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124. The Pile Up EP12: Odd Rods IV
About this episode
The Pile Up EP12 dives into the fascinating world of Ed Roth's custom cars, focusing on the Beatnik Bandit 2 and the Orbitron. The hosts share their admiration for the unique designs and the stories behind these iconic vehicles, including the challenges faced during their creation and restoration. The Orbitron's tumultuous journey from being a carnival attraction to a dumpster outside a sex shop in Juarez adds a dramatic twist. With insights into the craftsmanship and personal anecdotes, this episode celebrates the creativity and legacy of Ed Roth.
Topics:
ed roth
beatnik bandit 2
orbitron
custom cars
car restoration
carnival stories
automotive design
90s aesthetics
car culture
Both girls go Ed Roth for the last instillation of odd rods. Emily freaks out about the 90s masterpiece that is Beatnik Bandit II. Rose takes us on Orbitrons journey, featuring drug cartels, sex shops, and becoming a garbage can.
Check out the Subaru dog comercial
Recorded, edited & mixed by Emdognightmare & Queen of the Vans
Production & research Queen of the Vans & Emdognightmare
Find us: Car Krush
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Hugs, thank you & high fives to Greg Meleney for the killer tunez!
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Hi.
Hi.
Hi.
Happy Sunday.
Yeah.
Happy Wednesday, everybody.
Happy Wednesday, everybody.
But if you want to listen to this on Sunday, then let's get started.
Hi.
Hey.
Hello.
Hey.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi, Hello, Hi.
Hi.
Hi.
this on Sunday that's fine too. Hey I hope that it's, I hope it's just two days away from your
weekend break if you have a normal work week. But if this is your Monday I'm sorry. Yeah we're,
I'm also sorry. We're both so sorry. And if Thursday's your Sunday then we're also sorry.
If it's not your weekend. If time as a construct is broken down for you and is
limping on the side of the road like an 80s Chevy car.
We're sorry. Put a four barrel in it.
In case you don't know this you're listening to the pile up.
We hope that you're not sick of this at this point. This is Odd Rods four.
Yep. This is what we've vowed for this to be the last one even though we have many more.
But we decided we wouldn't keep dragging you through the mud.
We will, yeah we will move on but it's you know it's cool. It's great.
We've really enjoyed it. We hope that you've enjoyed it.
Yeah. What's not to like? I love these cars.
Yeah. What's not to like? But today we've got two Roth cars.
Yep. Big deal. We're going out with a bang.
Yeah. We are going out with a bang. And I'm going to start. So let's just get into it.
Go ahead.
My car is Ed Ross Beatnik Bandit 2 and it was built sometime in the early 90s.
Possibly 92. I love this car.
Yeah. I love this car too. Maybe because it's 90s. I don't know.
Yeah. I mean the 90s is good.
Yeah. It's not a 90s shape though. It's like a 60s and 90s together.
Yeah. Because it does, it does. Is that a C4 Corvette wheel on the front?
Or is that like a void wheel?
It's like totally flat. So it looks like it's off a C4 because they're like that.
Like they have like almost no offset.
You know I'm going to say right now I don't remember what a C4 wheel on a Corvette looks
like. Okay. That's fine.
We can hook one up but.
Well I really like also the Impressionist Rat Pink like on the side of it.
Yeah. It's the graphics and the paint color is what really does it for me.
I mean it's got sort of a 90s. The wheels kind of set the 90s look on it.
They're 90s wheels.
And then it's a little more, it feels like it has a little more forward motion with the way that
the fender, the front fender sort of like kicks up. So it feels a little different where
the original Bandit is a little more like sitting in place kind of feel to it.
This feels lean forward like it's moving.
Yeah.
Where as the beatnik band it's like got style like I'm on the scene.
Right. Yeah. I'm gonna say I didn't look at the original one too much.
Okay.
I'm just gonna agree with you and say yes. That's exactly what it looks like.
Well the original one is like something that I, when I look at it I like try to imagine
myself in 1960 seeing that and I think my head would explode.
Whoa.
That crazy, huh?
I think so. You would have never seen anything like that up to that point and it's
fucking amazing.
Wow. I guess I should have looked at it.
Like it's still cool. I can pull up the Custom Roma article.
Anyway, sorry go on about the two though.
Well to me this looks like a futuristic roadster.
It has a rigged aerodynamic nose and six round recessed and tucked headlights.
The body details are rolling away towards the back.
Oh yeah. Damn. Yeah the beatnik band I won is cool too.
I still stand by my choice of doing beatnik band it too.
Well yeah but you see what I mean about how it's like it doesn't look as lean forward
as the two.
Yeah it does.
I mean that's a I mean that's a good thing the two's got going forward.
On the scene.
It looks a little more lunar rover is what I'm trying to say.
