Thread: Can a small Isuzu diesel motor be fitted?

My outlaw had a gemini petrol wagon for years. Unstoppable, but the rust got it in the end. Someone else had a diesel Gemini, great little car.
Another option I have thought about is a diesel out of a 504 Peugeot. A friend had one for about 15 years, very economical, and remember 504's were not a light weight car. I think they were a Perkins.
Pete.

Isuzu do a range of industrial direct injection diesels around 2.2-2.4 litres. 4LE1 and others used exclusively in reefer refrigeration units. These would be a good size but the governors may not be suited to automotive running.

They did an automotive 1.7 diesel used by Honda and Opel etc in Europe. This would be your best bet. But I don't know if any of them are mechanical injection.
4EE1 appears to be IDI, 4EE2 direct injection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kauraso9y34
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_L_engine"]Circle L engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

G'day Digger

You could always use a 200TDI without the turbo,as they are shorter in the nose/timing cover,also the Exhaust manifold for the Defender is a different design,(sits higher) to that of the Disco and apparently will fit into Series vehicles easier,is you Series 1 a 86 or 88 as the 88 is 2 inches longer forward of the firewall than the 86 (preparing for the 2.0/2.25 Diesel) in the Series 2's.

cheers

Great little engine, that Gemini diesel. Never knew of one that wore out or one that didn't outlast the rest of the car. Incredibly economical too. A mate had one new for his daily commuter, Beaudesert to Wacol. He reckoned 50 mpg was normal.

HJ was fitted with Isuzu diesel with trimatic transmission.
not very big motor. LPG XD put end to these.
My 1981 rodeo had the indestructible throttle plate controlled pushrod C190 but I think the HJ was bigger engine. The rodeo[KBD26] would do easy 135K on level ground but economy was not a strong point.


Commodore had diesel engines fitted aledged it was for engineering for export markets. I was in a mechanical workshop that had a Victorian regoed VB SLE with a GM fitted [Shuttle van] diesel. The owner thought it was just noisey because the rear muffler fell off.


Japanese Gemini came with 2.2 turbo automatic option-shame we got the under 1800 version.


I did Nissan CD20 conversion for pintara wagon, the only benefit was diesel fuel and no LPG cyl in the back. fuel economy was no better that a 1600 petrol version.


The Victorian wrecker I purchased parts from had standing orders for CA18/20 LPG engines for VL and VN VG20 LPG for VN and RD28 for any station wagons
The factories though they had no markets here.

Originally Posted by V8Ian

I recall a magazine (Wheels?) article from the era. Sydney taxis were commonly fitted with 253 or 308 V8s. A mechanic who maintained six or eight cabs converted them to the four cylinder Isuzu of which you speak, Digger. The conversions were then tuned to give comparable performance with a V8. For reliability, all of the testing was done on the workshop HJ ute before fitting into the taxis. The article went on to say that previously there was always a reconditioned V8 ready to fit, after the conversion the Isuzus were removed from retiring cars to be fitted to new ones. They must be robust little engines.

Ian, I was the GM-H service rep to the Sydney taxi industry for a while. The only cabs I ever saw with a V8 belonged to single vehicle owner-drivers. Fleet cabs were almost always minimum spec, small engine, three on the tree for cheap easy repair, drum brakes as they are cheaper to maintain than discs, and so on. I learnt early that taxi owners are about the meanest creatures God ever made. Diesels were almost non-existent except for a few Perkins conversions which were swapped from cab to cab as the original engines wore out. Some of these dated back to the FE. Cars were cheap ($3500) and fuel was 45c per gallon. Barely economical to spend almost the price of a car fitting a diesel engine when most owners were buying new and replacing at 2-3 years and 200,000 - 300,000 miles. Red engines usually lasted the life of the cab. Most repairs/replacements were driveline and brakes as one would expect from stop-start city use.

My old TEC teacher had an LH Torana ex cab,he drove up from the 'gong everyday,it had almost 1.5 million K's on it,the most K's of any car I've ever seen,the second highest was a 2.6ltr series 111 with 1.2million. Pat