No worries. No dramas. She’ll be right — these are three of the most commonly-refrained words from my host, Laurence, and possibly from Australians at large. Unfortunately, I have no idea what they mean, because I was told that I should have “no worries” about the 215 cubic-inch Hemi 6 engine that Laurence had bought on my behalf to replace the thoroughly-ruined Slant Six in my kangaroo-hunting ute. Unfortunately, the replacement motor was nothing but worries.
Things have started out pretty rough for Project Cactus, the $900 kangaroo-hunting ute that I bought from the bush in Australia, and that I’ve had a total of four weeks to fix before the Deni Ute Muster country music festival/ute show/unhinged party. The car that I thought I’d be repairing was in such bad shape that I had no choice but to instead fix the parts car (that’s when you know it’s bad), which lacked basic things like “any interior whatsoever,” a door, a tailgate, a windshield, an engine, a transmission, a driveshaft, and on and on. Yes, the car I had planned to fix was in such bad shape that it made more sense to start with a bare shell instead.
Still, as daunting as fixing that was, I took solace in the fact that at least my motor troubles were sorted. Laurence had snagged me a nice Hemi 6 engine from a friend to replace the rusted-out Slant Six in the kangaroo ute. The replacement engine, Laurence assured me, would run just fine. I was thrilled not only because I now had a major component of the build sorted, but I also now had a fascinating, Australia-engineered engine to put into my ute.
Keen to see if I could expect to do any valve lapping to get the motor to run properly, or if the engine was likely to burn oil, I set about running a compression test. Since the motor came with a starter motor bolted to a three-speed transmission’s bell housing, we could actually turn the engine over right there on the garage floor. Or so we thought:
I hooked my Optima battery to the starter motor: click. I tried again: click click. Hmm.
I removed the starter motor from the bell housing, hooked the battery to it, and watched the pinion gear spin over with vigor. “Well, maybe we’re in third gear or something,” Laurence offered. He was right; the transmission hadn’t been in neutral. So we tried again.
Click. What now?!
We shoved a camera into the bore to see if there was anything amiss. There was.
At the bottom of each cylinder, atop each piston, was a bunch of what looked like oily mud. Here it is on a clear brake hose I shoved into the spark plug holes:
This didn’t look good.
Laurence and I chucked a breaker bar onto the crankshaft, and tried giving it a spin. It was locked solid. No matter how much force we put on the end of that four-foot pipe, the engine just wouldn’t turn over.
Removing the cylinder head revealed why:
The dirt and mud on the pistons weren’t ideal, but the biggest issue was the diamond-hard rust buildup on the cylinder walls. No piston rings were going to slide on that. This engine was kaput, and we had to find another. And we had to try to, you know, build the whole car and get it through New South Wales’ ridiculously strict inspection — all within four weeks. Keep an eye out here on The Autopian, as I crank up my coverage of the impossible shitshow that is Project Cactus.
“Here’s Why The Replacement Engine That Was Supposed To Save My $900 Australian Ute Is Nothing But A Paperweight”
DT, I could not disagree more, it’s not a Paperweight it’s *Boat Anchor* ヽ(͡◕ ͜ʖ ͡◕)ﾉ
Looks like it has been a boat anchor for some time.
( ◑ω◑☞)☞ Yes! *literally * a Boat Anchor!!
I’m surprised they didn’t find any marine life in any of the Cylinders!!
Give up.
Leave
What’s the point?
“I hooked my Optima battery”
If you’re going to shill for someone, you need to give them a more positive outcome. I fear you might be close to sacrificing a sponsor here…
Oh wait – I have an idea. Screw the ICE and graft in an electric motor and fill the bed with Optima batteries!
That would be the fastest path to getting this running. Do make sure that they are true deep-discharge batteries if you want them to last for tens of thousands of miles, which I think Optima Yellowtops would perform the task nicely. David could strip a 48V controller and an electric motor out of a golf cart and this ute would probably do 35-40 mph with that.
We in America have a simpler one-word saying which may be more apropos: “Worries”
David and Lawrence seem to have forgotten Rule #1 of buying a used engine – if it doesn’t bar over, it doesn’t come home.
It is possible to un-stick an engine and get it to ‘come back around’, but that’s a fool’s bet. If all you want to do is a dingle-ball hone and razor blade rebuild, you want it to be able to spin. And it seems like David doesn’t even want to do that – in the interest of time he wants to get something running as-is without lifting the head. For that to work it needs to show some signs of life.
Good luck finding a replacement, David! Just remember at this point beggars can’t be choosers. A 245 Hemi would be cool, another 215 would be fine… but if you stumble across a likely looking slant six I wouldn’t pass on it if I were you.
I’m pulling for you!
This exactly, even a lowly 170 if those can be had there. Still hoping hw scores a good hemi-6 though, seems those might likely be newer than many slant-6s in Australia based on production years.
I feel like there is a pub in Dubbo that currently has a bar bet running to see how much they can convince a yank to spend on clapped out utes…..
