Giving people a car, if they can fix it
– [James] We just bought
this 2004 Nissan 350Z. It's a beautiful car, but
there's just one problem. It doesn't run. This is Vinh, he's one of
our actual subscribers. Now he's never seen this car before, but if he can get it to
start in the next two hours, he can keep it. We are down to the wire ladies and gents. The wire. Along the way, we'll talk you through what's going on in Vinh's head so that you can learn how to think like a mechanic and have the skills to take on
a problem like this yourself.
What's gonna happen? Will he be able to fix it? I don't know. Let's find out. Vinh are you ready to fix the car? – I'm ready. – Start the clock. – [Vinh] No crank, seems
like battery's good. – [James] Now to be clear, this car ran just fine when we bought it. We took it on a test drive and everything, but we've taken it upon
ourselves to sabotage it in a handful of ways. But we are nice guys and
everything Vinh needs is in this garage.
If he ask us for the right
part, we'll give it to him. But if he asks for the wrong part, we're gonna take some time off that clock. – [Vinh] You got a flashlight? – [James] Flashlight, on it. – [Jeremiah] Well that was quick. What were you fiddling
around with down there? – I was checking the clutch safety switch. – [Zach] When you park a manual car, you don't have a park like
you do in an automatic. So you either leave it in
neutral and set the E brake or leave it in gear. The problem with that is that
when you go start the car if you don't have the clutch in, then you would lurch forward
if the car is in gear.
So to avoid that there's
a neutral safety switch so that you have to have
the clutch pushed in to be able to start the car. He sussed that out super quick because everything seemed to be working, but the car wouldn't crank. So he just reached up there
and pushed the button. The car cranks. – [Vinh] Went underneath and noticed that it's missing some of the
linkage to push on the button. – [James] Would you like the
replacement parts to fix that? – [Vinh] Sure yeah, let's do it. – Welcome to my parts trunk. – [Vinh] All right let's check it now. – First sabotage down,
clutch safety switch. – [Zach] So he figured
out the first thing, we gave him the replacement parts. It's been a whopping 11
minutes and 28 seconds. – [James] Okay so already
I'm a little nervous because one of our heater
sabotages was the clutch switch.
– Yeah the neutral safety
switch, but there's more to this. – We did a lot of stuff to this. – [Nolan] What's your
thought process now Vinh? – Well, it takes three
things to start right? Air, fuel, and spark. – [Zach] Air, fuel, and spark. Let's break that down real quick. Now engine needs to be fed all three of these ingredients in order to work. Now, this is an oversimplification, but you need a mixture of air and fuel because gas can't burn without oxygen. And you need a spark
because it's the catalyst that sets off the
combustion process itself. Now, when you have an
engine that won't run, diagnosing the problem is as simple as tracing each of these components back to their source to make sure there's nothing stopping them from getting to the engine. – Sure we got air, but you
know I'll pop the filter box just to make sure it's not completely
clogged up or something.
– All right. Well, we've got an hour 49 minutes. – Geez they taped that up. – That's weird how'd that happen? I gotta be very casual, I was like- – Sure we have air, but I'll check just- – I was like, did you bug the garage? He literally described a
bunch of crap in there. Like we pitched it in the meeting. We were like, oh, we'll shove
a bunch of crap in there. – He's going way too fast. – [James] We're 20 minutes in. Vinh's already found sabotage
number two and fixed it. But that's not all we did. Yeah we did more stuff.
It's still not starting. – [Vinh] So far we made
sure we got air flow and now we're gonna move
on to the spark and fuel. – [Jeremiah] Every time you
pick that flashlight up, I get nervous. I'm just like up, he's gonna find it. – [Vinh] I think I'm gonna go underneath and take a quick look at the crank sensor. If I was to assume that
both of them are out, the common denominator between
the two is that crank sensor. If that crank sensor's out, the computer's not gonna
send out any spark or fuel. You got a jack? Looks good.
– [James] Did you find it? – There was a sensor on the bell housing, so I'm gonna assume that was it. Nothing on the front side. – [James] I'm starting
to get a little nervous that he might not fix the car at all because he diagnosed one of the things that we did to it, checked
it, and thinks it looks good. – [Zach] He had the right logic, but he got tricked by
the layout of the car. – Which happens when you
diagnose stuff though, right? You kind of check certain
things off the list even though it shouldn't
have been checked.
And that kind of puts you back. – [James] Well, what's next? – Looking for a way to
access spark and fuel. Real tight. I'm looking for a service
port on your fuel rail. – [Zach] Yeah sometimes there's like a little
Schrader valve type thing where you can tap into a fuel rail without having to take anything apart. – Can I pull my phone out? Can I do a Google search? – [Vinh] All right so Vinh just asked if he could use Google
and I'm feeling generous. So I'm gonna let you use
Google for 10 minutes. – All right. – But you have to give up
20 minutes off the clock.
– [Zach] You drive a hard bargain Jimmy P. – [James] The plot thickens. – Can I use it later if I need? – Nope you can only use it right now. – [Zach] Oh, wow. – I'll pass. – [James] All right he passed. – [Zach] What are you doing there Vinh? – I am disconnecting the fuel rail 'cause I couldn't find a service port. – [Zach] You know, you need
fuel pressure to squirt fuel into the engine to make it run. So he is gonna make sure that he has some.
– I should have had a nice
amount of fuel shoot up on that crank. – [Zach] So it seems you don't have fuel? – [Vinh] That is correct. – [Zach] Well now what? – [Vinh] I'm gonna check fuse and relays for the fuel pump and those are good then I need to access the fuel pump. All right. – [James] So I think Vinh is starting to feel a little discouraged. – [Nolan] Well he's still got
an hour, nine minutes left so we'll see.
Its been about a half hour
of not a lot of progress. – I am still concerned
about the crank position sensor thing though. He's gotta get back to that. – I don't know why I feel so stuck. – You know, there's a lot of people, a lot of eyes on you
and you might win a car. – I don't envy him right
now. A lot of pressure. – [Vinh] You know coming from
like the professional world, you don't see nobody. You got a whole bunch of
homies to your left and right. And we don't like to work under pressure. So this whole atmosphere
has just got me running down the wrong rabbit hole. Like, okay, what am I doing? I'm overthinking things. It's simple right? I know what I need to test, but I don't know the location of it. And that's why I want Google, but do you want to take time away? And it worries me.
Where's James, I'm gonna negotiate. – I've been told that
Vinh wants to negotiate. – [Vinh] Yes sir. – So I'm feeling generous. I will give you five minutes on Google for 10 minutes off the clock or 10 minutes on Google for
20 minutes off the clock. – Five minutes, five minutes. – All right, all right let's do it. Let's get this man a laptop.
– In 3, 2, 1, Google. – [James] I don't know if I
should ask him what he's doing 'cause I don't wanna distract him. But what are you googling? – I'm gonna google up the fuel pump. – [James] So right now you're just looking for the location of- – Maybe another fuse box yeah. – [James] Nolan, time? – Three minutes of Google remaining. – [James] 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Put it away. Put your phone away bro. – Time 48:07 remaining on the clock. – [Jeremiah] Was it worth it? – No. – So what's the game plan?
What are we gonna do now? – I'm a ponder. I feel like I might be overthinking. I came in, you know what I mean? Knowing that there's a good possibility I'm going home empty-handed and just with a bunch of
good laughs, good memories, and you know meeting the crew.
– Luckily it's time for
the carparts.com clue brought to you by carparts.com. The smarter way way to
shop for auto parts. Carparts.com connects you with the right part at the right price. Hassle free. Unlike what Vinh's
going through right now. – Maybe look at James, what's James doing right now? – [Zach] He's getting a nice pump on. – Just getting a good pump you know? If my pump's not working, I can't even get started, you know what I mean? – I do know what you mean. – [James] Why doesn't anyone else? – You know, I would love
to shotgun a fuel pump. – [James] What does
shotgun a fuel pump mean? – That means I didn't
verify voltage or not. I just say, I think it's the fuel pump, but that could cost me
time that I don't have. – If he asks us for the wrong part, we're gonna take some time off that clock.