The way that the fenders are arranged
and the fenders on the two suggest a lot of motion towards the front.
Anyway yeah they suggest it's like taken off and it's 90s.
Did I say that yet?
It's 90s.
It's got a yellow body with purple green and pink and white accent scallops.
Scallop accents.
Probably that's the way I should say it and then it has these really delicate
pinstripes and the color is PPG lemon meringue pie and it was a custom
paint color as far as I'm concerned.
Interesting big daddy's very own lemon meringue pie.
I'm pretty sure.
Yeah I wonder if we could get a code for that.
Maybe.
Do you think that they would sell it if it was in one off?
I wonder.
And then there's the like it looks like a speed charging geometric wrapping.
There's what Rose has talked about.
It's really cool and it's very 90s graphic.
And then it has a small cockpit with a yellow round bubble top
and it lifts electronically.
Yeah if you think about it if you look at the fender and the way that the
Fink is positioned then the front fenders from this view in this picture I'm looking at
the headlights three headlights look like three rat fingers.
Like it looks like his hands or his arms and fingers are the front fender.
Right yeah.
So it's like he's got a little finky arms forward.
Yep actually that is yep I see that.
Isn't that weird?
That must be what they're talking about.
It's out there.
I mean that's pretty out there.
It's pretty out there.
The thing that I like also is that viewed from the side it's got this wedge
that passes all the way through it that's like it's a plane below the fender top
where the grille there's like this Corvette hood grille
floating in front of the headlights and that's a plane beneath it.
So it makes it have this like stealth kind of plank through body look.
It's weird.
Sorry I've got to gather my thoughts.
What a car description.
You see some of these cars and then you're like I'm sorry I need to gather my thoughts.
Well that's how blown away I am by this car.
Well I am glad that the bubble top is yellow.
Yeah I love that the bubble top is yellow and what also I think is really
quite nice about this car is that the interior is gray.
It's just this nice polite gray color.
It's a really pretty gray color and I think gray and yellow go together really well
and I love it that it's not like.
It's so 90s.
That it's I don't know I love it that it's not loud and it doesn't take away from the outside.
90s GM is like cloth gray seats interior.
Maybe I say that because I grew up riding in an old Cutlass Calais
and it was all going with silver car gray gray cloth interior.
This had some really interesting stuff in the cockpit.
It had an electronic dash and video monitor because it had a rear camera.
So there we go.
Surveillance.
It's got technology and then the electronic console operates the digital instrument panel.
I didn't really understand what that meant but I read it.
It's probably like you know probably reads the speed out in digital numbers.
Okay.
Like a Dakota digital dash basically.
But how does how is the console operating the digital instrument dash?
I don't know.
Okay.
That sounds like some some like jargon.
It sounds like some BS.
And there is also a digital readout of the car's latitude and longitude.
Interesting.
So it's it's avionics is what it's supposed to be mimicking.
I think.
Okay.
And because it does have this crazy thing inside of it that I think is the latitude
latitude and longitude thing.
There's this crazy box in the center console.
With a circle.
These are supposed to be like.
It looks like some technological like a submarine something.
Yeah it looks aviation related.
I mean I'm not you know I mean Ed was in the Air Force.
Yeah okay.
So maybe that was it.
Maybe that was it.
He said he worked in UFO watch.
Oh.
But he was sworn secrecy or would never talk about what he saw.
Wow.
Yeah.
Damn never turns a bitter end huh.
Oh yeah.
I wonder if they would have killed him if he did talk about it.
Who's they.
Exactly.
It's like the king of the hill where Dale's talking to the guy and he's like that's what
they want you to think and he's like we are they sir.
Dale goes.
Runs off.
Yeah it's it's the the six headlights also making up sort of like a little wrap pause.
Not really something that I noticed.
At first and now I can't not see it.
I don't I love this car.
Yeah I do too.
That's why I picked it.
The chassis is red well of course.
The chassis is red and the chassis is super tight to the engine and then swings out wide for the
passenger compartment.
Oh and it's a hand-built tube rectangular tube.
Yeah.
Chassis might.
It looks like two by four square tube basically.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then like we've got one photo.
Koop shared some images with us because there's not a lot on this car out there
so Koop had a book with it.
It was like originally it was called a beatnik bomber did you mention that?
No I was going to get to that but thank you for mentioning it.
Sorry.
No I like it get to it.
Well I think that ties into the avionics that are there.
It's funny there's sort of like not a lot of info just because the fanfare is not very big.
Right you think it because it's a 90s car.
I think you've got to be in yeah I think you've got to be into the deep cuts to
appreciate like the stealth and the road agent well not road agent but
um sorry it was uh what was that other one that he drove to Alaska?
What did we say that was?
I gotta go to the website.