I would assume throwing money at this problem will solve it right-quick? Time-Money-Quality triangle, pick any two.
DT you’re just trying to make things bleaker than they are. You say having to use your parts car with no interior. Engine, or transmission? I say you’re cheating using a car already stripped and ready to be rebuilt. jk
I think if this was a cooking show throwing crap in a bowl, it would be time to break for a commercial, before pulling the perfect pie out of the oven.
There is a YouTube reverse video technique for this, where you purchase a perfect one, drive it, systematically disassemble it, add dirt and spray rust and make it look like your field find.
Bill it as an amazing restoration and page hits pay for all the fun.
Time for a Hellephant swap 😀
or you could even do an EV conversion
You’re in luck! I’m betting David will be willing to pay you at least that much to rebuild his utes in the next week or two…
I’m loving the stories… but isn’t (wasn’t) the Ute Muster Sept. 30 to Oct. 1? 🙂
Well it takes the carrier pigeon a long time to travel that distance and then type up the article to submit to Torch or someone else for editing.
I, and many others, grieve with thee.
This is like one of those anime series where the main character is getting it from every direction, he’s cornered, and defeat is all but guaranteed. Then, Captain Plot Armor comes rushing to his aid, everyone shouts, “Nani?!!” and the main character pulls a trick out of his hat that had 0.0035% chance to succeed.
This is Tracy San.
The year is 2031. David has founded his own junkyard down under to hold all the ute husks and totally fine and totally working engines.
“One more…”, he mutters under his breath, “just one more donor and it’s off to the inspector…”
I picture him using a gyrocopter to look for utes abandoned in the bush, and eating snakes
Fricassee of reptile!
Yes, but how many run ins with the local city code enforcement personnel did he have before establishing said junkyard?
Apropos of nothing –
Can somebody remind me of the definition of “Insanity”?
Next time, tackle something easier, like perpetual motion. Yow.
Any chance those cylinders can still be honed out?
I mean it’d be far from perfect obviously, but maybe just good enough to make the bare minimum compression to run.
Yeah, it doesn’t look good, but I’ve seen worse resurrected. It’s more a question of time vs money at this point.
Remember to get a board that closely matches the cylinders before you drive them out with a sledge.
Hey bored out and use bigger set of pistons.
Unless bearings and piston rings are readily available he’d be better off trying to find another donor motor, one he can personally verify at least turns over. I’ve managed to do a ring and bearing rebuild on a questionable motor before, but got lucky there. Even if bearings and rings are available it can take days to disassemble a stuck motor, and there’s no guarantee the pistons will survive the process, or that what is left won’t require a full machine shop to bore/possibly sleeve, and otherwise repair. I spent several days of soaking/hammering rinse-repeat on a Mopar 383 a few years ago. It had two rusted cylinders, completely destroyed both pistons in the process and one of the connecting rods. The rust had eaten far enough into the cylinders that it required a .060 overbore to rebuild, and was close to needing a sleeve in one.
So, how much money have you got in this so far? A couple of utes, a spare engine, tons of spare parts, plane tickets…etc
How many clicks on Optima ad will it take to cover the cost?
Everyone please get clicking
Brought to you by Carl’s Jr!
Brought to you by Carl’s Jr!
Brought to you by Carl’s Jr!
I guess the Aussies have even grottier piles of shit than exist, even in Michigan. It’s unconscionable that they encouraged DT to fly down there and challenged him to spin crap into ( rusty) gold.
No worries, mate, she’ll be right!
(Ummm…..no….)☜ (◉▂◉ )
No worries for the seller. Fair dinkum? Mr thinks not.
“Hey, remember that time we got that American guy to fly all the way down here, and the sold him all of our broken rusty trash for WAY too much money?”
“Oh man, ya. That was a good one!”
Comment needs more “mate”….
I’m starting to think DT’s being Kangaroo’d.
David, damn man. I knew you wanted to go bigger than twrenchfoot, but I think you’ve really stepped in it this time.
Tell ya what, man. My truck needs an engine swap. By the time you get done with this I should be about ready to do the work, so that means that by the time you get stateside it should be ready to go. If you want a nice sedate weekend of BSing and wrenching on something that’ll go together smoothly, its here for you.
” twrenchfoot”
Nice one.
Oh boy! I’m beginning to think that Laurence might be just as crazy as you DT. Good luck you crazy kids! I can’t say I’m particularly hopeful at this point, but I’m still pulling for a miracle.
Nah after all Lawrence isn’t paying for anything. I wonder what the Australian word for sucker is?
Drongo
( A Fool)
I didn’t think you’d ever top the Postal Jeep, but, well, here we are, with a legit page turner (if it were printed out, anyway). Seriously looking forward to the next installment – how hard could finding a running slant six be? Australians can’t have used salt water instead of oil in all of them
I figured the Jeep FC was the ne plus ultra, David’s magnum opus. Taking 1/4 of a ute and 1/2 of a ute and creating one full ute will be quite the feat.
This just keeps getting better and better, I will be truly amazed if you manage to make anything come of this