Welcome to 2025, Autopians! We’ve been in this new year a little longer than most of you, what with Australia being 16 hours ahead of the US East Coast. So far, so good with the exception of some fires raging down in parts of the country closer to Autopian writer Lewin. Hopefully there might be some rain on the way to keep the fire risk down as our hot summer weather is also drying things out around here in Central Western New South Wales.
I thought I would use this New Year to get something off my chest: back in October, after I put out the 2nd Anniversary update on everyone’s favourite feral utility, Project Cactus, I had what we call around here a big old stuff-up.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had a failure with Project Cactus following an anniversary article, after the first such article last year the old ignition coil decided to cark it at a mate’s farm.
[Ed Note: Australian is its own language. -DT].
A Rare Score
To set the scene, earlier in the year I had some luck on Facebook Marketplace and was able to snag one of the high-priority parts for my Regal SE build: a Chrysler A518/46RH automatic transmission that was for sale over 500 miles away on the Gold Coast up in sunny Queensland.
This transmission was used in Dodge Rams and Dakota pickups in the early ’90s. These trucks were not sold here and only small numbers would have been imported back in the day and then be required to be converted to right-hand-drive as they were under 30 years old at the time. Other than Ford importing and assembling F-trucks in fits and starts from kits in the mid-20th century, the only way to get a US pickup in Australia was to import a complete vehicle from the States and have it converted by a specialist here.
The importation and RHD conversion pushed the total price up on such vehicles to the equivalent of a small house and meant that only those with a specialized need such as some farmers or tradespeople would spend the money to obtain such a vehicle. These vehicles now being imported by the US Big Three (with Toyota Tundras also incoming for 2025) and converted in Aussie factories or coming in already RHD with manufacturer-backed warranties has drastically lowered the entry price versus the old days.
[Editor’s Note: I need to know the story behind those weird additional turn signals in the grille there; some Aussie rules? – JT]
The A518 was based on the extraordinarily-strong A727 transmission, which with small-block V8s was used in trucks and police vehicles (but with the addition of an overdrive and a lock-up torque converter). This ‘box should drop my highway rpm by 30% and have the 318ci/5.2L V8 humming at around 2,000 rpm at 68 mph/110 kph as opposed to the standard setup’s 2,800 rpm or so on stock 185/70/R14 tyres. I plan to get this another hundred or more rpm lower with some taller 15-inch wheels and tyres which will also add some more grip in the rear.
This has to be the most 90’s corporate video I have ever seen! Hard to take seriously since it’s got one of the blokes behind the ‘Retro Encabulator‘ video!
My uncle lives about 2 hrs south of the ‘Goldie’, and was able to grab this transmission for me that is rare-to-Oz. A mate of his was then able to bring it within an hour or so east of my place over the Labour Day long weekend (the first weekend in October here in New South Wales). All I had to do was head over to where he was staying and pick it up in Project Cactus.
Eve of Destruction
I waited for my partner and Suzuki Mighty Boy enthusiast, Bek, to get home from work so we could head over and probably go grab a pub feed over at Dunedoo, as the famous pie shop and other eateries would be closed by the time we passed through. While waiting, I did the usual checks of the oil, tyre pressures, coolant, brake fluid and made sure we had a full toolkit and spare tyre in the behind-seat storage area.
I had a phone call and went inside for a bit, with Bek getting home shortly afterward. Once she was ready I pulled Cactus out of the shed and we started to make our way East.
Driving through town, all seemed fine with our crusty conveyance. It was once we reached the edge of town and hit highway speeds that things went wrong immediately.
Before we had reached 50 mph, all we could see — right in front of our faces — was the surviving lichen on the weathered bonnet in far-too-close-up, instead of the rural Australian road and scenery.
After doing my under-bonnet checks, I had neglected to reinstall either of the two bonnet retaining clips (aka hood pins)!
The bonnet had flipped up past 90 degrees, bending the hinges and causing damage to the scuttle/plenum panel as well as tearing the area around the bolt attachments in the bonnet. Fortunately the windscreen and A-pillars/roof were unscathed.
I had added a keeper wire after nearly losing one of the clips/pins on the Chryslers On The Murray trip back in 2023 and seeing the bonnet rise scarily on one side back then. I was always careful to make sure the clips were installed since, but with the phone call I must have missed this critical step and assumed that with the bonnet down, we were good to go.
