Death of a /6

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D

Dartnewbie

Former Dart owner
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We all know how durable these engines are. I personally ran one with a spun bearing and piston slap before it gave up the ghost. One day I went a little too fast and finally killed the thing. Now this was back in the day before I knew how to fix things and just needed transportation and it ran until it died. Probably could have fixed it real easy now and never had it blow. Just wondering if anyone else has had a /6 die in some dramatic way.
 
My buddy "tried" to kill a 225/6 dart in the field with a brick on the gas pedal wide open for over an hour, but it would not die and did not skip a lick so he decided to race it at a local, private dirt circle track where all the guys run what they brung in the middle of the woods.

Now that is not something you see now days.
 
mine has over 600,000 miles on it and stll runs ok . it has need some small things but not bad like timing spark things cap and what not . ant the other day the carb went out but nothing big .
 
knocked a hole in the oil pan of my 72 duster big as your fist /lost all the oil and drove about a 1/4 mile before we got home /repaired the pan with a&b epoxy filled her back up with oil and drove the car for another 2 years! anyone remember the commercial i think for zmax or some other kind of wonder lube where they had a slant six running with no oil and the valve cover removed while they spayed it with a fire hose? i use to laugh like hell every time it came on there was a reason they chose that particular engine!
 
Pittman: Anything special you have to do to yours to keep it running that long? Rebuilt in any way or just general upkeep? That's pretty impressive. Just wondering what parts wore out first.
 
I bought my 64 Valiant (170 slant) in Oct. 2007 and discovered the cracked block after I put all the money in tires and registration. I swapped out for a 225 last month, not because I had to, the 170 was still running great. Just had to fill the radiator every time I got gas.
 
Dartnewbie said:
Pittman: Anything special you have to do to yours to keep it running that long? Rebuilt in any way or just general upkeep? That's pretty impressive. Just wondering what parts wore out first.
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i got the car 2 years ago , from a friend of a friend . it was his dads and had a log book of work done . oil changed everytime on time . and normal up keep , nothing big in there eather. thats how i know the miles put on it . i put 100,270 on it my self , i love driving it, lol . but all i have done in cap , rotor, pionts , plugs , wires , tuned it up , put gas in it and it started . i had to put a fule pump on it , power steering pump , and i just had to rebuild my carb. other than that i have not had to do any thing to the "motor" it self yet . i just put hooker headers on it thow so watch that be the killing part .


it dont run all that great cause of take offs and all , like wants to die when i take off , but is a smooth ride .

lol . i have not even ajustied the valves yet .lol . maybe i should do that .lol.


o and this is my dayly driver ,
 
I was very hard on my /6. About a year after I bought my 64, I blew it up. I actually ran it out of oil. At the time, I wasn't sure of much (16), the sending unit wire came off and I didn't know until one day on the 680 in the Bay area .....BOOOOOM......... then nothing. That's how I learned to work on cars. Tore it apart and the #2 connecting rod snapped. Had it rebuilt, then drove it for over 130K miles, several times running it out of water. Hit a coyote once, then drove it about 10-15 miles before it quit running. Replaced the radiator and fan next day, in the dark on the side of the highway. Fired right up afterwards. Finally decided to do the swap so I scattered the motor and gave it to my brother for his Valiant. Boy did that engine look good inside! Machine shop said only one piston head had actually compressed, other than that, it was still in great shape. Yes, it still ran extremely strong before the teardown. Anyway, best motor ever!!!
 
I remember building a 225 as a teenager, putting a cam in, porting the head, headers and carb and all that crud, I ran that thing HARD and broke 2 transmissions with it and two 7 1/4 rears 'lost ring teeth then ate a pinion bearing the next time' I would get hammered drunk and sit in the drive way neutral reving the motor till valve float 'cheap ford 370ci springs on a .460 lift solid' and could never kill it.
I did the head @ 140,000 putting big valves to replace the 1/4 sunk'in stockers and milling the head even more, thing had 155psi after that.

I sold it with 190,000 miles on it, still ran great.
 
A side note;
I was in the junk yard one day and found a 68'charger with a 225 and 4 spd trans, the block was ventilated from the no.5 connecting rod though it had 173,000 miles on it, I thought to my self after looking at that big *** car and said 'man them must have been HARD miles', poor thing.lol
 
TheCrusher said:
A side note;
I was in the junk yard one day and found a 68'charger with a 225 and 4 spd trans, the block was ventilated from the no.5 connecting rod though it had 173,000 miles on it, I thought to my self after looking at that big *** car and said 'man them must have been HARD miles', poor thing.lol
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Rare, bad *** car.
 
I have an 85 D100 /6 auto, drove that thing hard for years, lost compression in the 3rd, 4th, and 6th cylinders. Still runs but pretty weak going up hills, hah. Bought another slant for cheap, dropped it in, still drives fine. The old slant had probably 500,000 miles on it.
 
