Posted by CGarbee on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 at 8:43AM :
In Reply to: Give this some thought and tell me what you think. posted by Jonas on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 at 1:09AM :
It's a nice idea, although I think that you need to have an od somewhere in the mix (five or six speed gearbox instead of a four, or a seperate od such as a Ranger...).
What are you including in your $5,000 price tag? Just the parts to swap a user supplied engine/tranny in or a complete bolt in kit? A used 4BT with a SM465 will run $2000-3000 with a new engine running quite a bit more. You will also have to do some spring work, diff gear swap, fuel lines (nead a return line at a minimum and some rework of the existing line at the engine at the least), driveshaft mods (rework the short one to get it to hook up to the transmission at the least), and brake work (got to be able to stop the thing and the extra weight and speed make front discs at the least almost manditory) to make a complete, safe conversion...
I don't want to seem negative, but there is a lot involved in swapping an engine of any type, and a diesel requires a little more than a gasser...