Well anyway you gotta be into the Roth deep cuts I think to like these so
I'm not surprised but the chassis um the chassis is really elaborate and there's
even a support over the transmission really like I mean that's a good mount for the
passenger compartment but like wow you're sitting next to the bell housing.
Yeah and it's got like a 10 inch steering wheel.
Yeah it's tiny it's tiny inside.
Yeah you're I mean like Ed's cars he's crammed up in it but
he was a big guy yeah wasn't he?
And this had is powered by a chromed Corvette EFI LT1 350 and according to Hemmings
he never did exterminate the electrical gremlins that infected this engine.
That's disappointing.
Yeah it's too bad yeah I mean we don't know if that's true or not.
Hmm that sucks that'd be super frustrating.
I mean Coupe didn't say anything about that.
Not really um I do like that the side pipes are on the very outside of the car because like
are they they're really not visible I wanted to check that but you can see a bend of the
exhaust but the exhaust is like way outside the frame and you would you would almost think that would
be that's like a bearish thing to make it visible down the rocker or something is what it feels like
but you can see some really cool pinstriping on the on the rear axle on the pumpkin and then
straight up and down coilovers which is like seems very Ed because he's always a bunch of his
cars just have like coil springs at the back like framed axle kind of thing.
And then like a panard and a four link or whatever to locate and center the rear end.
Yeah so it's interesting because it looks like a coil over shock now might just be a coil.
Well I want to read um what Coupe said about when he the first thing that he texted us.
I want to hear about it.
All right Ed built the bandit too in the early 90s the first streetable car that
he had built in the long time first car built after moving to Manti
and then he said he wasn't sure where it is now.
That's kind of a bummer.
Yeah so his first Utah car.
I I guess I would have just thought it was there at the house like at Eileen's place
which is a couple blocks over from Ed's place in Manti.
I guess I just would have thought it would have been over there but um.
Is that where the museum is?
Yeah but I guess I guess it's out there in the wild.
This photo is cool because it looks like a rainy day the body's outside and it looks
like he's been wet sanding it and some of the painting is done but it could be primer.
Just different shades of primer maybe and then the stealth front axle is in the corner
over there and then it looks like a motorcycle engine it's just kind of a cool looking Ed
shop they have this shop in in the museum they took it with the last car that he
was building which had like a Cadillac North Star I think it was a trike.
I think it might be a car anyway.
Wait didn't did they move the whole garage to the museum right?
Yeah yeah just as it was when he passed away.
Yeah I bet he would be very pleased with that outcome.
Yeah that's kind of what they talked about in the video that I saw when I was watching the
Orbitron. Daryl is like I believe he's smiling down on us.
Yeah that's sweet. Well that's all I have on the Benic Bandit too.
Okay well that's good because that lets me lead into the Orbitron there.
And well I just want to let people know because I didn't say at the beginning
there is links to this in the show notes if you want to see what the car looks like.
Yeah you should look at the car I mean this is I think this car is beautiful it's just
oh I love it. It's just kind of a shame there's not as much info on it but these few
shop shots that Coop got us from this book I'm not even sure which book this is.
Yeah because I couldn't find anything like that online.
Yeah there's not really but the photos are really cool I mean the chassis you gotta see this
it's just something else we'll post this photo on the social media but like
you're really you're next to the tail housing and the transmission
like there's a passenger in a driver compartment and then they're both you're next to the middle
of the transmission and your feet would be at the bell housing yeah which sounds normal except
you're really low. It'd be so hot. Oh my god the tinnitus is so hot.
It's been I mean it's bananas it's it's almost a trike it's just it's not.
Yeah but it kind of resembles some of his trike builds.
Um anyway I can't believe I forgot in the like the three seconds we went from like
looking at the other cars and then we like I can't remember the names.
They're all they're all just so similar or they're all so clever I should say not similar really
but okay so I have a little story for you and it's got the carnival and it's got
some drug deals going bad. Oh my gosh. In a sex shop. What you're gonna bring the heat.
In Juarez. No way. That's right. Whoa okay okay. We're talking about. I'm buckled up.
We're talking about this this sultry charade the path to finding the orbitron. Okay I'm listening.