The original bonnet hook and spring-loaded catch were all but completely destroyed (a weakness with these era bonnets) before we started the build, so there is no secondary latching mechanism at present.
I quickly pulled over and assessed the damage. With the bent hinges, the bonnet wouldn’t close enough to attach a ratchet strap so we decided to unbolt it and place it in the tray (AKA “bed”) so we could drive back home, Roadkill-style:
I parked Cactus back in the shed and grabbed the work vehicle to go and get the transmission we had set out to pick up:
In the light of the next morning, I could see how badly the bonnet had been ripped:
I set the bonnet aside and started looking through my parts stash for some replacement bonnet hinges. When I restored my Charger I had replaced the hinges with a set that seemed to be ‘tighter’ in the riveted joint and had set the originals aside, still painted in Ford Tropicana Green from their shitty 90’s paint job. These original hinges also still had working springs, so a plan was forming that would both get Cactus operational again as well as improving the functionality of this revived ride of refuse and recycling that should prevent a repeat of this current debacle.
From ’68 or so until the end in ’81, all Aussie Chrysler Valiants had clock-springs to hold the bonnet up at full lift to keep a good couple-dozen kilos from slamming on your noggin while you check the oil or want to hear the valvetrain clatter in surround sound. Relatively compact and strong, these springs have a habit of walking off their mounting pin, instantly losing tension and slamming the hood down at high speed.
When we built Cactus, I didn’t trust the wobbly hinges we had to keep their springs properly located and preemptively removed their tension. This meant that we had to use a prop to keep the bonnet open, with a bit of flat-pack shelf metal being just the ticket. I had the same setup in my ute, Lenny since the bonnet springs had done that dance not long after roadworthy!
Having learned a few new tricks since building Project Cactus, I decided to try and eliminate this weakness and installed washers and cotter pins to keep the springs from going walkabout:
From here, it took some careful use of a cold chisel (the tool, not the band) to remove the spring washers/clips that retain the damaged hinges from factory. I didn’t want to remove the front panels and bullbar to install the new hinges, so it took some careful drilling and use of more washers and cotter pins to install the replacement hinges:
Now that we had hinges, it was time to get the bonnet repaired and back on. I took the bonnet back to our good mates at IronKnuckles, and absolute legend Henry set about reversing the damage caused before quickly fabbing up some reinforcing plates to strengthen what was an already very weak area on the bonnet:
Now that there were working bonnet springs, the old shelf bracket bonnet-prop could be retired:
To prevent this debacle happening again, as a rule the bonnet is either up or if it is closed for any reason the clips go in straight away. I am looking to sort out a secondary latch, the bonnet will likely need reinforcing before this could be reliably used to hold up to highway speeds. I have toyed with safety cables like this one, but of course that still requires you to manually latch to the radiator support or similar and could just as easily be missed if one gets distracted.
Back in action, I used Project Cactus over the holidays to move a decent-sized apricot tree that I had given a good trim and I’m starting to plan the next round of improvements to this ute and another potential long-distance roadtrip.
Project Cactus may have been bruised by my slip-up, but I won’t allow this ute to be beaten or defeated!
I hope your entry into 2025 has been a good one. Remember, nobody survives life, so get out there and live!
All photos courtesy of the author unless otherwise noted. Top graphic road background via Depositphotos.com
I thought I should clarify something that may have confused some readers based on the headline (I didn’t write the hed). Cactus currently uses bonnet/hood pins with R-clips as the sole retention method as the original spring loaded catch and safety latch are badly damaged and commonly rip out of these era bonnets. I hadn’t inserted either R-clip into the pins that fateful evening with resulting damage.
I am looking to either make a beefed-up version of the stock latch, or run something else as a secondary to further prevent this happening again.For now, using the procedure outlined in the article of always inserting the clips when the bonnet is down will hopefully prevent the same stuff-up I had in October.
So far you have two votes for electromagnets 😀
In the meantime, maybe you can paint the clips neon orange or something if you can see them from the drivers seat. Then its easy to spot if they are not there.
My Dad was getting his private pilot licence back in the early 90’s when the bonnet (not sure if it’s called a bonnet on a light plane) of the Cessna flew up mid flight. They open sideways so visibility was still somewhat intact but obviously it would have been terrifying. Dad says his first instinct was to pull over and close it… then he quickly realised that wasn’t a possibility. He had an instructor riding shotgun who helped him land, then with the prop still running (!) lent out the door and closed it. “Don’t let go of the brakes mate, or I’ll be minced meat!” This whole scenario would be unthinkable now… even in country NSW where it happened!
