Hi all, I recently acquired a 1972 Fargo 100. It’s unfortunately got a 318/auto in it with a dead hole and a leaking trans. I’m planning on swapping it out for a slant 6 and A-833OD. What’s a bit interesting is I’m getting the slant from a John Deere swather with the goal of getting the truck to run like a Deere. Are there any additional factors to consider when swapping in an industrial variant? I understand that swapping an automotive /6 is pretty much just swapping motor mounts and transmission. Did the industrial models have a different oil pan, will the accessories transfer over, is there a specific A-833 I should be looking for with the correct spline count, etc? I have experience in the big block C-body world but I’m very new to the truck and slant 6 worlds so any guidance is appreciated.

Hey, cool, that'll be one of the very last Fargo trucks sold in North America. Take pics along the way!

Oil pan and pickup on the John Deere Slant-6 might or might not fit in the truck; odds are better with a swap into a truck than into a passenger car. You may have some reconfiguration to do of the induction system; tractor-type applications often have governors and such that aren't appropriate for road vehicle usage. Likewise, you're going to want to have a distributor with advance curves suitable for road-vehicle use — that's just as well; the HEI upgrade is well worth doing anyhow.

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I've acquired my slant 6! It's out of a John Deere 800 swather. The info I got before I bought it was that it ran 5 years ago, but it's seized from sitting. I tore into it today, 3 cylinders were full of water, 1 of which is very crusty. The rest of the engine looks great! Under the valve cover looks amazing, all of the bearings on the bottom end look amazing, even the nylon-tooth cam sprocket looks almost new. In terms of industrial to automotive conversion, it seems pretty straight forward, the alternator is on the left side and motor mount brackets don't come pre-installed. The governor is a belt-driven accessory, its very easy to remove and the carburetor seems like it can be adapted for street use. The distributor is points-style with a vacuum advance, I'm guessing it's also got a mechanical advance component but I'll have to take a closer look. If anyone wants any documentation done on the industrial slant, let me know. I've got everything torn apart and could very easily document stuff, though this is my first slant so I don't know what to look for in terms of differences.

With that one cylinder being so bad, I'll likely have to get the cylinders machined. I'll probably hit it with a hone just to see if a miracle happens, but I'm not expecting great things. While I've got it at a machine shop, are there other things that would be beneficial to do? I've heard milling the deck/head for higher compression and putting in larger valves are advantageous.

I'm trying to build this truck for peak efficiency at cruising RPM while operating on 87 octane. The rough plans for the build are something like this:
300CFM Holley 2bbl carb (from a mercruiser engine, adapted for automotive use)
Aussiespeed hurricane 2 bbl intake manifold
Headers into a single 3" exhaust
The only accessories would be water pump and alternator
A-833OD transmission
2.9 or 3.2 rear gears
All of this in a lowered single cab-long box pickup, I might try some aerodynamic modifications.

This is what the combustion chambers look like with the head off. All 3 cylinders with liquid are seized, they all have water and some coolant. I poured some ATF down the intake when I got the engine to try to help with freeing it up, which is the red fluid in the #2 cylinder. Pistons #1, #5, and #6 all came out pretty easily, I'm soaking the others in ATF, Diesel, and PB blaster and am going to try removing them tomorrow.