Orbitron was one of Ed's cars from 64 I believe. Let me find my article on it even though I'm sitting
here reading about the beatnik bandit. I don't know why. So what the deal was when Ed put this out
okay something that's interesting about it I'll start with is that it's got Ed's engine
from his 55 Chevy which like people knew that 55 like it said Roth on the side of it and like it's
in the Tales of the Rat Pink video and it's funny to me that he cannibalized his own car
like people knew that 55 for the engine in the orbitron and the orbitron is another creation
by Newton and it's like a slingshot so your legs are over the rear axle like a slingshot dragster
but a futuristic slingshot dragster right and it's got these these fenders look like really heavily
bobbed they look like the bobbed sections of a 36 Ford rear fender right it's like you took that you
left the back of the fender in place and you cut out this huge radius to clear the wheel
and that's what the front fenders look like and the back are very like sort of a Batmobile
esque they look like a dog's ear they look like a Doberman Pinter's ear laid back as a
the back fender looks like bubble top bubble tops like 64 inches long by 57 inches wide
huge oh wow huge bubble okay it actually looks like he fits how did they make that they had it
blown by a place in I think it's Inglewood called a cry uh yeah a cry plastics um yeah and
that's it I didn't say where they were but I'm just I'm gonna say LA this is my guess um
so it's got astro uh it's like slots in it and uh knockoffs from Cal custom and Inglewood white
walls like cheater slicks so it's like it's got this you know 60s show rod look it is the
60s show rod but at the front of it it's got what kind of like feels like war of the worlds right
it's like got the it's got a very weird front yeah it's got the red green and blue light like a
television like to form a white light um which you know tv was kind of new so it did work it did
form you know one big white beam of light and it's asymmetrical uh would look good park next
to Jean's Pacifica two blue asymmetrical ideas but like the engine wasn't visible and Ed regretted
that but what Ed thought that like because the car didn't really do well at shows he was like
the Beatles had been on Ed Sullivan and guys were buying guitars and not cars
and like model sales fell off so this was like you know this is like the tail end of his big
really good as show rod run I feel like oh really well so because things kind of died after that
because of the Beatles yeah sort of I mean yeah Ed talks about that a lot I mean that's
entails the rat pink um a little bit about the body so it was a four bar up front that he'd made
with a cross leaf spring on a suicide perch uh reading this off custom drama
but it's kind of funny again to think about that because you can't see any of it really
um it's a v8 uh 62 back so from Ford which is cool like the two back so neat but again you
can't really see any of it because of the snout and the part with the three different lights is
like the furthest out front yeah then there's another step back and there's one more white
light one more white light yeah but then there looks like there's two white lights again
yeah in the round around the engine yeah and there's two scoops oh yeah
there's like a cowl scoop and a engine scoop well there's like there's the cowl hatch that's open
then there's the hood scoop and then there's like that nose scoop oh I didn't even notice that okay
yeah wow yeah okay it there's a lot to look at wow I kind of like the uh
uh I kind of think it's a shame that the sketch sort of there's like a rod and custom sketch
where there's these two big looks like sub sand which is floating like 12 inches above the top of
the car and um here I think it's a shame that those are missing it's very star trek but like
you see those yeah you see those pictures well like I said they look like they look like a baguette
they look like a baguette on an antenna but they're not there
like you know in the final like this is pretty close I don't know you know I don't know if this
what what predates what um right I don't know if that's an original ed Newton sketch so anyway
um the car just kind of like doesn't do good and so uh Ed was going to lease it to Daryl
starboard to take on a traveling car show and Ed was just like you know you can just buy it for
the lease price you can just have it you can just have it so yeah so like Daryl sells it to like a
introverted doctor collector in Texas and then that guy like traded it off to somebody for
a project and then eventually it's like that guy gets into drug travel and gives it to his lawyer
for payment and then the lawyer gives it to like his nephew who runs a carnival and the guy's
using it in the carnival and then that guy gets killed in a drug deal like he flaked on a drug
deal and got murdered and then his nephew like has the car but it's out front of the sex shop
in Juarez and it's being used as a dumpster oh yeah look at the like look at this picture
the body is flat black the nose is missing no the nose is totally gone the bubble top's gone
okay so apparently when at one of the points of one of these people owning it this this kid
tried to drive it to high school and it wasn't running very good and then like the kid apparently
at some point got stuck in the car for over an hour and had to break the bubble top to get him
out oh no and like the front pods missing and you can see the the monolith which looks sick
and like it does look cool with the radiator exposed and like the engine showing so like it
does look really cool and like Ed thought it was a shame that he'd hidden the engine because like
the inside of the hood wasn't finished so they always kept it closed oh okay so there's some regret
in this yeah so like there was I don't know there was like a guy from Duncan Oklahoma that
had seen it on a like after Daryl Sarbert had bought it had seen it on a car lot as like
an attraction for a few days there you know like the car really got around wow yeah did somebody