What should be understood about the Turbo Encabulator video is that the guys in the video were the same ones who appeared in all of the official Chrysler Master Tech training videos of the time. They made the Turbo Encabulator video in their spare time, just for fun!
“Remember, nobody survives life”
Ah contrare! Everyone survives life…right up to the point they don’t anymore.
Technically any mushroom could become a lifetime supply!
Or one of those immortal jellyfish I learned about on Octonauts.
This is why I love forward-hinged hoods.
I’ve always looked on forward-hinged bonnets with some envy! I had an ’86 Holden VL Commodore that would pop the bonnet latch randomly that had me eyeing off a mate’s BMW E30’s bonnet!
Forward-hinged hoods are great, unless you have an engine fire and the responding fire department doesn’t know how to get it open. Years ago a very well-restored Scout II I knew of went from a small, repairable electrical fire to a catastrophic loss because the firemen couldn’t get the hood open and hacked the front of the truck off. (why the owner didn’t explain things to them I’ll never know).
Sure is funny to watch mechanics struggle to open the hood, though.
That’s a frightening level of incompetence from people who are supposed to be trained professionals. Their heads would explode if they ever had to deal with my Saab.
https://media3.giphy.com/media/3h1f7vKlnNdv2/giphy.gif
once they figure that out, ask them to put the key in the ignition and start it up…
They do have a down side. Front end collisions can shove them through the windshield. That and stronger structure around the passenger cell (for mounting the hinges) is probably why we don’t see them very often.
Years ago somebody was showing me the engine compartment of their European sedan (I think it was a diesel Jetta, but I’m not certain) and I was literally struck by the little “fangs” at the corners of the back of hood. I somehow hit my head on one, and wondered what it was there for.
We quickly noticed the slots these things went into when the hood was down and a narrowing of the hood’s substructure about half way back, and realized these things were intended to catch the back of the hood and force it to bend in half if there was a bad enough collision to push the front of the car back.
Nowadays the hinges are built so lightly I’ve seen the same type of thing on vehicles that have the hinges at the back. Maybe the forward hinged hoods will make a comeback.
Then again frunks are probably the wave of the future, so maybe not.
Great job on the repair of the bonnet!! That’s good work. I really enjoy reading about project Cactus and hope you continue to keep updating us!
Thanks, I enjoy writing about it and keeping this machine going while iterating more improvements over time!
Wow Australia is really some kind of magical Neverland. Where Dodge vehicles are Holy Grails and Chrysler Transmissions are popular and reliable. If I ever get there I hope I never come back.
Had this hood flip happened to me on a 1968 Javelin, very scary.
For hood security how about the NASCAR truck of two posts coming up through the hood and using linchpins to hold it down.
BTDT in my ’67 VW sqyareback, at freeway speed. Yikes! Dented the cowl, eventually just filled in. Tweaked up tail ends of the hood and all. Finally scored a replacement hood and installed it and things line up well.
I do miss one property of that old hood. I was the second owner when I bought it at 100k miles in ’78. when doing some body work I attempted to sand out a deep rock nick in the hood. I kept sanding and sanding. I eventually found steel 23 colors down. Not layers, colors. I suspect that the hood had gone through multiple repaints at the factory before finally heading out the door on my vehicle. Somewhere I have pictures, but that was a long time ago.
“Central Western New South Wales.”
So what happened to New Old North Wales?
I’d love to tell you, but I can’t understand what they’re saying up there in Cerrigydrudion!
It went East.
So are the “pull your own” junkyards near you like the ones near me and seem to have hardly anything older than ~20-25 years old these days? Back when I was on the lookout for parts for my 1972 BMW 2002, it got harder and harder to find anything useful for it after about the late 1990s/early 2000s IIRC. At least these days I can use row52 dot com to see if it’s worth it to go to a yard, anything similar in Oz?
A long way of saying good luck finding those front hood latch parts if you don’t have them sitting around already.
Figure after 20 years picked clean sell the carcass as scrap and move something else in. A junkyard is not the internet it has limited space.
Oh yeah, I’ve seen them trundling off the more picked over cars at the junkyards. But I’m in one of the parts of California where rust isn’t as big a problem as in many places, so plenty of older cars on the road for longer (and some end up at Pick-N-Pull). At least one junkyard I used to frequent had a separate section for older cars (maybe pre-1980?).
