This reaction always amazes me. It is the reaction of 6,6-dimethylfulvene with Ni(cod)2
Original McGlinchey prep where they used Ni atoms (coming in hot) to prepare the ligand.
Simple enough. The reaction uses the fulvene as both the solvent and reactant and yields a tar-like product. Really nasty looking stuff.
An extraction with hexane (a lot), filtration through a silica gel padded frit (a really big one), a nice orange solution is obtained. Rotovap to remove hexane.
1970’s era Buchi rotovap doing work. 
Wash the resulting solid with chilled methanol and we get this.