– Why not? Let's shotgun a fuel pump, why not? – Shotgun a fuel pump, shoot some parts at him baby. Do we have a fuel pump in the parts trunk? You know what, we do. Oh, it's for a 350. – [Vinh] That's interesting. – [James] So he's behind
the driver's seat right now working on replacing that pump. We're thinking he blasts through this. It's gonna take like
20 minutes leaving him with 20 minutes on the clock. And there's still more
stuff wrong with it. – [Vinh] No, this is really tight. – [James] It is a little
bit of a cramped space. – [Nolan] It sucks it's not fun. – [Vinh] I'm caught on something. And just don't wanna make a big mess. – [James] So right now that 10 minutes that he gave up to google, that could be make or break.
(suspenseful music) – [Zach] Oh, is it done? Now with a working fuel
pump in a working car, when you turn the key on, you hear a pump. You hear it? I don't hear it. – [Vinh] I don't hear it either. Connect is connected. – [Vinh] Oh now I heard it. – [Zach] Yeah, she's
running, she's running. – [Jeremiah] She's pumping juice. – Okay so Vinh was
diagnosing the fuel system. There was no fuel
pressure in the fuel rail. So he was logically working his
way back from the fuel rail. And there's a handful of things in it that need to be in order like the fuse and the fuel pump relay. And so normally when you're diagnosing, you would check those things first 'cause they're usually easier to get to, easier to replace, and cheaper to replace.
But the problem is that's
not what we messed with. So he was honestly kind of hindered by his knowledge because he is going through the logical things
that would actually break in the real world probably first. And what you would want to check first before you replace the
expensive part of the system, which is the fuel pump. – Attention 30 minutes left, 30 minutes. Thank you. – You may have noticed,
still didn't start. What are we gonna do now? You got air, you got gas. What else does an engine
need to be able to start? – [Vinh] Well so sitting here thinking, if we're not having any spark, we have to ask what controls the spark.
– [James] You know what, if you had watched the
first season of HiLow, you would know what the problem is – The problem you're facing now we had. – You know what, I'm feeling generous, I want him to win this car. I'm gonna pull up the episode of HiLow, season one where we were having
this issue on our road trip. You get to scrub through it and find it. All right here's your viewing area. There's your YouTube. Scrub on through. We'll just be right here. – [James] Yeah we hate this show. I don't have time to watch
the whole thing though. – [James] Oh no, but you
gotta watch the intro.
It's really good. – [Nolan] Oh, an ad? Skip, skip, skip there. All right okay. – [James] Oh, there's Felipe. – [Felipe] Still not started. – [Nolan] How many times have
you guys watched this one? – Once. – I watched it like five times. – What's going on there? – [Felipe] So we've got a
crank position sensor code. So I checked the wiring
to the aftermarket, it's definitely good. – Are you just entertained or? – No I was seeing the location because I obviously found the wrong thing and I'm not familiar with the car.
So I went to see if you actually show where the location of the sensor is. – Is it worth the scrubbing? – It is. – As always, a Donut Media video may have saved someone's life. We got 24 minute, 23 minutes on the clock. We're jacking the car up again. He's searching for that
crank position sensor. Believe me. I know exactly it is. We are down to the wire ladies and gents, the wire. – [Zach] Did you find it? – [Vinh] Yeah. Would you happen to have
a crank shaft position sensor in that trunk? – [James] I think I might. Went to the parts trunk and got a brand new crank
shaft position sensor. New crank position sensor going in.
Is this the last thing? Hopefully 'cause we got
about 20 minutes left to get this car on the
ground and started it up. – It wasn't unplugged. So I assumed that I was fine. And without a scan tool for me to verify, I just kind of assumed. And here is what came
out versus the new one. – [James] Is the sensor on? – [Vinh] Yeah. – [James] Attention, sensor officially on. Sensor officially on. 19 minutes 37 seconds left. Thank you. Recap, we got all the
crap out of the intake. We swapped the fuel pump. We got a new crank
position sensor in there. You got the new clutch safety switch. I don't know. Is it gonna start?
– Only one way to find out. – There's only one way
to find out that's right. Let's see if this boy starts. Only one thing left to do, man. It's time to start maybe your car. – Start maybe your car. – [James] That sounds
like she starts baby. Vinh how do you feel about your brand new 2004 Nissan 350Z? You've been on the top of mountains and then the deepest valleys.
You started out super strong. You got down in Mordor, but you know what? We're all friends now and
your friends came in clutch. You fixed this car. You got it started. You've got 17 minutes left. Hell yeah bro. – Hell yeah. – [James] Thank you so much
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