Our junkyards only have stuff up to the early 2000s in general these days and I’ve not found an Aussie equivalent of Row52.
I’m lucky to have a good network of Chrysler people so I can get what I need. I have the remains of the original hood latch/catch from the parts ute, but am looking to fabricate something better and reinforce the mounting areas so it can hold up better than the original.
Even at relatively low speed, having that hood come at you qualifies as a Code Brown moment in my book. To this day, I firmly close hoods—then double-check them.
Absolutely, I have seen the carnage an unlatched bonnet can do to later Valiants and am super paranoid about it happening to the Charger. I installed the safety cable I linked in the article but want to reinforce it further!
I’m always intrigued by the ebb and flow of spring/damper hoods.
I’ve never owned a car that didn’t have the el cheapo hood prop (which works fine for my tastes), but it’s interesting how the the various higher-end setups come and go.
Don’t they make hood pins?
The “all the way open or all the way latched/closed” is a good rule.
I’ve almost come to grief from not following that.
I was fueling the plane, and set the fuel cap back but didn’t latch it since I was going to sump the tank for water (standard practice on planes). I got distracted talking and took off and at 3500ft looked over and saw the fuel cap just barely hanging on. Fortunately it stayed on until I landed. Now I follow the “all the way open or all the way latched/closed” rule.
Project Cactus may have a few more battle scars, but it’s certainly living it’s best life: doing truck things.
And the extra driving lights really illuminate the road. Absolutely worth the effort there.
Maybe install a strong electromagnet that activates with the ignition switch to hold the hood down automatically. Of course, you’d need an external kill switch to open the hood when the motor is already running. So, probably too Rube Goldberg for the ol’ Cactus.
That’s a good idea, but you’re about 6 minutes late 🙂
Lol. Damn you quick thinkers!
Actually he is a year late. It is 2025 it happened in 2024.
I forgot the pins once on a fiberglass hood held down only by 4 pins, no hinges. It got about 50 feet of air when it came off.
I remember seeing a video where former Hoonigan Hert forgot his pins in his RX-7, damn that thing took flight!
FIDLAR, mate!! 😀
I have an idea for the latches…
Place 12VDC electromagnets under the bonnet and connect them to a switched power connection, so whenever the key is on the latches are engaged.
Weld some mild steel flat plates under the bonnet to line up with the magnets and give them a solid place to bite.
If the alternator is marginal you might need an upgrade to supply the juice, but you’ll never forget to engage the latches. Heck, keep the pins as well for a belt+suspenders approach.
I am quite sure the only side effects of a under hood super powerful electromagnet would be to all in the molecules in your fuel more efficient so as to attain 100mpg.
Frank McCord has a different opinion about belts+suspenders.
I like the idea a lot, we just upgraded the alternator from the puny original 30A to a 55A to run the driving lights. Could certainly go to a 100A or so if needed!
Love to see the hackery involved in converting an OBS F-150 or Squarebody Chevy/GMC to right hand drive.
Both trucks were gone by the time I was in primary school, replaced by and Aussie-made solution I hope to write about someday.
I need to try to document some of these older conversions that come to our local Cars & Coffee, have heard some wild stories about parts modified or sourced from odd places to fit!
I for one would love such an article! Bet others would too.
I’m going to “cark it at mate’s farm” is going to be my new euphemism for something. I don’t know what yet, but that phrase is begging to be a euphemism.
Sounds sexual to me.
For JTs edit- chevy used the parking lights as turn signals as well. Id bet that they dont like that down under.
Whoopsie daisy! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Solid music choices, especially the 2 Chats Easter eggs in there.
I freaking love that Smoko vid. So much good shit going on in there.
I bumped into an old friend in the supermarket at Xmas, and found out they played my town in November and I missed it cos it was really badly publicised. Furious.
Crikey!
Project Cactus is back! HOOORAAYYYY!
Also, I am sympathetic to this article because I am on the hunt for a replacement hood for my new project TJ. A previous owner failed to latch the hood and let it fly up and fold around the windshield, and then just bent it back relatively straight and called it good. I’d generally not care, as it is a wheeling rig, but the paint fell off at the bends and the rust that took its place is at the point that the hood is starting to flex at the bend and I have lost confidence at it staying shut even with the hood pins the owner added.
We shall make him, stronger, faster, better. Project Cactus, the $600 UTE!!
I say add up all the costs you probably got the money for a decent runner ay