Why I’ve Decided To Fix My Parts Car Instead Of The Kangaroo-Hunting Ute I Flew 10,000 Miles To Australia For

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You know things are bad when your parts-car becomes your main car. But that’s just the situation I’m in right now, as I put my 1969 Kangaroo-Hunting ute — the Chrysler Valiant that I flew 10,000 miles from Detroit to Dubbo, New South Wales to fix and then road trip it to Australia’s “Burning Man” of ute shows, the unhinged Deni Ute Muster — on a hoist. And things were bad underneath; really bad. Here, let’s take a look.

New South Wales’ strict inspection requirements mean one can’t just sand a set of ignition points with a matchbox, run a garden hose from a jerry can to the carburetor, pop in a new battery and start driving on public roads legally like you can in much of the U.S. Vehicles have to be devoid of any potentially-structural issues like rust (that includes in floorboards, beds, and rocker panels), and all cars have to pass lighting, braking, and steering/handling-related inspection.

The latter requirements aren’t really my concern, since I can do some electrical work and I can confidently replace suspension and steering components. It’s the structural and rust-related mandates that convinced me that the vehicle I flew all this way to Australia to try to resuscitate is never going to be legally on the road in the four weeks I allotted. Frankly, the parts car doesn’t look that much better at first glance, but I’ll get to that in a second.

What I Found When I Put The Kangaroo-Shooting Ute On A Lift

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In rural parts of Australia, there exists a concept known as a “Paddock Basher.” It’s basically just a beater that stays on the farm and off public roads, since it’d never pass inspection (or “rego,” as they say around here). This descriptor very much applies to the kangaroo-shooting ute I planned to fix and take to the Deni Ute Muster, because based on the condition of the underside, I can say this thing has been beaten on. Hard.

Rust Underside On Lift

Never mind the hideous dipstick that my friend Laurence pulled out of the Chrysler Slant Six under the hood; that’s the least of my worries, as swapping a motor isn’t the end of the world. What is a concern is the ute’s body.

Rust

Bed Pan Rust

What you’re looking at are Wi-Fi floorboards (this is a term that the kids these days are using to describe a nonexistent thing, much like how Wi-Fi indicates lack of a wire (wireless)), and what does remain of the floor appears to be about as thin as tissue paper.

Even the floorboards behind the driver are perforated:

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All of this would have to be replaced to pass inspection, and it’d have to be done in a way that convinces a mechanic that no significant rigidity has been lost. Riveting in a stop sign won’t work, and just slapping in some flat plate without closely matching the shape of the original floorboard could raise an eyebrow if done improperly. In Australia, major vehicle modifications have to be approved by an engineer, so a car like my 1969 Valiant is expected to remain as true to factory spec as possible.

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The ute’s floor panels that do exist are thoroughly bent, possibly as a result of the vehicle being moved around by a forklift, but almost certainly due to some off-roading and, possibly, jumps. In the photo just above the last one, you can see a bump in the center of the transmission crossmember where a small bolt hangs down, and below you can see how banged up th engine oil pan is:

Rust Tranny Pan

Perhaps more alarming is the front driver’s side frame rail, which is bent, and would likely have to be pulled out. It’s possible that an inspector would let it slide, but putting hundreds of hours into a car whose frame can’t be properly and easily straightened seems high-risk:

Frame

Other, less significant concerns include a bent front strut rode. Here’s the driver’s side, which looks decent:

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And here’s the bent passenger’s side:

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The exhaust is also total garbage; a piece fell off onto the ground while I was filming:

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Oh, and the driver’s side front brake and steering bits were all rusted out, as this wheel was buried in the dirt for who knows how long:

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Ignoring engine and drivetrain issues, and focusing solely on the question “Which body offers the the best starting platform for a project?” I began realizing as I walked under the hoist that the kangaroo hunting ute wasn’t ideal, especially considering the rust in the front part of the bed, particularly on the seam behind the driver where the bed floor meets the bulkhead:

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Add the rust holes at the bottoms of the fenders and on the rocker panels, as well as all the big dents in the body, and it’s hard not to look over at the parts ute and say with a hopeful tone: “You know, I know it’s just a shell, but what is there doesn’t look horrible? Maybe it’s a decent shell?”

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So Laurence and I chucked the parts ute up on the hoist to see which of these pathetic beaters we’d be spending far too much time trying to get through New South Wales’s inspection and then to the big ute party over six hours away.

Is The Parts Ute Any Better?

