They’re talking about a 1988 Chevrolet Astro van. It’s an older van they’ve been wrenching on, and they’re doing big work on the engine and transmission.
When you’re already doing a big repair, you might replace other parts that are easy to reach at the same time. It can save labor later, but it depends on cost and how worn the parts are.
The water pump moves coolant so the engine doesn’t overheat. During big engine work, people often replace it at the same time to avoid doing the job twice.
An AWD badge indicates the vehicle is equipped with all-wheel drive. The hosts are pointing out the van’s badging, likely in reference to how it’s configured or perceived.
A torque converter is what helps an automatic transmission smoothly connect the engine to the drivetrain. When you pull the transmission, it can be involved in the alignment and separation process.
A flex plate is the thin metal plate that connects the torque converter to the crankshaft on many automatic setups. The hosts are working to position it so it can slide into the bell housing during transmission installation.
The bell housing is the connection area where the engine and transmission come together. Getting it aligned correctly is crucial so everything bolts up without forcing it.
Many engine/transmission assemblies use alignment dowels/pins so the transmission seats correctly on the engine. The hosts describe “two big pins” and mating holes used to lock the engine and transmission together, which helps prevent misalignment during reassembly.
Assembly grease is a lubricant used during installation to help parts slide into place and reduce friction during initial movement. The hosts mention applying it to the dowels to help keep components positioned during the tricky alignment process.
The Chevrolet Spark is a small car meant for city driving and getting good fuel economy. The podcast mentions changing spark plugs, which are parts that help the engine ignite fuel. If the car starts running strangely, spark plugs are one of the common things checked and replaced.
Spark plugs create the spark that starts combustion in the engine. If they’re hard to access or the engine is running rough, it’s a sign you may have other problems too.
“Smog stuff” refers to emissions-control components (like sensors, valves, and related hardware) added to meet emissions regulations. The hosts imply the van was cluttered with emissions equipment, making basic maintenance harder until they learned what to remove or work around.
Brake lines are the metal tubes that move brake fluid to the brakes. If they rust and burst, you can lose braking immediately, so it’s a safety-critical fix.
A leak-down test checks where compression is escaping inside the engine. It helps you figure out whether the problem is likely valves, rings, or the head gasket.
If a valve gets bent or damaged, it may not seal correctly. That can cause the engine to misfire and smoke, and it often requires head inspection/repair.
Term
dealer add-on air
They’re talking about extra emissions-related hardware that was added by a dealer. It can change how the engine bay is set up and what you need to replace or modify.
A serpentine belt is the main belt that powers several engine accessories at once. If it’s different between vehicles, it can affect how you route parts and what components you need.
Manifold studs are the bolts that hold the engine’s intake/exhaust parts in place. If the threads are rusted away, you can’t reuse the hardware and you may have to cut and replace it.
It’s a sensor that tells the computer how much you’re pressing the gas pedal. The car uses that info to adjust how it runs so it doesn’t stumble or idle weirdly.
Those O-rings are small rubber seals that keep fuel from leaking at the connections. If they’re old or damaged, you can get fuel leaks or fuel pressure problems.
When you’re not pressing the gas, the car still needs a little airflow to keep the engine idling smoothly. This system controls that airflow so the engine doesn’t idle rough or stall.
The Chevrolet Blazer is an SUV made for regular driving and carrying people and gear. The podcast mentions a problem related to the engine area, like a missing or unavailable bolt needed for a repair. That’s why the conversation turns into figuring out what parts and steps are required to fix it.
This means the transmission wasn’t failing all at once—it was getting worse gradually. The car started vibrating badly, and that vibration contributed to other problems.
Sometimes one problem causes shaking, and that shaking can break other parts that normally wouldn’t fail. Here, the vibration from the transmission helped lead to a brake line breaking.
The BMW Isetta is a very small car, built for simple transportation where space is limited. It’s known for its unusual, compact design and a name that people often spell out. The podcast mention sounds like they’re clarifying how to say or spell it.
