The $500 Plymouth Fury is running. But will it gamble? Join the Leatherman crew as we once again take part in the world’s largest trail clean up, Oregon’s Gambler 500. The plan? Pick up trash, spend as much time in the dirt as possible and have a good time. 

After you watch the video, learn what this year’s "Fury Father" Justin Bruner, has to say about the experience.

THANKS FOR CHATTING WITH US JUSTIN. CAN YOU TELL OUR READERS ABOUT YOUR ROLE HERE AT LEATHERMAN?

I'm a Production Manufacturing Engineer here at Leatherman. I work in the Machining Department, where I support production and am a member of our continuous improvement team. That's a fancy way of saying that I get to play with the industrial robots and milling machines that help produce parts like our jaw assemblies, along with other implements like knife blades, bottle openers, and screwdrivers.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE GAMBLER 500 AND WHY WAS LEATHERMAN INVOLVED THIS YEAR?

You will struggle to find one definition of "the Gambler 500" because you can make the event into whatever you want. The challenge as our team saw it, was to get from Leatherman's factory in Portland to Gamblertown in Redmond, OR via as many dirt roads as possible using a cheap, unreliable car that has no business being off-road in the first place. While you're at it, pick up as much garbage as you can find.

Leatherman is a company that makes tools for life's everyday adventures, no matter how absurd or unexpected. The Gambler 500 is certainly absurd (that's the fun part) but beyond that it's about self-reliance, DIY, saving the day when something breaks, adventure, being in the outdoors, and environmental cleanup, all things that fit squarely with Leatherman's values.

DID YOU VOLUNTEER TO BE FURY FATHER THIS YEAR OR WERE YOU NOMINATED?

I was so excited when I got a job at Leatherman, I watched everything I could find about Leatherman on YouTube. One of those videos was about Leatherman's 2019 Gambler creation, the LeatherVan. Since then, my goal has been to make Gambler happen again for Leatherman.

Leading a project like this is pretty hectic. It involves a lot of cat herding, making sure the group stays on track, under budget, and on time. I suppose if you say "no" enough to people they start seeing you as a parental figure. Alex Silleck led the LeatherVan project and was appropriately known as the "Van Dad", so when I volunteered to manage the project, he made sure I got the same treatment with the "Fury Father."

CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE 1970 PLYMOUTH USED THIS YEAR, AND WHAT NEEDED TO HAPPEN TO KEEP IT RUNNING?

Once we got a team together and a budget, we set a goal to have a car by February (3 months to choose). Everyone immediately started spamming our team group chat with pictures of junk cars from the Internet. During the first week of searching, someone found the Fury on a junkyard website. It was love at first sight. We pulled together a meeting at LTG that day, and everyone agreed that this was the one.

That night, I became the proud owner of a 4-door 1970 Plymouth Fury III, a car that I think no one has ever been as excited about as we were. It was delivered to us on a forklift. It was a single-owner car, and according to the bumper stickers, it spent some time at Homestead Air Force Base (this was the inspiration for the car's livery).

When we first bought the Fury, the whole thing was FULL of acorns. When we first got it started, it shot acorns out the tailpipe. You can still hear some rolling around when you open the hood. It had little to no brakes. The engine turned over, but no spark and no fuel pressure. The Fuel tank was mangled and needed to be replaced, possibly from its time in the junkyard (also full of acorns somehow).

WHO WAS THE MVP OF THE TRIP?

This thing was a group effort, and every member of the team was pivotal to its success. Matt Brown let us use his garage to store the Fury for months, or perhaps the hero was his wife, who tolerated us working late into the night on several occasions. Alex Silleck's experience was instrumental in guiding me through my Fury Fatherly duties. Anthony Thammavong facilitated the creation of our sick cover-alls. David Dorsett provided both comic relief and clean surfaces. The seats, which looked fantastic, were reupholstered by Andrew Bird (who wasn't even able to attend the trip). Peter Parker rebuilt the entire ancient suspension and brake system and added a hand brake (fun multiplier). Just before the event, we found that our carburetor was faulty, and my grandfather, Bill Murhammer, luckily had the exact one we needed to swap it. Nathan King, who was hired just two weeks before the event, was able to jump into the project head first, and saved us with his welding skills. Jordan Hofeld, our resident Mopar guy, made sure all upgrades were period-correct and historically accurate.

WHAT WERE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES THE TEAM RAN INTO THIS WEEKEND?

The challenges were what you would expect when taking a 50-year-old, 19-foot-long, 2-wheel drive family sedan off-roading. We never got the engine quite dialed in. We still had issues with carburetor tuning, vacuum leaks, kick-down linkage problems, periodic low voltage, and no brake booster. The biggest and most glaring problem was that the car still couldn't do burnouts on pavement. We started the trip at the Leatherman facility, where we got permission to burn some rubber in front of our coworkers before we left. Unfortunately, the poor old Fury wasn't quite ready to deliver.

On the trail, we had quite a few issues with overheating (there's a good clip of me dealing with that in the video). The car died so many times that we had trouble keeping the battery charged, so we learned to be very efficient at jumping it with a battery pack. At the end of the first day, we blew an air hose to our rear shock helper spring which reduced ground clearance to about 2 or 3 inches. Luckily, after some investigation, Peter Parker was able to reattach it, air us back up, and get us going again. About 20 more feet down the trail, we (I) high-centered the car on the exhaust (photo below of after we “fixed” it), whoops. Then we got to learn how high jack lifts work.

HOW MANY BAGS OF TRASH DID YOU END UP WITH AT THE END?

I'm not sure how many bags we had, but we filled our support truck with tires out of the forest (you can see some of them in the pictures above).

ARE YOU EXCITED TO GAMBLE AGAIN NEXT YEAR?

Definitely. I think I speak for everyone who was involved this year when I say that this thing was a blast! The event itself was a great time, but the months of work leading up to it were both challenging and fulfilling. My car knowledge has leveled up in a major way since this project's beginning, and I think that's true for most of us. The team is meeting next week to start talking about next year's Gambler. Do we keep the Fury for round two? Do we pick a new car? Will we be able to do burnouts next year? We'll see.