My first time experiencing a slow death of a /6 was in my bud's valiant. We had been out to several junk yards that day and on the way home #5 piston pin decided it didn't want to be in the dark anymore. The rod came out the side of the block way down low and promptly chipped away farther and farther up till we got pulled over. When we found out what the problem was we were still 20+ miles from home with no more $$. So since it still ran we decided to use the access hole in the block and cut the rod as close to the crank as we could get. The piston was still wedged in the cylinder and most of the oil was still in it so what the hell. We drove back home in a blender of a car but it made it. He wound up driving it like this for two months till he got another engine.

My second /6 death was in my 64 Dart Wagon. At approx 850,000 miles+ the valves beat themselves into the head in two cylinders but that was only due to unleaded fuel. It would probably still be running if we had leaded fuel, or had put in hardened seats.
 
So what do you all think it is about the /6 that makes it so good? I mean if they built all engines like this one the body would rust off the running drivetrain. Is it the casting, the general design, or what. Seems these engines will take about any abuse you throw at them and keep running. I just sold a 93 caravan with a 3.3 and 305K on it. Ran fine and didn't use oil. Wouldn't plan on it running a whole lot longer that way but a /6 sounds like it would just be breaking in based on some of the stories so far. What's the most common part to wear out first? If you could get the hp from a /6 you could get from a BB hemi, which would you choose?
 
If I were to guess, I'd have to say it's a combination of super strong bottom end (even in the cast cranks), large bearing diameter keeps rotational speed/friction down, really thick pistons and lack of breathing room. with the stock carb/exhaust it's almost impossible for the engine to hurt itself aside from oiling problems. I had a 75 /6 duster when I turned 16. Promptly wrecked it 11 days later, but revived it by doing all the work myself only to drive it for another year before selling it, and I used the throttle like a momentary switch (either full on or full off) even some hwy runs of 110MPH+ runs and hill surfing and nuclear brunouts. Spit the driveshaft twice and grenaded the rear and still, pump pump yit yit vroom
 
When my parents bought their 1967 New Yorker, I was helping my dad diagnose a problem with the old '57 Ford Fairlane at the curb. I was only in junior high at the time. I was standing in the street, feet apart about 2 feet, and leaning over the front left fender trying to pinpoint a noise in the six cylinder Ford. My dad, standing in front of the car, tached the engine a couple of times. Suddenly, I saw a big black spot appear on the side of the block followed by a 'bang'. A white spot appeared on the asphalt between my feet where the rod ricocheted. The rod disappeared somewhere in the field across the street. The engine clanged to a stop. My dad busted out laughing when he saw the size of my eyeballs (and that I still had my other two balls). We had a good laugh about it this summer, just about three months before he passed away.
 
I asked a similar question a while ago wondering if anyone had blown up a /6. Under normal situations, no one indicated a failure. It took cracked castings and extremely low oil situations to result in a failure. On another site, I read that the Hyper Pack 170 would turn 8000 rpm if you could keep the cam lubed. Since the stock electronic ignition box stops the whoopee at 6000, I don't see much of a problem.

Back when my fellow teens were getting rides, the ones with the fewest engine problems were those with /6 or Beetles. You could run either all day, flat out, and not hurt them.
 
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seen a few with a hole here. the occasional one with the hole @ # 1 though.

regards,Rod:-D
 
Years ago (I think it was 1971) we had a man come in with a 225 Dart .He complained the motor was missing. I remember looking under the hood and saw #5 rod hanging out the block. The boss gave a price on installing another motor. The owner said he had to wait a couple of paydays before he could repair it. One month later he came in for repairs.He was still driving the car daily but his wife complained of the car leaking oil on the driveway.
 
My First Mopar was a 74 Plymouth Scamp with a 225 Slant 6. I drove it probably 3 months after I got it and noticed the oil light would flicker at cruising speed and at a stop it would stay totally lit up bright red.

I put a mechanical gauge on it and at idle,was pushing 0 PSI oil Pressure and at cruising speed it would register maybe 10 PSI. I drove around like that for about 4 more months,and then replaced the oil pump. Oil pressure stabilized and the car never gave me any other trouble, No noises--Nothing .

I just got my 72 Swinger running and Ill tell you that car is a blast to drive with the Slant 6 and 3 on the tree.
 
walpolla said:
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seen a few with a hole here. the occasional one with the hole @ # 1 though.

regards,Rod:-D
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I bought a parts car aspen like that. The guy I bought it from said she ran really rough! I can't imagine why?? my buddy still has a part of the block he uses as a paper weight.

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I've tried to break one but couldn't. The magic of this engine is that it's just underpowered enough and built well that it has a hard time hurting itself. The last one I had ran up to almost 400k and it was in a truck. I actually floored it several times for several minutes while it was on the trailer to go for scrap but it wouldn't die. The truck rusted in half though.
Years ago at the Rockford Speedway, the had an intermission where they took a Ford,Chevy and Dodge and ran them without fluids with a brick on the pedal. The Ford never started, the chevy ran about a minute and they had to shut the Dodge off to continue racing. It was a /6 Aspen.
 
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