My 1979 Dodge Aspen SE Station Wagon – Part 6: A Voyage to Michigan for Bespoke Slant 6 Bits

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– Posted on December 10, 2024

For Part 6 (links to previous entries at the bottom) we will be taking a trip in the venerable Dodge Aspen Wagon  (The “Disco Wagon” as I lovingly refer to it as.) We hopefully locate and purchase some special Slant Six Bits on this trip that “do not exist.”  Along the way, my daughter and I will make some memories camping on the shores of Lake Erie and towing the back half of a 1962 Valiant that I call the “ValianTrailer” over 700 miles from western Pennsylvania past Detroit Michigan, and back.

It was the last week of May 2024. My vacation begins approximately around this time every year, so I can assuredly drop whatever I am doing and head on a trip if I feel like it, with whomever may choose to tag along. This time, it is just me and the 10-year-old.

I had just struck the iron and forged a deal with a gentleman from near the Lake Orion, Michigan area in April 2024. General Motors fans and pundits are probably familiar with the Orion Twp. Assembly plant in Michigan; let us say the destination was near there. I bought this stuff sight unseen. A few emails were exchanged, as well as a phone conversation or 2. I told my contact that I could not make it to pick up the goods for about about a month or so.

We set off at about midnight on 5/30, a Wednesday that had just turned into a Thursday morning.

I find driving at night on the North American interstates to be a calming and rewarding experience. There are in my estimation, fewer idiots to share the road with, and there is also less left-lane fighting from the seemingly uneducated or careless American motoring public. Americans’ interstate behavior is not likened to the public driving standards I observed on the German Autobahn.  The hours of night driving also affords my daughter almost a full night’s sleep in the reclining passenger seat of the wagon.

We were loaded up with our bikes, all the camping gear, tents, cooler, and necessary wares for getting car parts. Could I have fit all of that stuff in the back of the wagon?

Yes, I could.. But would I ever get greasy tools and engine blocks in the carpeted semi-pristine carpeted cargo area?  NEVER!

After installing the trailer hitch on the wagon as documented in part 5, I find that I use it often. For this trip, I am towing half of a 1962 Valiant V-200 4-door sedan that I made into a trailer. It is not an expensive cargo box on wheels like most other folks have and it has, ahem, some style.

After leaving western Pennsylvania, we made it through Detroit, Michigan proper by about 4:45 AM, avoiding the I75 Detroit rush hour completely. We continued navigating along  I75 North for a few more miles until Exit 81 for Lapeer Road / US Route 24.

Upon Arrival at the exit, I fueled up the wagon, checked the fluids, and waited for the McDonalds to open the dine-in area, as we had a few hours to pass before we met up with our contact at 9:00 AM.

It was chilly just before sunrise over Orion Township, Michigan that morning. My Daughter and I always enjoy catching the sunrise when she is awake for such things. As she is getting older, she is more grumpy at wake-up time, so we share the experience less often than when she was 4-8 years old.

After breakfast, there were a few hours before the 9:00 AM meeting for those Slant Six parts. We were only ~5 miles from our destination, so I found a local park to spend an hour exploring with my daughter. We had the bikes loaded on the trailer and ready for such an adventure.

We headed to the Bald Mountain State Recreation Area which we found to be a miniature state park near the open suburbs north of Auburn Hills, Michigan.

There was a Lake, a Water Park, and some nice trails and fishing areas. We did some exploring with our bikes while we were there.

We started out visiting the lake a bit after sunrise. The cool air had some vapor condensing over the warmer water. My daughter had fishing gear, but not enough time for that at this moment.

The park was seemingly ours at this hour of the day. You can bet that the only Dodge Aspen of any sort and half of a 1962 Valiant belonged to us. I love the long days of summer here in the Northern Hemisphere as the sun’s rays seem to hang behind the trees for 2 or 3 hours sometimes.

A state-funded park with a water park on the lake?  YES! Not just a public beach, but a full-fledged water park! This is something I have never seen before in my home state of Pennsylvania.

After biking and exploring what the Bald Mountain State Recreation area had to offer, my daughter and I packed the bikes back onto the front of the ValianTrailer and headed to our final destination.

I found a *shortcut* from the park to the subdevelopment where our final destination would be. It was a dirt road – not listed on most GPS Routes -As it turns out it was on Michigan State Park / State Forest property – no big deal. I was driving on it and all of a sudden it was wet and very very muddy. In my stubbornness, I pushed on towards the paved road after driving through 2 miles of mud. I later found out that the “water truck” I passed was not spraying water at all, but salt brine! We hosed off as much of the salt brine as I could get to at a car wash, just north of Stallantis Formely FCA Headquarters. This was my first encounter with a brine truck in the middle of summer. ‘Round my locale, we do not have to worry about such things as brine or salt after March 31st in most cases. I learned that Michigan will spray salt brine on the dirt roads for dust control in the summer. I am still learning stuff every day!

