Dynos continue to frighten the hell out of me. I’ve never been standing around when its gone wrong, but that’s mainly because I make it a rule not to be anywhere near a damn dyno when there’s something strapped to it, trying to hurl its rods through the back wall.
And anyway, if you need proof that a dyno room is no place for a person with any brains, do an ‘internerd’ video search along the lines of `dyno fails’ or `dyno explosions’ and check out what real carnage looks like.
There’s a mob that tunes big V8s for a living that happens to have a dyno cell set-up across the car park from the Melbourne Bloke Centre. And, as I write this, somebody is in there attempting to tune the big-end caps off what sounds like a Ford Coyote. The racket is absolutely epic.
But more than that is the fact that, from where I sit (a few factories down) that damn V8 sounds like it’s doing everything in its powers to leap off those rollers and destroy anything stupid enough to get in front of it. I’m soooooo thankful the dyno cell is not directly opposite the MBC. At least that way, if the bastard ever does get loose of the rollers, it’ll plough through some other poor bugger’s front door.
But what concerns me even more than a 1000-horsepower Coyote going ballistic 50m away, are those US-spec dynos with only half the rollers to keep the car lined up straight and not hurtling into the next parish.
You might have seen them (again, a quick internet search will reveal all); instead of a pair of rollers into which the drive wheels snuggle, these US muthas have a single roller, meaning the car almost sort of teeters on top of the rollers with only the tie-down straps preventing a meeting of blurred Yokohama and terra firma.
I’m not sure why the dyno industry ever developed these two distinct types of rollers when it’s plainly clear – even to a dill like me – that the double rollers have to be safer. Maybe hub dynos (where the car’s drive wheels are removed and the hubs bolted to the dyno) are the safest ones. Still won’t keep the rods inside the engine, though.
Maybe if I was tuning a race car where every single hp is sacred, it’d be a different story. And I do understand the value of a treadmill for cars as a tuning tool. But even then, I have a natural dislike of con-rod stretch, so I’ll be fine thanks.
Damp vision
Just after I bought the W124 Benz, I drove it at night and decided a headlight upgrade wouldn’t hurt. I live in the boonies, you see, and in winter, in particular, it gets pretty damn dark, pretty damn early.
Throw in the wildlife that ranges from cast-iron wombats to feral deer that are cunningly designed to snap off at the legs while the carcass slides up the bonnet and parks itself in the front seat with you, and you can imagine why good lights aren’t really a topic for debate round these parts. Truth is, I’ve always disliked cars that can outrun their own headlights, so an upgrade it was.
Because the inline-six in the 260E is pretty compact and lives in a big, old-school, north-south engine bay, access to the back of the headlight was a simple matter of undoing two spring clips per side, slipping off the plastic sealing plate and switching out the globes. Ten minutes later … doneski.
All was fine and mostly dandy until the other day when I noticed condensation in the driver’s side headlight. Bugger.
A peek inside revealed that there was, indeed, about half a litre of rainwater in the thing, but how had it got there? I figured my messing about might have had something to do with it, but I’m darned if I could see where I’d messed up and crimped the rubber seal or something equally typical.
But here’s what I reckon was wrong: That rubber gasket that seals the access plate to the headlight body no longer feels very rubbery. In fact, it’s gone a bit hard. I guess three-and-a-half decades of heat cycles inside a hot engine bay will do that. The spring clips are still springy, and the headlight body hasn’t lost its shape, so the gasket is the prime suspect.
First thoughts were to replace the gasket, but I figured that even a NOS one would also be three-and-half decades old and even though it wouldn’t have been heat cycled, it might not be much better than the one I had.
Ditto one from a wrecking yard which would have suffered the heat cycles and may also have been removed and replaced many times by some bodger with no greater skills than I.
My thoughts eventually turned to my off-road four-wheel-drive experience and that of sealing air-boxes from that fine, red dust that outback Australia mainly consists of. Ingest an air-boxful of that stuff and its bye-bye piston rings as the dust acts like grinding paste inside the bores.
So the old bushie trick is to slather on a layer of grease (Vaseline or bearing, your call) to the sealing surfaces of the air-box and then reassemble it as per the owner’s manual. So that’s what I did to the Benz’s headlight.
It’s seems to have worked, too, although we haven’t had the kind of downpour lately that caused the problem initially and will confirm the fix. We’ll see.
Never have I ever
I know this vehicle wasn’t on my list of cars I’d love to sample (thanks again to all who offered up their rides for my edification. Keep ’em coming) but when I saw Des’ gorgeous HJ Holden ute, it brought back all sorts of wonderful memories. So when Des suggested I take it for a gallop, I took him up on the offer within seconds.
Now, I know a Holden ute is hardly anything rare for a country boy like me, nor is it particularly exotic of tempting in the dynamics department. So what’s the fuss all about? Well, I’ll tell you, and it’s very personal.
