diesel engines swap

What are the laws in the US concerning swapping diesel engine in place
of gas engine? I've seen many diesel and trans for sale on Ebay.
Thanks,

Bryan

"Flyingmonk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> What are the laws in the US concerning swapping diesel engine in place
> of gas engine? I've seen many diesel and trans for sale on Ebay.
> Thanks,
>
> Bryan
>

Those laws vary greatly from state to state,
in some states you can do pretty much anything you want and no one will
care, in others I doubt you would get it out the door without a mountain of
paperwork.

I hope you are pretty nifty with a cutting torch/hacksaw and welding kit,
have lots of money and patience.

I changed my 2.6 petrol(gas) serIII landrover to a nissan 2.8LD28. I can
tell you that it was a lot of work. I would not want to discourage you but
just prepare yourself for a fair bit of expense and PT.

First you obviously have to find a good donor engine. Here in South Africa
they import used engines from Japan or some place around there, where they
have to be chucked after about 80000km. I just shoved mine straight in but
after about a year I needed to rebuild it. Still it cost me ZAR12000 (about
US$2000) for a full rebuild while my discovery 300Tdi has just cost me ZAR30
000 (aboutUS$6000) so the nissan was defineitely way cheaper.

To give you a rough idea here are some of the things I needed (1US$ = about
ZAR6.00)
All prices ZAR
1 Nissan LD28 Engine Second hand 6500.00
1 flywheel (nissan was out of an auto) 1200.00
1 Adaptor plate 2000.00
Got a clutch from a Tdi from a mate who works a lot on Landrovers. Gratis.
Recore rad to 4core to handle extra heat output . R2400.00
Buy electric Fans 2x12inch. (Pulley would not line up with existing shroud)
R800.00
Fashion new shroud for fans. just a bit a PT and some fibreglass.
Get lift pump from Toyota Hilux for diesel filter/water seperator R500.00
(and that was from a scrappy)
Obviously there was lots of pipe work that needed replacing so figure mabey
1000.00 for various bits of hose

I am sure that there was lots of extra stuff that I am ommitting, but you
get the idea that it is more than a straight engine swop. I unfortunately
started mine at my folks place (they live in a house and I was in a
townhouse at the time) and then moved the whole partially completed rig up
to my new house when I was half way through. Fiddling after work and on
weekends it took me quite a while and I can tell you that the missus was
none too happy with me for a fair portion of the time.

Anyway, as I said, I don't want to discourage you, just put you in the
picture as to what the whole thing might entail. I was pretty happy with my
conversion as the nissan is a 6pot, and therefore very smooth. The fuel
consumption was usually around 11l/100km which is about the same as the fuel
consumption of an average four door car. In SA the diesel is usually around
15-20% cheaper than petrol so with the extra milage and fuel savings you are
smiling. Another big bonus here is that you can get some fierce range with
diesel. As a petrol/gas wagon I would never get much over 500km from the 90l
tank. When I converted to diesel you could easily do about 1500km if you
take a couple of jerry cans along for the ride. In Southern africa this can
be quite a bonus as you sometimes need long range as fuel can be hard to
come by in Mozambique and Zimbabwe and some of the game parks in Botswana
require at least 600km of 4x4 roads between filling stations.

Good luck either way.

Regards
Stephen

Theres a company that makes bolt in VW diesel conversions for suzuki
samurais,The distributor of those conversions is (rocky road
outfiters.com) and they also deal with jeeps so maybe you can find some
use ful info through them! good luck!