Car
General Lee
The “General Lee” is a famous car from a TV show. People remember it because it was built for action and stunts on screen.
Car
GMC van
They’re talking about an ’80s GMC van that’s been customized. It has flashy add-ons like a front push bar and special wheels.
Car
Monkey Mobile
The Monkey Mobile is a famous fictional/custom car from TV/pop culture. The hosts explain what real car design it’s based on.
They’re saying the Monkey Mobile’s look is based on the Lincoln Futura. The Lincoln Futura was a concept car—basically a design study that influenced real-world styling.
Car
Batmobile
The Batmobile is Batman’s famous car. Here, they’re talking about it like a real collectible that people can see and photograph.
Car
Gene Winfield's Reactor
Gene Winfield’s Reactor is a custom car that showed up in Batman-related TV roles. It’s remembered because it was built to look and stand out on screen.
They mention a system called “Clearview” that’s supposed to help you see through fog and smoke. It’s basically a fictional tech solution to the problem of low visibility.
Car
mystery machine
The Mystery Machine is the van from *Scooby-Doo*. It’s one of those instantly recognizable TV vehicles.
Concept
amalgamation of vehicles
They’re talking about a vehicle that looks like it’s made from parts of several different real cars. It’s not one exact car—it’s more like a mix-and-match design.
They’re referencing “Smokey and the Bandit,” a famous old movie about fast cars and driving. It’s a pop-culture car reference.
LIVE
Emily EP43: We didn't want that in your ears. Yeah, I didn't want it. Rose didn't really care. We good,
Rose EP42: We need, we need more listeners. Can you guys, can you tell your friends and family, like we, we are looking to gain in the tens of, of followers here. Also, you know, if you're not, would you, uh, give Car Crush? Uh, a follow, yeah,
Rose EP42: Yeah. Uh, listen, we worked, uh, like a couple of maniacs on my Chevrolet, 1988 Astro van.
Rose EP42: So the sun came back out and I was like, this is our chance. And uh, I had had enough time to be like, oh my God, we gotta get this done. So we had kind of been like, alright, we'd been hem and haw over whether we were gonna replace the timing chain. 'cause I did it a year ago. I drove it for a year before we swapped to the later motor. And I was like, no, we're not taking the time to cover off. We're gonna leave the water pump on. Like, uh, fuck it. Like we'll do those things later when we really need to do them.
Rose EP42: And I've got a hundred some odd louvers in the hood that I punched back in 2011 when I was working at Brad Stark's, rod Custom. And, uh, it was just a weekend he was away and he came back and he was like, damn, you've been busy.
Emily EP43: it just has an AW WD badge. Yeah,
Rose EP42: yeah, he is doing the Beatles lyrics and he is like, it's been a hard day's night. I should be sleeping. Like, and you know, he's Burt Reynolds and he like, you know, chimes in and he's like, yeah, Chinese whore. It's, it's not
Just imagine this, there's about three feet between us and all of their chairs and they're having a meeting. It's outside 'cause it's nice and like, you know, we, we thought we'd be done before they started their meeting and sun's just about to go down as these things always go right? Yeah. The sun's just about to go down.
When, when it's at TF it's just everywhere. Torque converter comes off. Big mess in River City, Exxon Valdez. And so I now like to leave the transmission in place, even though it's, it's not the easiest to try to hit the motor mounts and the dowels all in one shot.
Rose EP42: we go and we're whispering 'cause they're having their meeting at this point. So we're just sort of like, I'm like, okay, we're gonna sneak it in. Let's go down two, two inches. We go down, we, you know, we're just going down creeping in. Then we've gotta jack the transmission up so that the flex plate will slip into the bell housing, then we can let the engine down more and start to try to get them together.
Rose EP42: And Emily wire wheeled the dowels because if, if you've been in this position, any kinda crud can just like stop you. So Emily had wire wheeled around the dowels and it just, and we had put a little assembly grease on the Dows and the driver's side was just in. And I was like, if we can hold this, 'cause sometimes you'll get on a Dow and it falls back off. And I ho, I hope you understand this, there's two big pins that come outta the engine and then there's mating holes, right? So you can lock the engine and transmission together. If like at home, you're. Maybe not familiar with this. I'm assuming you're all gearheads and you know this, but Yeah, there's these two big pins on a Chevy, you know, engine transmission.
Rose EP42: Oh my God. So we, we had that first one on and I was like, if we could just snake this over just a little bit.
Rose EP42: we were stoked. I mean, a couple of Kirk was watching, like Kirk looked over and I like, I was gave him the like, yeah, this is it.
Rose EP42: And, and I, I wanna just vouch for myself a little bit here. It was like that when I got it. I just didn't make it any better until now. And when I got it, I wasn't nearly the wrench that I am now.
So anyway, it's been a long road. I was not, I was not nearly as capable when I got this van in 2013 as I am now. And so when I got it, it was so full of smog stuff that I was like, you can't even put your fucking hand in this thing doing this. The first time I did the spark plug is like, when I had first got it, I was like, this doesn't make any sense.
And I just, I just didn't know. I, I just, it wasn't a complete picture in my mind to be like, nowadays where I'm just like, oh, you're just going and tear that shit out. And so what we did to, to fast forward, back to now, uh, and this has been a hangup
And so, but like that I was getting like $300 a week or something. Yeah. You know, like three 50 a week I think was what my pay was,
I was just a fucking kid. I don't know. And so anyway, there, there was just it, all the brake lines were rusted when I got it. So I had, I remember the first time I got it to run and I pulled it up in front of the shop and I knew it just had like front brakes. And then I like got to the garage door at the shop and I hit the brakes and the, those lines blew out too. Oh no. So I immediately had to do all the breaks and all the lines and like, you know, and I did, and I drove it to a van event and we had a great time. And it, it drove good. I just, I was like looking through some of the service records and it said, it was like, it was the, the odometer was at 37,000 miles and I was like, there's no way.
Rose EP42: to, you know, in it. Uh, it'll, the tube will compression leaks out of a tube. On a new engine, out of a dipstick tube.
'cause I was like, uh, it'll give up and then we'll clean it up then, and then we'll freshen it up or whatever it takes. Yeah. I thought this, this day would've come a long time ago, and it wasn't until a few years ago that I was in the middle of the desert and I like burned a valve or something and it just started driving weird and it, it was like a DA cylinder dropped off and it would just blow smoke. And so I've never done it. I have not done a leak down test on it to see if it's the intake or the exhaust side, but I'm assuming one of the valves are deformed or the head's cracked or something. But I continued to drive it that way. And honestly, the last, like, like when the windshield got broken on the 67 and I had to drive it to go to work and stuff, I, and then we, like it died that one day because the.
Uh, I'm not independently wealthy like I I, at that time I was always stressed out about where the next dollar was coming from. So this is all a long time coming and it's awesome. So this engine was in the 67 and I drove it for a year. It was in another astro that I bought for six 50 in Maryland and drove it cross country.
Rose EP42: Emily, Emily spray painted the valve covers black Emily spray painted. We used Cassidy's brackets because I had the steel plate and then Cassidy has the aluminum, uh, the cast aluminum ones. So, uh, we, we decided to switch to those. It was a little different. All my stuff was, I had a four rib serpentine and then it had dealer add-on air that was a V belt with a sand in compressor.
Rose EP42: Oil I, I was like, well I gotta get a new temp gauge. Um Oh, okay. And the thing with the manifolds is like, there was no thread left on the studs and I had to go cut 'em all off to get 'em.
Rose EP42: injectors. It's just stuff that I didn't know back then. I just, I hadn't, I wasn't that, you know, I wasn't a, I wasn't never like a, a standard wrench.
Right. Which is foolish of me. 'cause they do have to like, there's different packaging in the vehicles they have to get around. Yeah. So all this, I mean, this is the real meat, you know, this is the hard shit where you're just like, well, you just drop the thing back in. Well, maybe
I had just put that together so it was fresh and the earliest, you take the engine cover apart and you've just got a giant hole in the floor and I feel like it's easier. But yeah, I had just been through that whole thing. Whereas this one, again, we had to deal with some of these side effects of it being super rusty and shitty.
We worked hard, but yeah, we had to start Friday evening and then, but yeah, we did that one a lot faster. And I, I would credit that too, one being prepared, two, having a really good shop on our hands, like we were on the lift and stuff, which helps a bunch, but also a vehicle that I had just been through. Um, so yeah, the exhaust thing, I did that early in the day 'cause I was like, you don't wanna do that later in the day when you're stressed out and tired.
Uh, the injectors are plugged in the, you know, throttle position sensor, the idle air control, some of that stuff's plugged in. So we're like there. The fuel lines aren't hooked up yet, which I ordered in. That's one of the other things I got from Rock Auto was I got some more, uh, fuel line O-rings. Even though I'm pretty sure I have some in the 67, like a long time ago, I ordered like six or seven of those because I needed a set and I just was like, there's gonna be a day where nobody's got these because they'll sell you, they'll sell you both of them.
It's always some fucked up place and sure enough, I'm glad I rented it 'cause I went to dolls and it was in doll's basement.
Rose EP42: but hors, you would have to drill up and go, it's a seven sixteens thread. I'm pretty sure. I think it's seven sixteens fine on the Chevy,
That's not the real sizes. You know, that's gonna, what you should really do. You want to get like 70 to 80% thread, right? So if you were like.
So I'm curious what, uh, what, yeah, what the answer to that would be. Maybe not. Maybe it's inconsequential. I mean, if it were, believe me, if it were a daily, like we're really talking like that happened to Horts blazer. Hort was like, I don't have a crank bolt. And I was like, well, that's weird. And then we found out why we bought a bolt, and then it was somebody had ripped the threads out of it for him, I
Rose EP42: It looked like a great time here at the Industrial Arts Tool Library of Portland. Um. And the alley sweeper's. Cool. What they do with the alley sweeper, if you're not from here, is they ride around. Portland has all these uh, sort of like unpaved alleys and they get filled up with trash and these people hop on their bikes and they go collect trash and then they come back here and they party at the end of the day.
And he was like, this is exactly it. And then there was another time about two weeks later, you were doing fiberglass on the track nose of the car.
Rose EP42: Brett's occasionally allowed me to butt in on that. And we've, we've been talking about doing a mold making class. Uh, it's just, it's serious shit. So we're not, we're not too
Rose EP42: He told some bad stories about friends getting hurt. But anyway, we have a big community thing. Yeah. What else? Can you think of any of the other classes?
Rose EP42: Yeah. And a couple
Rose EP42: I'm pumped because, uh, yeah, it's been like the first, the transmission was dying, a slow death, and that was, it became out of balance on a trip back home from the nationals. It was so out of balance. It, it vibrated the rear end on the van so much. When, uh, Kristen and I were coming back from, uh, Minneapolis or from Minnesota, it broke a brake line. Uh, one of the rear, one of the hard metal brake lines vibrated so much it broke. And then the like, 'cause the transmission was destroying itself,
Rose EP42: Yeah, I did.
Rose EP42: I, I will admit that I had to, uh, I had to look up some clown names 'cause I was like, I was like, are there any clown names that get with t uh, Fiat stands for Fit in another Tooles.
Emily EP43: Yeah. Tony. Tony. They are an, they are an Italian car
Rose EP42: I don't know if that was just like, just, you know, where, you know, she saw what Hailey said and just was like, I'll go with that.
Rose EP42: Sorry, boomers.
Rose EP42: why don't you look it up really quick? Okay. Uh, I-S-E-T-T-A as, uh, as far as I know, I think that's the spelling.
Emily EP43: Um, did you also say that Urkel had nice setta though?
Rose EP42: was just a side character and then people loved him. And so Urkel became this sort of dominating force in the show.
