Finally got some work done on it over the weekend......
Strapped a new battery to it, fired it up.......it rattled

Did a quick oil change...tried it again.......still rattled

Dipstick has melted itself to the tube at some point

So got in it, started it up...........and just killed it....the noise was something else

20 seconds at pretty much full throttle with zero oil pressure and then is slowed, stalled and refused to run any more :-/ we killed it completely
just to be sure we did a amp draw test, it was chucking 720 amps to the starter and not turning at all
We have a 52,000 miles FWD V6 sat in the garage that is ready to go in, so next week we will be swapping components over and doing the refit.
We may have had a stroke of luck as well that may go some way to reducing the overall bill for the new engine, can say too much currently aside from it if does happen then there will be enough in the kitty for the LPG kit and still not break the 2k on the road cost
