Vintage diesel swaps-do any survive?

Don't laugh, but the British Army has been testing the current version. They have to find a diesel motorcycle because the Navy, in particular the US Navy, won't transport petrol in any of their ships in future. So they have to find something new, soonest, or they won't be able to get the motorcycles to where they're needed.

Whatever happened to the Gardners' Rollers and the Aston? They were tax writeoffs, of course, but what a demonstrator!

Could even be the same engine fitted to the bike.

Always thought VW missed a trick - there was the Golf, then a fancy version called the Driver, then a Diesel - why didn't they call it the Putter?

Geoff MacK

Except that the 2286cc landrover engine was designed from the outset as a diesel, to replace the early 2.0 diesel, the difference between the diesel and petrol versions being the crank, pistons, camshaft and head. I believe the petrol variant did actually make it into production first, replacing the old I.O.E. engine, but the block design was as a diesel (hence the bloomin' weight!) from the outset. Not sure about the cranks breaking if ground (5-bearing version can be ground 20 thou no probs at all), but I've seen a lot of nasty so-called rebuilds done on these engines using petrol cranks in diesel engines and that just doesn't work, usually results in a broken crank at a relatively low mileage. Big hint is in the crank surface, the petrol one is a plain cast crank with a big letter "P" cast into it, the diesel crank is forged. Badger.

People have been taken out and shot for a pun far worse than this.

Has anyone figured out how to put a Mercedes five cylinder in a 4WD vehicle where the sump conflicts with the front axle?

Accessory Section 8 ( snipped-for-privacy@cbgb.net) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Have a look at a Pping-Ppong Messy.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Badger" saying something like:

Ah; that explains the misconception I had about the diesel being an adaptation of the petrol, then.

Must have been in reference to the earlier 3-bearing cranks I heard that.

Aye; trouble is they've been around so long you just wouldn't know what's inside one by the time it's passed through umpteen owners' hands.

I think it was George Bishop who first suggested it, back when CAR was a magazine worth reading.