Rose EP42: so there is an episode just to get us going on our TV car Madness here. 'cause TV cars are such a blast. Uh. There is an episode I've obviously, like, I've seen some Family Matters. I remember when it was out, but I don't remember I, it seemed a little familiar, but there's one where he turns the Ista into a dragster and it's kind of cool.
Emily EP43: Wow. I would not imagine that Urkel went off the rails like this.
Emily EP43: So then does he never have a Ista to drive again after that, or does he turn it back to street legal?
Rose EP42: right. So, uh, that wasn't where I thought we would start, but it just, you know, it just went in together like that. And
There is a lot. Mm-hmm.
Emily EP43: And then I also got one from Emily Foss. Yeah. Lay on, um, what you got. And she said, this one's great. I mean, I'm not gonna lie. Embarrassing as it is, the General Lee.
Rose EP42: Uh, I'm gonna guess it's probably not a matchbox just to go deep cut. Like not to, not to rag on Emily, but I have, well, I don't have it anymore. It's probably long gone, but mine was an Ertle,
Rose EP42: Listen, listeners, we try to be democratic here. We try to share the script.
And you did. So, uh, of course, right off the top, which was like, some of these were my, the first five were things I already wanted to do, and then peoples really kind of came in on 'em. Uh, number five, actually no one said, well, I'll mention why, but number one, a team van. And I wanted to, I'm, I'm gonna try to shout out the people that wrote in about them, which is like, duh.
Oh, okay. Maybe 14. Then also classic long roof also said the 18 van. Now number two on this list. Uh, 18 van is a eighties. GMC van push bar on the front wing on the back visor. Yeah. Flares, running boards. Mm-hmm. Uh, turbine wheels.
Rose EP42: I wouldn't be surprised, you know, they'd be like, oh, we break it and just blend it back in bas on it. Uh, number two, the monkey mobile, which is also the Fonzie dream car. And I didn't know this. I talked to, uh, regular writer enter and listener veggie dads.
Uh, but also, um, classic Long Roof. Mentioned that one. And then Dark Gilligan was all about the Monkey Mobile also. I, I do like it, it's weird. It's like it is got a town car look, which means that over the driver it's open, but then the, uh, the passengers are covered
Rose EP42: so I grew up in Indiana and the town next to us was Clarksville, Indiana, and we had a mall, river Falls Mall, and eventually it closed like malls do, and it's a, it was a big mall and got turned into a Bass Pro shop in its entirety, like the movie theater. The mall became a golf driving range and there was a putt putt course and it had a little train that you could ride and it went through the putt putt course and there was a remote control boat section and they turned that into like a laser shooting range. And there's these monkeys up at the top that you shoot and they come out and sing last train to Clarksville. Ron Clarksville, but
It's built off the Lincoln Futura, which was a a Ford Lincoln concept car.
So Corey was pumped. Yeah. And so Brett was like. Brett was like, you came on the best day ever. We're selling the Batmobile. It's about to go off to auction. And he was like, gimme your phones. And so we give him our phones and he is like, get in the Batmobile. And he took our pictures in the Batmobile
Rose EP42: I'd asked Brett, I'd been like, Hey, do you, do you have like, uh, do you guys have any pictures? Then he was like, yeah, sure. And like, got out a whole box and just like, gave us prints from that and like, they were so accommodating and nice. And, um. Anyway, it was just was like such a special day to take our pictures in the Batmobile.
Emily EP43: Yeah, I heard they did it in 15 days.
Rose EP42: Okay. Uh, moving on to number five on my list. Uh, I put down Gene Winfield's Reactor because the reactor was in, uh, Batman twice. Adam West Batman. It was the Riddler's car at one point, and it was also the cat woman's car.
But we had a monster coach toy that was sick and AJ the fabricator wrote in on that one. And Aaron Saf Sack wrote in and Eddie Zian, uh, we're way into the MUN Mobile, which is another Bears job. Right?
Rose EP42: All right. Um, number seven, ULA and Eddie Zian said that, and then there was one more person that said Draga, but I did not write their name down.