Way back when I was just a lanky kid with a set of P-plates and the desire to drive anything with wheels, a mate of my dad turned up to spend a few days at Chez Morley. Nothing new there, as a family that moved to a new town every three years (thank you NSW Police Force) we had dozens of friends living in other parts of the state.
And some of them would visit from time to time. Thing is, this particular mate, Ken, was a rusted-on petrol-head. When we met him, he and his brother ran a Chrysler dealership and corner garage.
I can recall Dad borrowing a 245 cubic-inch Centura from Ken one day and returning home with eyes like dinner plates, and telling graphic stories of what happened when you sunk the clog in such a thing.
Anyway, by the time of this visit, Ken was out of the garage and semi-retired, but just couldn’t resist the urge to do a bit of horse-trading to keep his eye in. Not to mention put a few bob in the kick, as well, although Ken never seemed to spend much beyond the essentials.
Anyway, on this particular visit he turned up in a caramel brown HJ ute with a 202 under the lid and a three-on-the-tree manual. Colour aside, just like Des’s ute you see here. Except Kenny’s ute still had the steel wheels and dog-dish hubcaps.
Anyway, we’d all gone to the big smoke for the day in a couple of cars, after which Dad and Ken were off to do bloke stuff, and Mum and I would need to get ourselves home, about an hour away. So Ken threw Mum the keys to his ute and jumped in the other car with Dad. Right about now, I spotted my opportunity.
Mum had no more interest in driving a column-shifted ute than I did in shopping for tablecloths, and since I just happened to have my P-plates with me (I carried those suckers everywhere, just in case) why don’t I drive home, Mum? Done deal.
Now, this Holden the was nothing special, I knew that even then, but it was in amazing nick (I guess because it was only a handful of years old at that stage). But the big deal was that it had a proper engine. Until then, I’d only driven VW Beetles and Mum’s old Toyota Crown which had about 12 horsepower on a good day.
I swear, I will never forget pulling out of the car park and into the traffic and flooring the throttle on that 202. Man! So that’s what torque feels like. Okay, okay, stay with me, I know a stock 202 ain’t no stump-puller, but this one was crisp and healthy and was one of the reasons I’m still in love with and still spannering up on straight-sixes to this day.
I’ve often said to myself that if I ever found the twin to Ken’s old ute in good nick, I’d buy the damn thing. But it’d have to be a bench-seat, 202, three-speed example. And it’d also probably have to be brown. Which is why this one is close, but not quite my perfect Holden ute. But I’ll tell you what, I bloody loved having a zip around in it the other day.
Drive it, son
Des chucks me the keys to the Aquarius HX, and straight away, I’m transported back to the ’80s. The 202 cranks for a milli-second and then blurts in to life on what feels like the second revolution of the crankshaft. The ignition and carby on this thing are clearly right on point.
The gearshift feels like it has less slack than any of my old column-shifted Holdens over the years, but it still isn’t exactly what you’d call slick. Same goes for the clutch. There’s good initial bite but it’s a bit difficult to actually sense the take-up point, and the last thing I wanna do is toast Des’s clutch. So I take it easy.
Once we’re rolling, the gearshift actually feels better and the clutch ceases to be a niggle, either. But there’s no doubt that this Holden is typical of the HQ/J/X/Z family. And nowhere is that more obvious than in the front end.
The steering is slow and heavy and just lacks any real feedback. (To be honest, I reckon the HK/T/G series of Holdens had nicer front-end geometry and, as a result, feel.) The rear end on its leaf springs can feel a bit sudden, too, but it’s actually pretty well-matched to the front end.
But what you can’t criticise is the way the ute tracks overall and holds a line at moderate speeds. Nor can you be angry at the engine. This old cast-iron lump of joy is as good as any 202 I’ve ever driven.
It’s smooth, willing and even if it has almost zero top-end rush, it doesn’t need one, because you can just short-shift and drop the revs back to the torque-zone. And that’s kind of the point of a ute like this, I reckon.
The other thing to strike me was just how familiar the HX was. Everything from the clattery sound the door makes when you slam it with the window down, to the action of the ignition barrel, the view through the windscreen to the weight and sound of the switchgear, was all totally, mind-blowingly familiar.
Hell, if you’d blindfolded me and sat me in the ute, the smell alone would have told me what it was. Suddenly I was 17 again. This is the magic of old cars, folks.
Then Des drops the bomb; the ute is for sale. I don’t have the freight right now to buy such a nice example, but if it was caramel brown (or beige) with a brown interior, who knows. Oh, and I’d probably prefer a column auto, even though the three-on-the-tree is a sure-fire anti-theft system in 2025.
Meantime, she’s gotta go, so if it feels right to you, contact us at Unique Cars and we’ll put you in touch with Des and the ute.