The Details of Owning a Vintage Truck
Published March 06, 2023 · 9:25 · 130,973 views
About This Video
A companion piece to Van's breakout vintage truck video, this episode goes deeper into the daily reality of owning a 1987 Toyota Land Cruiser. Specifically, the brake repair that reveals a broader philosophy about objects, craftsmanship, and community. Jonathan Ward of Icon, Rick Rubin's The Creative Act, and Tolstoy's What Is Art? all surface as reference points, but the real thesis emerges from the brake job itself: that maintaining old things is a form of creative practice, not mere nostalgia.
The surprise turn is toward generosity. The video becomes a tribute to the people (mechanics, neighbors, strangers with the right part) who made the truck roadworthy. Van frames this as the hidden economy of vintage ownership: the truck is kept alive not by money but by a network of people who care about the same things you care about. Revival Cycles and Icon get namechecked not as aspirational brands but as evidence that this community exists at every scale.
Transcript
this week's video the one you're watching now will be on YouTube next week's video will be on patreon
sometimes it like won't roll back on a hill like it feels like the brakes are sticking yeah when I turn the truck off and turn it back on again it doesn't
[ __ ] anymore and uh you can kind of smell it it migrates from Wheel to wheel like sometimes it's the rear passenger
wheels and it's a rear drive reel speed is this good enough for you yeah
that's all normal that's normal that's Driveline all right yeah forget it yeah but then I get on a heart is that okay yeah you can get out of my heart but
it's not that's not when I feel it yeah but that gives you that's the ultimate test oh okay for whether or not we've got a rubbing
issue for real oh no that's fine that's all Driveline that vibration yes let's just front axle
oh okay if it's like grinding grinding we'll pull the wheel and look at it because visual will tell us everything we need to know okay but
um I bet you it's fine this spirited man is working on a Sunday
Sunday away from his wife and toddler a Sunday on which his wife and toddler
deserve him he is not working for money [Music] he's working to help to be of service let's just pull off these wheels to make sure the new brakes are okay
[Music] fine I should be doing something you're good all right you're doing your job all right good that's what I want to do
so you're my same age so I can't use the like well I'm an old guy in March yeah I mean I'm a little older than you right
what 20 seconds oh yeah it does look weird look at the
huh back back here yeah no I'm looking at it from the front
[Applause] yeah they're done they were like no hmm yeah let's call your guy okay this typically happens when a piston in the caliper sticks and doesn't fully retract I'll pull the pads out and
see if any of the Pistons are stuck all right so you have the whole thing off all right so let me see these okay
so these have 4 000 miles on them they shouldn't look anything like that that is near metal to metal and the other side is metal to metal brake pads are
supposed to look like this our brake pads look like this
they should last 20 to 60 000 miles but our brake pads look like this after only
about four thousand miles I've never seen one of these in real life but I've always wanted to
[Music] that ain't Allen's F40 Ellen can't afford no F40 that's some other guy he's helping out somehow Allen paid for lunch
on this particular Sunday Revival Cycles yes this is a motorcycle shop was the last American Service Outpost
before our 1500 mile Adventure down the spine of Mexico
[Music] the website said they had a man okay so we're on to our fourth we're on to our fourth auto store
[Music] and auto parts stores in the entire city it was at the other AutoZone on Wayne Kenneth William Kenneth William Cannon
Road there's two it was a Sunday no mechanics shops open
in Austin on a Sunday sun is Now setting started at about noon
but Alan opened his for us a tremendous solid saving us hopefully
from having to find an extra nights lodging and ground transportation whilst we waited who knows how long for some
other shop to maybe fix it say oh no please don't say oh no please don't
you gotta go back come on no it's gonna be easy not to mention the security
of functioning breaks for the long drive down Mexico
remote mountainous Mexico with the lady and the boy
[Music] why the hell did the brake Pistons seize brand new for God's sake brake booster brand new [Music]
foreign Alan is an artist but art is not a handicraft it is the transmission of feeling the artist has
experienced Alan builds motorcycles that transmit feelings that he has experienced foreign [Music] the music maker tells us that the act of self-expression isn't really about you
self-expression is not about you the hell does that mean
I don't know what it means but I think I know what it means he's calling the master Alan called The Master
maybe you remember him he builds the finest Land Cruisers in the world he transmits feeling
Jonathan Ward knew what was wrong push rod that comes out of the brake booster and goes into the brake master cylinder was two millimeters too proud
as Alan put it the too long push rod meant that my brakes had been just a little bit engaged for about 4 000 miles
causing excessive heat melting the cylinder seals and jamming the Pistons they probably would have failed
catastrophically somewhere in the Mexican desert Allen adjusted the push rod two
millimeters and the brakes work perfectly to this day
a tuned Choice by attuned Choice your entire life is a form of self-expression
ultimately the act of self-expression isn't really about you
maybe Alan's self-expression his mechanical brilliance birthed his generosity
or maybe his generosity birthed his mechanical brilliance
[Music] [Music] either way that Sunday he likely saved my family this is one of those how am I ever going to repay him moments four people like totally put themselves
out for me today to get us on the road and man I have to be a more generous person
[Music] on this week's patreon only video the reason for this build for building this twenty five hundred dollar GoPro is
not a reason at all it's irrational it's emotional this spirited man wants a camera he can like again [Music]
Products & Tools Mentioned
- 1987 Toyota Land Cruiser essential — Van's vintage truck, the subject of the video
- GoPro uses — $2500 custom build reference for GoPro mount
- AutoZone uses — auto parts store referenced for truck maintenance
People Referenced
Jonathan Ward, Rick Rubin, Leo Tolstoy
Books Mentioned
- creativity book referenced in relation to craftsmanship (by Rick Rubin)
- philosophy of art book referenced (by Leo Tolstoy)