Rose EP42: is the Fall Guy truck the precursor to the Midg engine Monster Truck? Because 81, I, I mean, I think we're still talking hard body monster trucks. I don't think we're talking fiberglass body trucks yet. Somebody can, can come through and correct me on that. I'm, I'm not gonna pretend to be the historian here, the monster truck historian, but I'm pretty
Rose EP42: uh, number nine, uh, sleepy mike and, uh, classic long roof, both said the Starsky and Hutch Grand Torino.
Emily EP43: I'm not, Rose EP42: I think the Banec is like a cop show, like Dragnet, but I don't know that Rose EP42: Oh my God. Boring. This is so boring. I'd rather, yeah, I, I, I mean, I'm interested in the people doing the insurance
Rose EP42: my like a really top pick for me is the golf cart from regular show Mordecai and Rigby. Like they work at a park and they live at a house in the public park, and that's their job and they're total slackers and they always steal this golf cart.
And, uh, Nick is, uh, actually I haven't seen Nick in such a long time. And he is, uh, he used to do, uh, the Bomb City podcast. I don't know if he's done it in a while, but that was how I got found to be on MythBusters. That was how the production company found me, was my episode of Bomb City with Nick. And we did that three hour with Gene, where we did Gene's entire life story.
Emily EP43: yeah. I, I don't know.
Is the show called Supercar?
Rose EP42: Its navigation system contained Clearview to allow the pilot to see through fog and smoke. It was housed in and supported from a laboratory at BlackRock, Nevada. Should that be retracted? Redacted.
Emily EP43: Next, we have the mystery machine. Oh, and that was written in by
Rose EP42: ages ago. I saw a pretty cool thing online that was like a breakdown of what it was, right? And here's some details of it. It sort of looks like an early Chevy. It's got the peaked body lines, like the first gen Chevy. Like the flack glass. Yeah. But then it's like got a spare tire on the front, like a Volkswagen. And then it had some other car-like aspects. I wanna say it had some gremlin or a MC type aspects to it, but I forget what those were. But basically somebody pointed out what a great amalgamation of vehicles it is. Another cartoon one. We should go deeper on cartoon
Emily EP43: So we'll be talking about that maximum. We're driving one later.
Rose EP42: Dark. It was, that was just dark mark because Tommy was like, mark loved the cars and chips and he's, he's totally right. Like Mark would, mark knew when chips was coming on, like, 'cause it would rerun on his, on his tv and he would go home to watch chips.
Emily EP43: Yeah. Also, I don't know. Sometimes there's something that, this is really bad and I'm gonna get dinged for saying this, but there's sometimes there's something that's kind of hot about a cop.
Rose EP42: Tanny Za. Tony Danza and Tanny Danza. Um, I know who he is and I think I've seen some of the shows in a long time ago, so I don't remember the intro that well, and I didn't
Rose EP42: Okay. Last one. 18. Another Tommy Stacks. I, I just threw these all on here 'cause uh, again, we got a lot of responses. Uh oh. And yeah, so we did, we started with URL's car, but URL's car, I forgot who wrote in with that. Um, so I didn't give you credit. I'm really sorry. Um, but anyway, number 18, Tommy said Kelso's van, but Kelso had two vans.
Rose EP42: we're an hour and a half in and, uh, Rose EP42: Love the poboy. I'll be having a white Russian.
Rose EP42: What, what is the smoking in the bandit?
About this episode
A wrench-heavy, story-rich session mixes a real Astro van drivetrain job with a playful “tv cars” listener roundup. Rose and Emily recount sneaking a transmission swap into place, dealing with rust, dowel pins, and timing-chain/water-pump decisions, plus the van’s long history of fixes and near-misses. The conversation then pivots to famous TV/movie vehicles—Urkel’s Isetta madness, the Monkey Mobile, Batmobile photo day, General Lee, Starsky & Hutch’s Torino, Mystery Machine, and more—driven by listener suggestions and debates over what counts as a “car” versus a cartoon or concept.
