I was looking at possibly getting one of the older Landcruisers (~1980) and I noticed that some of them were built with a diesel engine. Which brought up a couple of questions for me:

1. Why don't I see a lot of venturing into diesel-land with 4x4s? It would seem that the low-rpm torque would be a great thing?

2. What is the "scoop" on the diesel that went into the ~1980 landcruiser? Is it a good engine for 4-wheeling?
-torque
-mpg
-reliability
-parts availabliity
-etc...

Thanks for your input,
Todd

 

My guess would be excessive weight.

 

Go overseas and you will see them everywhere.

 

...or in canada.

there are heaps of diesel 4X4's. theres the dodge power wagon, ford superduty's...chevies have their silverado diesel 4X4's...unimog...Gwagon..

oh you mean wheelable ones? has something to do with NA's strict emissions standards. i think toyota stopped exporting diesels to NA in the mid 80's. up here in canada, you can import japanese diesels that are a minimum of 15 years old. US has to be 25 years old before they can be imported. want to talk diesel cruisers? they're all over at ih8mud.

 

Pollution.

 

I don't think a diesel was ever offered in the USA in the cruisers.

 

Rare engines, and impossible to get to pass emmissions for alot of people. Not to mention the cost of the swap.

 

Hey check this out this is my dad's old 1985 pick-up sr5 DIESEL

 

i'd say "junk science"

i used to have an 04' Dodge Ram1500, 4.7V8, 15mpg just driving around. friend of mine had a F-350 SD diesel which got 17mpg hauling a 21 ft boat. his boat runs a Volvo penta diesel, 2.5mpg vs. 1mpg same boat with gas inboard. which one causes more pollution? gasoline is cleaner but diesel is more power efficient, less fuel burned less pollution produced. plus modernized diesel engines are hell lot cleaner than old ones, should be a wash.

 

I think the united states is just behind. There is so much red tape around most good things. But with rising gas prices I think you'll see more diesel trucks and cars as well, also maybe diesel hybrids?

 

i would say you dont see them because they are so rare as hell in the US, i wish diesels were more readily available for our trucks, i think they are such better motors than gas, hell my stepdads f250 get better mileage most of the time than i do in my truck, and that truck it like twice the size and 3x the displacement of my truck lol.

 

I use to think diesel was the way to go because of the better mpg. But now with diesel at about $4.10 per gallon here and gas still at $3.30 I don't know.

Rob

 

Well you gotta remember, in most vehicles your getting 25-50% better mpg.

 

I have always thought that making more diesel vehicles is the first step in reducing our dependency on foreign oil. Diesel motors have the ability to run on a wider variety of fuels. I imagine it would be much more efficient and easier to make biodiesel out of soybeans than to make ethanol out of corn. Correct me if I'm wrong and I'll put down the bong.

 

dont put it down pass that ish.

 

My '89 surf can run on 80% vegetable oil without any mods, but the global price of veg oil has doubled because people are using it to fuel their diesel engines.

BMW now make a straight 6 cyl diesel engine that is more fuel efficient and faster than the equivelant petrol engine, but to get this performance they and most of the other manufacturers have sacrificed the versitility of th diesel engine.

Most if not all new diesel engines need a very high quality fuel to run, and so they won't run on veg oil ( which is carbon neutral) so now tell me that the powers that be are interested in the environment!!

Diesel fuel here has just hit £5 a gallon, (About $10/gallon) and it's crippling the country.
It costs me $800 a month in fuel, just to get to work, it's almost not worth it.

If I run on veg oil then I can cut that in half, but it's getting increasingly difficult to buy, as the supermarkets are refusing to sell it in bulk anymore, I guess they're not interested in the environment either.

The US government has ignored the use of clean and efficient diesel negines for years, purely on political grounds.

Toyota have made 4.2 litre straight six and V8 turbo diesels for 20 years or more, but the US government refused to allow them into the country.

They are a fantastic engine, smooth, powerful, reliable, reasonably economical ( 18-20 mpg) and the older one will run on vegetable oil, rape seed oil, peanut oil, kerosene, almost any type of light oil you wanna put in it, How green is that??

 

Bio fuels like ethanol raise the cost of food, and feed for animals. The farmer that makes the raw material raises his costs to make money. Less corn/beans whatever to go around, means less of it for meat animals to eat, so the farmer raises his prices, that he's already raised to deal with high fuel costs. The store raises their prices, so the consumer just ends up paying more. Even if we convert all our farm land to corn just for ethanol, we can't get rid of our dependancy on oil.

 

It's very interesting to hear your situation across the globe. With the international market seeing no slow in demand, it seems we will see a situation much like your own in the future here in the US.

What are your recommendations for a diesel engine that would be used to run off biodiesel of some sort. The older 2lt or a 1kz? 85 P/U.

 

its basically cause you live in the us i mean in iran you can buy a brand new landcrusier and it still comes with a factory solid front axle

 

yeah.... but ethanol is completely ridiculous, its really inefficient, like as a whole, not just the amount of energy it contains, Ethanol is just dumb. On alternative fuels, look up Algae, seriously, i'm not going to get into the specifics, cause i'll sound crazy, but look it up.