restore it after it was found as a dumpster okay so let me read this from custom Rama and give some
of the meat because this is good and I'll say later later on the car was sold to a couple
guys in Mexico who plan to use it in a carnival it was using carnivals until 1991 when one of
the owners was killed because he flaked on a drug deal eventually I know this sounds like no
country for old men or something eventually the car ended up more as Mexico parked in front of a
sex shop being used as a dumpster the owner of the adult bookstore was the nephew of the carnival owner
and he had the Orbitron since 1991 the owner of the bookstore believed that his uncle had
actually built the car but the only thing that the uncle had done to the car was to cut the
nose off the vehicle and put a radiator in it to drive it around the carnival grounds
the reason for cutting of the nose was to show all the chrome work that was hidden
one version claims the snout was removed to make the car look more like a t-bucket roadster another
is that it was accidentally torn off when the owner attempted to tow it by its body work in 2006
Michael Lightborne found the car outside of the bookshop the car was fairly complete but the
bubble top and nose were gone he hounded the family for over a year trying to buy the car
and they didn't want to sell it because of sentimental reasons and he finally convinced
him sentimental garbage reasons exactly he finally convinced the owner of the bookstore
he was familiar with his uncle's car and if he had sentimental feelings for the car then why was
it that he was allowing it to use it as a trashcan allowing people to use it as a trashcan
he then convinced them to sell it and that he would restore the car and get it back in
original condition and then shortly after he got it then he decided to sell to Bo Bachman
from Calvin Auto Sports and they brought in Dave Shutton to do the restoration but they wanted
it to look the way Ed did it so it says like the taillights were put in poorly you know
like sloppy by Ed and I saw a video of them talking about that like laughing where the
they're like they just left it because that was how Ed built stuff that the like the the bubble
and the fenders were off to one side and so like Bo felt like it was important to preserve
these details rather than like make it perfect and Ed Newton was already helping them with
something else so he helped with the restoration and then like Jimmy C who sculpted the missing
nose section um you know but a lot of it laid on Dave and then Larry Watson actually painted it
again Larry painted it originally and so it says it like right off the bat Larry had first painted
the car with like a pearl white base and then uh blue and then it got scratched and shipping so
then he came back with his own custom concoction of merano gold and blue oh and so apparently
when he came back and did it Larry still had the secret formula filed in his archive under Roth
and Gene loaned his paint booth for the paint shop oh so I'm wondering if that was like
Canoga park but I don't know that might have been the desert
wow because I think Gene went to the desert no five and the restoration is completed in
late I know and then it got restored yeah and I mean like I've seen it it's pretty amazing
what a lovely story yeah it had a happy ending yeah I mean it got kind of dicey there for a
minute yeah no there's some really cool photos from a rod and custom feature after the restoration
I've seen it it's very nice I mean it's you wouldn't think that it lived the hard life
that it lived yeah I mean it's kind of like what happened to mega cycle being used as a doghouse
at that junkyard yeah right I mean that photo of it more as an oh six is it's crazy that um you think
I always want to know like how a car gets to that point a car that was once so prominent
and so beautiful and so beloved and then like I don't know people's ideas change and life changes
and the next thing you know you've got the car being used as a dumpster it hurts seeing it like
that yeah like you've got to wonder if like Ed's just like knows it's out there in the world poor
thing yeah his creations but now it's back yeah it's bad I mean it is cool being able in this
photo where you can see the axle and the radiator mm-hmm that's cool that is cool mm-hmm looks good
but I mean that's a pretty uh that's a pretty sordid tail you know yeah yeah I mean it's a you
know it's a beautiful car I mean so yeah I think about this like bubble top at the back of the car
it looks like something Ed actually fits in it had like blue fur in the inside pod it's kind
of just shaped like a hot tub yeah you know it's like a circle you sit in and just at the back
of it and the front's got all these wild features and where everywhere that there's an opening it seems
there's a headlight yeah a lot of headlights yeah but I mean it's you know it's another just like
amazing car I mean it's it's pretty amazing that Galpin has so many of his cars yeah and Dan Woods
too the Galpin collection there's and where do they get the money to restore them I think just
from Galpin being the biggest Ford dealer in America oh okay yeah I don't know what Galpin
Ford is a huge Ford dealer okay and then they have their auto sports the Galpin auto sports gas
garage oh okay and so they have also like a museum yep and then they employ they yeah they had like a
yeah they had like a lifetime achievement award party for Jean and that's when I got to go down
there and really see all that all the milk truck and the ice truck and pizza wagon awesome red wrecker
Orbitron Rotar I think rubber ducky maybe yeah like some of the trikes wow well that's really nice
that they take some money and put it back into the community pretty amazing yeah and to house like
non-ford things yeah I don't know when Dave started working there but I like I wonder how
many Ford engines are in any of those yeah do you think there's many in any of the vehicles
that they have yeah in that in that uh in their collection sure oh okay I guess I don't know what's
in the collection I thought it was a bunch of I think you can pretty much count on some of them
