it should fire right up.
10:45 So I'm looking at the position of the number one.
10:49 All right, the distributor's back in.
10:50 One thing you wanna remember,
10:52 if you're doing a Mopar engine,
10:54 small blocks you have to spin clockwise
10:56 and big blocks you wanna spin counterclockwise
10:58 to make oil pressure.
10:59 So don't forget it.
11:01 Little MSD ballastic coil in place of that giant
11:04 old school banged up Excel super coil.
11:06 (upbeat music)
11:09 (engine revving)
11:12 Now I've got the engine all pre-lubed.
11:23 Next thing we're gonna do is flush out the fuel system.
11:25 So whether you put a brand new tank in like I did,
11:27 or you're just gonna pump in like five gallons
11:29 of new gas into your tank,
11:30 what you wanna do is pull off the fuel line,
11:32 put a good length of hose on there
11:35 and pump it until you see about the first core
11:38 is gonna come out pretty grimy just from sediment
11:40 in the lines of fuel pump, the tank, whatever.
11:42 Once you're pumping out what looks to be pretty fresh gas,
11:46 we can go on to the next step.
11:47 Cool, I hate those safety caps.
11:50 They were the worst.
11:51 All right, so I got this car for a steal
12:00 because the dude I bought it from was getting a divorce
12:03 and his wife had harassed him constantly
12:05 about how much he spent on the car
12:06 and he wanted to sell it and get it out of his house
12:08 that day so that she couldn't get her hands on it.
12:11 So now it's mine.
12:12 (engine revving)
12:27 There we go, starting to pump out.
12:36 (engine revving)
12:38 Okay, so you can see even this thing
12:42 with cleaning out the line in a brand new fuel tank,
12:45 we're still getting some garbage out of there.
12:47 Looks like it already cleaned way up though.
12:50 Yeah, that looks great already.
12:53 So I think we can hook it right up.
12:55 All right, so we're pumping fresh gas out of here.
12:58 Usually if the car's been sitting
12:59 and you just put new gas in an old tank,
13:01 it'll take about a whole bottle's worth or so
13:04 until you start seeing fresh gas come out.
13:06 Once you do though, you can move on to the next step.
13:08 All right, don't use a solo cup for this trick
13:10 because it will melt instantly.
13:12 I learned that the hard way.
13:13 All right, the next thing we're gonna do
13:14 before we get this thing fired up
13:16 is we're gonna install a clear fuel filter.
13:18 Those are available all over the place.
13:20 It's just a little plastic clear filter
13:22 so you'll be able to visually make sure
13:24 that no contaminants are breaking free of the pump
13:26 or the lines of the tank
13:27 and trying to get into your carburetor.
13:29 All right, so I've got this Holley double pumper
13:31 I rebuilt a while ago.
13:33 It was running on my buddy's carb for a bit.
13:34 I'm not exactly sure the shape that it's in currently,
13:37 but hopefully it fires up.
13:38 You won't know the shape of the carb
13:39 you're working on either,
13:40 so we'll discover this stuff together.
13:42 (upbeat music)
14:03 So we should have fuel in the carburetor
14:04 and going through our list,
14:05 we made sure the engine is free.
14:07 We have fresh fluids.
14:09 We pulled the plugs out, cylinders look good.
14:11 We primed the oil system
14:13 and we just put in that fuel filter
14:14 and made sure we have good gas at the carburetor.
14:17 And so now it's time to give this thing some power
14:19 and crank it up
14:19 and see if we can get this thing brought back to life.
14:21 (engine starting)
14:24 Holy, this thing runs.
14:31 (engine starting)
14:33 But we're not out of the woods yet
14:43 because there's lots of rubber parts
14:44 that can deteriorate over time.
14:46 And we're gonna have to keep an eye on them right now.
14:48 (upbeat music)
14:51 (engine revving)
14:54 Okay, so let's say you didn't have instant failure
15:06 when you got your car fired up.
15:08 You still wanna check basically seals.
15:10 So time is the enemy of rubber
15:12 and rubber seals in all sorts of fluids in your car.