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Look at that thing. It’s really not even a car so much as it is some metal put together with fasteners and welds. There’s no engine, no transmission, no front end, no radiator, no right fender, no driver’s-side door, no windshield, no hood, and on and on — this isn’t a vehicle that I would ever have flown 10,000 miles to fix. If my host, Laurence, had sent me a picture of this ute and said “Wanna fly to Australia and fix this in four weeks?” I’d have said “Absolutely not. That’s going to be the death of me.” And yet, the state of my project car, the kangaroo ute, meant desperation began kicking in, so I had to at least consider the parts ute becoming the main one, as much as I didn’t like the idea.

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One of the first things I noticed once the parts ute was on the hoist was that the transmission tunnel at the base of the firewall just behind the engine bay has been modified to fit a floor-shift transmission. There’s a bunch of shoddy welding of sheetmetal over top of sections of the body that have clearly been cut/banged to make way for a different gearbox. It’s all a bit janky, and maybe an inspector might give us some guff, but Laurence assured me it’s probably fine.

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There’s also a fairly large hole the driver’s side rear lower bedside just aft of the wheel; the rust goes all the way through from the inner panel to the outer, more visible one. Plus, there are some parts of the floor that are so dark-brown and flaky, it’s clear they’ll become holes as soon as I touch them:

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You can see some of the holes/scaly rust in the front floorboards from the top:

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But honestly, aside from the rear bedside hole, the shoddy tunnel modification, and the perforations on the flat part of the front floorboards, the parts ute’s body looked solid underneath:

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There was still some rust in the bed floor (see below), but it wasn’t at the seam with the bulkhead — it was just the flat part of the bed, so it should be relatively easy to replace:

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The parts ute also has a perfectly straight frame rail:

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I Guess My Parts Car Is Now The Main Project

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The car on the left is the one that Laurence and I have to fix in four weeks, then drive to the Deni Ute Muster. That car right there with the busted radiator on the cowl, with its driver’s-side door in the bed, with no tailgate, with no heart. That car is now Project Cactus.

Gulp.

 

84 thoughts on “Why I’ve Decided To Fix My Parts Car Instead Of The Kangaroo-Hunting Ute I Flew 10,000 Miles To Australia For

  1. … sigh. Nope. We’re done here.

    I personally have no major objections or safety concerns with the parts ute. I’ve helped restore FAR worse unibodies. (No, seriously. Numbers matching Mopar muscle, you figure out a way to replace the disintegrated unibody rails.) From a structural standpoint, the parts ute actually is just fine. Needs a wire wheel and some semi-structural. Nothing collision risk related.

    Problem is, Australia’s inspections are more like Shaken than TUV. Sure, they don’t check your plugs and wires. But they absolutely do check your body repairs with a magnifying glass. Floorpans you might be able to get away with patch on flat steel areas. But any curves, you’ll have to somehow source OE or equivalent weld-in pre-stamped sheet. Pretty sure even I couldn’t find that.
    But as I mentioned earlier; the bed’s the killer. It’s corrugated and while the floor isn’t technically structural (again: these are unibodies!) it’s also technically structural.
    “Wait, what? You’re not making any sense, man.”

    The bed’s structural in the exact same way the floorpans are. That’s going to be ruled load structure since you can’t have rust holes in your trunk either. Same general idea. But as you can see, the bed is stamped steel with a corrugated pattern. They’re gonna nail you if the replacement doesn’t match; flat patch won’t do. And the one with the busted unibody doesn’t have usable bed sheet.

    Whether or not the ute’s safe is irrelevant. Again: parts car? I’ve got no safety quibbles provided you bolt in belts correctly. You know not to throw things in the bed. There’s nothing I see that makes me go “jesuschrist, that is a death trap.” On a scale of 1 to Postal Jeep, it’s about… a Valiant. Just less assembled. Seriously. There’s nothing about the parts ute that would keep it from being put back on the road in a condition as safe as when it was built. (And that’s the standard. As built.)

    But my opinion doesn’t count for shit here. It’s the rego inspector and the rules they have to make their living by. And there’s just no possible way to fix this enough to get them to give it the thumbs up in 3 weeks, unless you have the rust-free back half of another one and just haven’t told us about it.

  2. So everything really is upside down over there. I am detecting a hint of reason and the possibility of taking the path of least resistance in this latest video.

  3. Hey, JT, DT (probably busy right now, MH, Beau etc.. There is a show I found on Prime called McCleods Daughters. It’s a super corny show about a couple of different families on farms in the outback.

    The point is that there are a bunch of kick-ass cars they drive around. I have no idea what they are. It’d be fascinating to hear about those things as they seem to be early “oughts” specific…

    Just an idea. Keep up the good work!

    1. Well, this year’s Deni Ute Muster is on 30 Sept – 1 Oct and today is… Ah.

      Seasons, time zones, and general calendar stuff all work differently down there, right? Right?