having Ford motors oh I'm sure but I don't think anyone's we talked about had Ford motors did they
uh I know that this one's Chevy you know Orbitron Chevy beatnik banded to Chevy
um what else did we talk about ice truck has uh a Buick yeah I think it does have a right I think
it's gonna nail head yeah yeah it's got the all-aluminum Buick motor and then mega cycle was also a
Buick v6 yeah I just don't remember us talking about a Ford yeah I thought we did I thought there
was one I thought we talked about one that had an FE motor in it I don't know yeah anyway
whatever it's three podcasts whoa yeah I was trying to get to like Jean Stripstar they gave him a 427
but we didn't talk about Stripstar you wanted a what Jean Stripstar has a 427 that Ford gave to him
oh we didn't talk about Stripstar oh okay no we didn't I mean it's a show rod
and it's totally custom built body so it does fit this category yeah do you want to talk about it
real quick no that's it okay all right I ran it's awesome I mean it sounds amazing it's unreal
I mean I watched him drive that into the kitchen at the museum we take the center beam out for
the two doors that go in the side of the kitchen and put two by sixes over the step I think we
screw them to the floor so they don't slip out and Jean drove that thing in and there's like a center
island in the kitchen and it's like got tile so it's hard and it could scratch the car pretty bad
and he just drove that thing in there big heavy-duty clutch
just right up against the wall wow and that's where it was displayed
Jean did a ton of stunt driving in those commercials yeah he's oh he's a
Jean is a masterful guy at all times yeah water skiing stunt driving what couldn't he do yeah he would
get money from those commercials all the time when like the celebrities they would bring in
couldn't do the job like there's an indie car driver and he had to like drive through
it was like a garage with a door on each side and he was supposed to pull through and then stop and
then pull through again when they told him to and he just like couldn't do it couldn't stop in
the right place every time like Jean was like I'll do it he's like I got paid residuals every
time wow every time it aired I got money that's cool yeah it's very cool yeah
well it's pretty wild it's wild that the Orbitron got painted in Jean's booth like I said I don't
know if that's Canoga park or the desert it it might even the desert if it was finished in
08 I like I said I think Jean went to the desert 05 okay huh yeah I don't hard to I would have
liked to have known that it would have been cool do you think we can get to the bottom of it
yeah jimmy would answer that question jimmy would know instantly text him not now I'm not going to
get him started well I think that's all we got for today I mean that's pretty much it yeah I'm
pretty much that's all of our odd rods no we had a lot of odd rods but yeah we've been in the
shop we were we cleaned my windshield frame on my 67 Emily wire wheel the shit out of it I did a lot
of wire wheeling which which was awesome and I'm putting a new windshield in so we wanted to paint
the windshield frame so we also then creep project creep paint of the dash might as well it's hard
to not just painted the dash you did some mild customization of the dash you filled in a bunch
of holes he didn't want we got rid of the speaker hole we got rid of the ashtray some move the heater
controls the control yeah and then two toned it which all of that made the project longer it looks
so good though it turned out really nice it did come out nice I have a pretty low bar I wasn't
trying to get it straight I knew there was gonna be some dimples and stuff but like I've been
trying to get it done because it's in the middle of the shop and people need to use the shop
other than me but I kind of need some help putting in so hopefully somebody gets back
this week and can help me put it in we need some hands on deck so I'm waiting for Pat to get home
all hands on deck so yeah hopefully Pat will help me and we'll get the get the windshield back in it
and get it back on the road and then start up the idea is to then do the jams next strip the
door jams get them in black do the insides of the doors so I'm gonna just try to paint it
one piece at a time and just keep till it's all in shiny black then do some graphics yeah
so we'll see how that plan goes yeah it's gonna be it's it's really I love it I'm so glad that
you're doing this thanks it was really exciting to be doing all the work and like staying up late
and being super tired the next day at work and it was for my van yeah that's cool yeah yeah that's
what I love about it I've had that van since like 2011 and all I've done is put engines in it
and like I put disc brakes on it that was a pretty early early thing to do
back I think I'd had the original 240 still yeah when you get to work on your own stuff
it's cool yeah I've been doing that not really no I used to feel super guilty and now I kind of
don't have don't have a few few little order things here and there but mostly just get to
work on my thing and it's awesome yep I spent so much nickel and dime money
for painting the dash like it's hard because when I moved I had all that stuff you know you know
it's like oh I'll get it I got a little bit left here I got a little bit of buffing compound left
oh of course we have sandpaper of course we have masking paper like I even had to buy a new mask
and then I couldn't find any of the needles for my spray guns I I used them a while back to
paint something but I don't know where I hid them from myself hmm so they're just all together
missing somewhere yeah I don't the eastwood gun the I water rip off gun or maybe it's a
solder rip off and then there's the and then like the primer guns all the needles are just like
missing or like the the back of the primer gun was missing to like to cap the needle on they got
lost in the move in the shuffle I think this stuff happened when I moved from one side of the
shop to the other and then my toolbox showed up and things were between the bench the box oh