15:15 Main things like the fuel pump diaphragm,
15:18 the accelerator pump on this carburetor,
15:21 front and rear main seals on the engine, stuff like that.
15:23 Even if it's running, once it warms up,
15:25 you wanna check that stuff out,
15:26 see if it's leaking any kind of fluid.
15:28 A lot of times on a car that hasn't started forever,
15:31 it'll run okay, but the car will sort of weep gas.
15:33 It'll come out of either out of the bowl.
15:36 These gaskets can go bad.
15:38 A lot of times you'll see it leaking out of here
15:39 where the accelerator pump is.
15:41 That diaphragm can harden up over time.
15:43 Let's see about these floats.
15:47 All right, it looks like there's a piece of fuel line
15:49 stuck in this float, keeping it from closing all the way.
15:52 That's why it was gushing gas out.
15:54 I'm gonna tear this thing apart
15:55 just to make sure it's all good.
15:56 And I'll show you some stuff along the way to watch out for.
15:59 If you have any kind of issues with like rough running,
16:01 backfires, anything crazy,
16:02 it's probably gonna be the carburetor.
16:04 So let's check them out.
16:05 (upbeat music)
16:07 (engine revving)
16:10 This is called a power valve.
16:27 Another thing that can go bad over time from sitting.
16:31 So you wanna make sure it moves freely.
16:33 If it doesn't, you wanna replace it.
16:36 Beyond that, you just wanna pull all the jets out,
16:39 clean them out, make sure all the circuits inside here
16:43 flow freely, and you can put it back together.
16:46 (upbeat music)
16:50 (engine revving)
16:52 All right, so I dug that little piece of rubber out
17:09 that was keeping the float from working.
17:11 I cleaned out the rest of the carburetor.
17:13 I replaced the power valve,
17:15 put it all back together with new gaskets,
17:17 bench set the floats,
17:18 and it should be ready to go on and fire right up.
17:21 So hopefully this thing comes right to life
17:24 and doesn't spew any garbage out.
17:26 (upbeat music)
17:28 All right, so we've got this thing all back together
17:36 with that cleaned out carburetor on it.
17:38 I got the timing ballpark pretty close
17:40 and you wanna give it a shot, Kane?
17:42 Let's see if thing fires up.
17:43 Come on.
17:47 All right, let's use this plug.
17:49 (engine revving)
17:52 You got the ignition on?
17:54 Okay.
17:56 (engine revving)
17:59 All right, let's try that again.
18:04 Come on, baby.
18:05 (engine revving)
18:17 Got it off?
18:18 (engine revving)
18:20 All right, so that thing sounds awesome.
18:22 To be able to bring my first car here to Hot Rod
18:25 was really special to me.
18:26 We're not quite out of the woods yet.
18:28 We're gonna have to keep an eye
18:29 on a bunch of different things
18:30 as we put some heat in this thing.
18:32 Next step for me is to break in this camshaft.
18:33 Next step for you, if you just revived the car,
18:35 it's been dormant for a while,
18:37 is to get it up to temperature,
18:38 keep an eye out for leaks,
18:39 keep an eye on this fuel filter
18:40 as you run some fresh tanks through it,
18:42 make sure there's no sediment getting picked up.
18:45 I would probably heat it up a few times,
18:48 change the oil and filter,
18:49 and if everything seems happy,
18:50 it's not overheating or anything like that,
18:52 you can now ease it onto the road.
18:53 Take it easy at first,
18:55 and then work your way up to it.
18:56 Take it easy at first,
18:57 and then hammer down.
18:59 Take it easy at first,
19:00 work your way into it,
19:01 and then get after it.
19:02 All right, that's it for this episode
19:03 of Hot Rod Garage, presented by Lincoln Tech.
19:05 Stay tuned, next time we're gonna do some brakes
19:06 and suspension upgrades on this Demon
19:08 and get it back on the streets.
19:10 For now, you can keep up with us on social media.
19:12 Facebook is Hot Rod Garage Show.
19:13 My Instagram is Tangelo96.
19:15 See you next time.
19:16 (rock music)
19:21 (rock music)
19:23 (rock music)
19:52 Bam!