We Made it!

Our destination was the home of a retired Chrysler Design Studio employee who was trimming some of his projects down. (If my memory is accurate), he had a 1979 Chrysler 300, a 1933 Plymouth Street rod, and a 1925ish Maxwell Panel Van. (sorry I did not get pictures of those as I did not know I would be writing this account months later)

Let us get back to the Slant 6 goodies I was hunting for.  The 2 aluminum Slant 6 blocks! Yes. Here they are!

If you look behind the Crankshaft in the photo above, you can spot the left rear quarter panel of the Maxwell Panel Van in faded red with a black accent.

This was a package deal, so the blocks came with extra tins, a crankshaft, rocker arms, a cylinder head, some exhaust parts, and a pair of intake manifolds.

One block was a 1960 225 “RG” aluminum block that was used and dirty but in excellent condition, especially for a part that is over 62 years old!  The other block is an Aluminum “G” 170 cubic inch block which was never officially produced or sold to the public!

I would assume that all of the engineering/prototype 170 “G” blocks were to be destroyed, but somehow this little nugget of Chrysler Engineering had been saved and probably passed around a few times in Michigan before I acquired it.

Behold, the shorter 170 “G” block on the left, and the “RG” 225 block on the right.

Once all of the Slant 6 goodies were packed into the ValianTrailer, We said our farewells, 2 kindred spirits and fans of things odd and MoPar.

I checked on my daughter to be sure she was comfy for the ~2 hour drive to our campsite.

We headed south and turned East at Toledo, Ohio onto US Route 2 traveling past Port Clinton, Ohio towards East Harbor State Park. The timing of our trip was close to the mayfly spawning day, but due to the recent cooler nights and days, the mayflies had yet to spawn, as the lake bottom temperature was just below 68°F. I did my due diligence before the trip and also asked some locals at the gas station in Ohio about the spawn, and we were relatively assured we would have a mayfly-free camping experience.

We made it to East Harbor State Park, having a sublime mid-morning drive on US Route 2 with the trailer and Slanted parts in tow. We were a bit early and found a squatter on our site. We kindly asked him to exit stage right and got to setting up our camp for the evening.

We had but one malady on the trip so far – other than the guy squatting on our site. The emissions air pump had begun to cackle, I knew that I would have to pull the belt for the rest of the return trip back to Pennsylvania, which I did in about ~10 Minutes at our campsite.  Some campers did stop by and admire the wagon or the trailer or both… which are a mismatched mess, but you work with what you have. The wagon is comfortable for long interstate cruises due to the functioning Heat, A/C and Cruise Control, and The trailer is unique and dry. with plenty of space for all the camp gear, totes of firewood, bikes, fuel cans and moving dollies on the front platform.

All that work setting up camp allowed us to build an appetite and we started cooking dinner.

After dinner, we rode our bikes a few miles to survey the fishing pier and the beach. My Daughter loves the beach and water. She also likes to search for shells and other treasures in the sand.

Before heading out for more fishing, we returned to camp for a snack. This time it was Smores on the menu. – We forgot to pack graham crackers, but the Camp Store Had Ritz Crackers so our Smores had Ritz – they were a fine substitution!

While my daughter was fishing and exploring on her bike I took some scenic sunset pictures and captured some wildlife with my camera.

 

We had a great night tenting under the stars.

My Daughter was ready to help with breakfast. – No mayflies in our food. It turned out to be a great meal.

Before we left, We biked out to the beach before most of the local daytrippers arrived.

The view looking out past the breakers from the beach toward Lake Erie and beyond. Canada is out there somewhere.

After about an hour on the beach, we had lunch, packed up camp, and headed back home to close out our trip.

We left camp on June 1st, 2024. Although the official start to summer in the Northern Hemisphere is still 3 weeks away we were enjoying our trip back home.

A few days later, I unpacked all of the Slant 6 parts and gave the blocks a good inspection. For now, they are stowed away in dry storage until I get the time to build an Aluminum Slant 6 for one of my cars. I feel fortunate to have a choice to build a high-revving aluminum iteration of the 170 or the 225 with more torque and stroke.

We had a fantastic trip, and besides meeting the salt brine truck and air pump behaving badly, I cannot complain too much. We made some great memories that I am hopeful my daughter will recall and appreciate later in life.

In case you missed my previous entries on this Dodge Aspen, you can go back and get caught up if you like: