Re: Crazy idea...

Posted by Matt snape On 2011/6/18 7:00:39

Yes, I think that using one of the GM diesels would be a completely different matter - although I didn't think that this was the original intention. When I was younger we lived near a fishing harbour on the NSW north coast in a town called Ballina and the biggest fishing trawlers used the 2 stroke supercharged GM diesels which always came with the most impressive noise. They were always my favorite and I used to ride my bike down to the harbour of a morning before school and help the fishermen unload their catch (and would be given a bag of prawns, a couple of crabs or some fish for my efforts). Great and tasty memories that are closely linked to thunderous, bellowing diesel engines.

But if we were to be depressingly realistic for a second - a modern V8 diesel in and older Packard chassis would not be that big a task. My father (who has been putting far too much horse power into small chassis for many years with great success) saw the '34 senior chassis that I am working on for the first time today... he thinks it would do a 10 ton truck proud and that it needs a V12 aircraft engine in it just to make it look 'to scale'. This said, I don't think that a 7L V8 is a big ask - especially not when you could buy conversion parts off the shelf.

Sorry - did I just make this seem all too 'doable'?