I don't really made it up here they're there yeah that's frustrating so I had to do the whole
thing with a touch-up gun which wasn't a big deal it's it's very much a touch-up gun kind of
job but I wanted to do the clear with the solder for the our water I don't remember like I said
I don't remember what it's a knockoff of but it's still sucked yeah not having it yeah um but I got
it done a two-tone the oranges oranges and like this indented section of my dash and the rest is black
we did the windshield posts on the outside black and then we did like a belly band section on
the nose shiny black so that we can blend into that and like start so I'll repair the rest of
the nose and then try to paint the nose gloss do the jams do the doors etc etc etc yep so i'm trying
to make it shiny are we going down to metal on the next paint job for the rest of everything
yeah we have to strip the whole thing because the the good news is it's only one layer because we
stripped it oh yeah when it was john's it was easier before it was mine yeah we stripped it
so it's just epoxy primer and then the graphics there's almost no bondo I think there's a little
bit of bondo that will get stripped well I'm ready to wire wheel yeah just say the word it's good yeah
it's gonna take some work but it's cool it's gonna be nice so yeah I don't know it's kind of sweet
to finally work on that van if that guy that had sold us the van knew like the life that that
van has lived at this point I think he'd be stoked yeah you think so probably huh yeah totally he drove
it to the water company every day oh it's a sweet van yeah yeah yeah it's had quite the life oh yeah I
mean it's you know high-tech front-end independent front suspensions traveled the country yeah yeah
yeah it's got a lot more life it's life at this point has been really interesting in the sense
that like once I got the fuel injected motor going the first drive was in and the front clip
thousand miles yeah my my test drive was a thousand miles yeah
you know it was like 40 degrees 42 degrees that night that I slept in it yeah after it broke
something did break on it right away the ac yeah the ac compressor seized
and I had thought about putting the pulley there but I was like no I should hook up the ac
and just have air it's nice have air and that bit me in the ass I can't believe that
but you made it through and you fixed it you fixed it at what are the napa oh my god yeah
but it's been you know it's been a whole other machine with the with the independent front
suspension it took me I started that in 2021 and I started driving it in the end of 2024
so it took me about three years yeah worth every second but you didn't really work on it for
three years no no it's not barely we're able to work on it exactly I got I got the rough idea of it like
roughed in place and then you know had to push it out of the way for a while and then
eventually worked on it in big spurts you know yeah how much total time do you think if you
worked on it straight through how much total time do you think it's hard to get an idea that
because it went it was that three-year window okay yeah um it's hard to get an idea on that
because then I came in and got a really good spurt july right before nationals like thought I was going
to get it done and just like wasn't right it was it felt close yeah but if then I told you how much time
I spent after that later to get it running then no it was never close isn't it always the end of
the project that takes the longest oh my god yeah and I still had to leave a bunch of things sort
of undone because I was like I just need to drive it so it was really chaotic and it's not super like
the wires aren't real tidy or anything and like the engine cover is not sealed up super great like
yeah there's open spots here and there or like my step wells aren't finished those were just
taped up yeah and I thought I'd get to do them at work because that's what I'd been told and
that didn't happen so you know it just kind of just had to make do it's fucking been really
good for making do yeah oh yeah I'd say so I mean the fuel injection runs awesome then we put that
second motor in it yeah yeah in a weekend yeah that was really crazy yeah we dropped in the 94 4.3
I've never done anything like it yeah two days yeah it was a lot yeah two very long days yeah
we got it done though that thing rips yeah but yeah that that front end was worth it for sure
yeah I agree yes I mean it drives so good it does drive good yeah I don't know what to compare it to
I don't have anything to compare it to but um I feel like it drives nice I will say that a misstep
was building it a little bit too low I mean it looks sick but
the weight of the cab over that it works for the astro because a lot less weight is in front of
the axle but for the economy there's a lot of weight ahead of the axle and so it's really pretty
bouncy like even if you watch the videos of me bodywork in the dash when I sit in it the cab goes
down quite a bit like the astro is not that sensitive oh huh but the engine is further behind I mean
actually I have the engine further behind where it would be in the astro but there's still a lot
of cab metal that's way out in front of the axle yeah and that really makes it pretty bouncy
it is really low yeah it is very bouncy so that that's one flaw for sure but I mean it's been
looks good though it looks bad it's a pretty yeah it's a machine like it's not just the
straight axle truck anymore it's way better to drive yeah so anybody that's like thinking about
like somebody wrote me uh our friend in Canada um Jamie he's got this really cool early O'Connelline
I can't remember what it's called something bird maybe but um
he asked me about it Mustang two front end is that also something that uh people swap out
on the people like the Mustang two front end yeah you know it's they're super common yeah um I
helped Billy put one in his a 100 his a 100 lays rocker but he got a custom rack from Detroit speed
and then he got the clip made by art Morrison and I think that he paid like 8500 total wow yeah so