  4. Dude, this is giving me secondhand anxiety. I’ve doubted you before to my own peril (specifically Postal and the FC), but I think you’ve outdone yourself this time. I’d love to be proven wrong but I dunno… it would be a Hell of a challenge to get this thing running/driving in four weeks even without the inspection. The inspection passage I just don’t see happening, period.

    Maybe if by some miracle you get it running but don’t pass you could trailer it there? Even so, I hope you’ve sourced enough spare parts in advance because even between these two cars you’re lacking a lot of critical components. Best of luck man, I’ll give you props for even attempting something this crazy. We’re here for it no matter how it turns out.

  5. I came for an update but this was all stuff that’s been talked about ad nauseum. What’s going on with it now? Also I think we are 2 weeks now into the 4 week project and so zero progress has actually been made other than a decision to use a different car?

    I’m starting to think this was just a click-bait ruse. It’s so impossible and definitely not going to work out, what else can it be? Those cars are just too far gone and should be crushed.

    1. Hey, paid content, a trip to Australia, working on quixotic car projects is not the worse use of time.

      He might’ve chosen something slightly more possible though.

  6. Might be easier to devise a way to drive a reef to this meet than the current plan…

    This gives me an idea, how strict are Australian regs on Chysler Valiant-bodied watercraft?… Sail to Melbourne then trailer it in?

  7. I have serious doubts that either ute can ever pass an inspection process as thorough as Australia’s. Maybe bring it back here, in Illinois all you need to do is get it running and it’s legal to register. Or even if you don’t get it running, for that matter.
    And no future inspections either, Illinois only emissions-tests OBD-II cars (built since 1997) by asking them if everything is ok.

  8. Do these have the same torsion front suspension the US models do? That’s what has kept me out of a Dart or variants: ones my cheap arse will spring for are heavily rusted at the crossmember it terminates in—and I vividly remember dragging a young single-mother’s Duster out of a busy intersection after the front right torsion bar broke free of that member a couple decades back. Not pretty

  9. In Australia, major vehicle modifications have to be approved by an engineer
    “good news for me” he continued, “I happen to be an engineer. Bad news for me, Australia did not accept that as justification for my modifications.”

  10. I’m sure this will call for a third or even fourth ute to cobble one together well enough to pass an inspection. So are the parts of the US without vehicle inspections unique among developed countries or are there other places at a similar economic level that also leave it to the individual to decide if their vehicle is safe?

    1. Vehicle inspections in the US are sort-of all over the place. For starters, it’s up to the state. Meaning that one state might require smog certification and an inspection, while other states only require one or the other. I’m in California, we don’t have annual inspections here, but they do exist for specific circumstances. If a car is wrecked and repaired, it needs to be inspected before it can be re-registered. If a car is imported, it needs an inspection. Cars still need annual smog inspections, which doesn’t cover repairs outside of the drivetrain, but a car that can’t pass smog usually goes hand-in-hand with a car that’s probably not safe for the road. Lastly, you can be pulled over by the CHP if they believe your car is illegal in some way, either via repairs or something else. That will require an inspection too.

      1. There are also states which require neither type of inspection and states which require smog checks only for vehicles registered within certain (typically metropolitan) areas. Washington, for example, has no safety inspections and stopped emissions testing in 2020. Oregon has no safety inspections and only requires emissions testing in the Portland and Medford areas.

  11. There’s holes where there shouldn’t be, holes that have been covered incorrectly, and places without holes that are ripe for collapsing into new holes. And you’ve chosen this, of all the bright stars in the universe, to fix. God I love this website.

  12. David, you’re a magician, but this is more than turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse (unless you consider a sow that died 6 months ago). This is the textbook definition of trying to make something from nothing. I just…I just don’t know, man.

  13. Somewhat surprised that you were able to get the first one on the lift. I imagined the lift would go up and any portions of the Ute not directly supported by the lift would have stayed on the ground.

  14. There isn’t anything better to start with? Don’t they have Craigslist in Australia (BrucesList)? Looking over all those photos, I can’t identify one single useable part on either vehicle.

  15. Gonna be real with you DT – I simply do not see how this happens unless you manage to acquire a third car as your salvageable frame. I’ve read your pieces on pulling repairs off under tight deadlines in the past (and been impressed!) but… yikes.

    I’m talking just from a “this could or should be driven on a public road” point, let alone passing the inspection.

      1. Might be easier to devise a way to drive a reef to this meet than the current plan…

        This gives me an idea, how strict are Australian regs on Chysler Valiant-bodied watercraft?… Sail to Melbourne then trailer it in?

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