me it's a lot to spend but if you think about it like he got what he wanted yeah they built him the
custom track with because the vans are so wide they're like 62 inch wide track with right and so
he just got them I had gone to PRI with my dad and I got all these I went to like a little seminar
with like fat man and with air ride and Detroit speed and just kind of like learn some stuff about
designing a front end and then was like hey Bill here's the info and that's what he got done
so I went up there and like in a weekend we set up his Mustang two front end oh wow yeah that's
quick but it sounds like you had all the parts and everything right yeah he'd already
four-linked the rear and then we simulated where the ground would be like where he wanted to lay rocker
and then we built it based on what I'd learned to do at the other hot rod shops setting up clip jobs
because I'd done Mustang twos on a shoebox and uh did a chassis setup at brads but that was
all straight axle stuff but I had some experience doing some chassis work enough that I could
get through it and just you just it's pragmatic you just do things that make sense you cross out
your you x out your measurements across the frame try to make sure they're even uh you simulate where
the ground's going to be you do your best to simulate what the length of the shock loaded
would be for the weight that would be on it and stuff just do the best what happens if your
measurements are not even end up lower than you thought you'd be or the thing looks like it's
tracking sideways okay looks looks looks like it's shimming as you drive along like you know how
wrecked cars look when the frame is zed that's kind of what you risk okay like it and it would become a
drivability issue at that point yeah is it also a safety issue do you think well I think a drivability
issue is a safety issue okay I would I would all right party file it under that okay that makes
sense yeah yeah anyway I mean yeah that's it like Ed Roth he done been piled up wait I was
going to talk about my job oh I'm sorry it's okay you don't have to chop and screw that part
I might leave it because it's kind of funny fine so I worked on a car commercial last week
and really for which car maker I can't say I signed an ironclad NDA and they didn't even let us have
our phones were covered well it was annoying because we were at the coast and I couldn't
take a photo of the beach because I had stickers all over my fucking phone but anyway what I love
about working on car this is my first like big one that I before I just was a lock up
which means you're just standing at people's driveways on a really beautiful desolate road
that they are doing they're filming the car driving on and you have to make sure there's no other
cars on the road but this one I was actually in the midst of it a full-on PA and it was crazy
it was one of the hardest jobs I've worked it was a huge crew and I got to hang out with the
guys that drive the crane truck which the crane truck for those of you that don't know is the
follow cam car or truck in this case that is the one that gets all the slick cool shots and
they have this crane that can go 360 and so if they pass the cars they drive in front of
the car they drive behind the car and I've seen one in action before and it was like it has this
huge gimbal on it with a video camera mounted inside of it my favorite comedian Jimmy gimbal
Jimmy gimbal gimbal Jimmy gimbal and it just kind of swoops around it's so graceful the way it
swoops around but I met the stunt driver her name was Sarah and I can't remember her last name
she did the stunts for you guys might know there's these Subaru commercials where they have dogs
driving the cars and I'll put a link to the show notes because I didn't know what they were but
she showed me some behind the scenes of the way that she would drive so she would be all the way
down in the where the feet like she's pretty tiny so she would be down where the pedals are
yeah there was she's had some videos of the dogs it just like her the paws were just like
hitting her like trying to stand on her head like on her face with the dogs in it
they were like showing kind of it was not this wasn't in the commercial this was just behind
the scenes somebody taken video of like a dog like stomping on her head and then tails wagging
in her face and like hitting her and then so she would be so she's underneath the where the
pedals and everything are she's all the way in there and then she has a video
in her hand and she's watching she has a video screen and she's watching that's how she is
steering the car and she's watching yeah she was watching remotely yeah remotely so it's pretty
great I mean it is an automatic I don't know if she could do that with a stick I don't
know if anybody could probably not but um she showed me some of the video like
some of the little clip of the video and it does look like a dog is driving a car
so that was kind of the highlight of my yeah I didn't get to see any of the um filming of the car
because I was uh doing fire watch on some gear the day that they were doing it on the beach
yeah so the gear didn't catch on fire so the gear didn't catch on fire yet and make sure
but that is when I talked to the crane car guys so you know the still a victory oh yeah
and the technology from crane cars comes from Ukraine and recently uh it has been called the
Russian arm for a long time because I think when it was developed or when it came out of Ukraine
Ukraine might have been so part of this they might have been part of the Soviet Union
or maybe just coming out of the Soviet Union so people have been calling it the Russian arm
and then recently because of the war everybody in the industry uh started calling it the
Ukraine Ukrainian nice yeah as you know to stand with nice Ukraine yeah I thought that was cool
and uh we are talking about doing a having one of the operators of the crane car on the podcast
so stay tuned for that you done been piled up done been piled up thanks for listening bye
check the show notes don't do it don't do it
so
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