Diesel TJ?

I wish I had seen it myself... I was told at a recent 4x4 show here there was a TJ with a cummins in it. Can't remember the size. To make it fit he had to stretch the frame a foot and heavily modify the hood/front end. I'll ask around for some photos and see if anyone knows who it was.

"J.Valkyrie" wrote in message news:Gvqee.5117$ snipped-for-privacy@twister.southeast.rr.com...

I ran into a guy near Alpine, Texas who had a 2002 Wrangler with a Volvo diesel. Looked like a neat installation, but I suspect the heavier engine added a few pounds to the front axle load.

I've been thinking about it myself. Then again, I may just wait and see what the next generation "TJ" looks like and what the engine options will be.

El Alumbrado "Civis Texanus Sum"

_Which_ Volvo Diesel? How many cylinders??

I'm not a Volvo expert, but it was a 4-cylinder that said "VOLVO" on the valve cover. The fellow it said it was a 4.8L and put out about 160hp. He said he bought it new from an industrial equipment dealer and fabricated his own adapters. He was just leaving a fuel stop as I was pulling in, so we didn't talk very long. His TJ also looked like it stood quite a bit higher than my stock 4-cylinder, so presumably he had done some suspension work to carry the extra weight of the heavier engine.

160hp. 4.8L is almost 290 CID, which is a big four cylinder. It would be interesting to find the weight and operating RPM of the engine, but "high" and "low" respectively seem inevitable.

I suspect that in the US the best choice is the Mercedes five cylinder, because they are plentiful in excellent condition in wrecking yards. Volvo only sold one car in the US with a diesel: it was an outsourced engine and ironically troublesome. In general, Volvo mechanicals are very reliable, but that one wasn't.

A 6-71 is something like a two thousand pound engine, I would guess a

4-71 would be twelve to fourteen hundred pounds at the least, and as tall as the engine in a tractor trailer (it was). If I remember right they were two cycle engines, which meant that they were the equivalent of double their displacement,at least in GM sales literature, and the weight was up there. So I doubt this Volvo was anything like this big-unless he had a one-foor body lift to clear it.

I wonder if it's even legal to put one in a truck today-I'd guess not, they were pretty smoky and drooled like a bulldog too. ("Plenumstration", they called it....)

No filter could handle what the old two cycle Detroits put out. I remember the garbage trucks in Denver had them, at 5000 feet, the whole truck top would be covered with an inch of soot. It was really bad when you got behind some of the school buses, which had the four cycle, mechanical V8 Detroit, which smoked less, but the tailpipe was at door level to cars. They would pull off and if you were in the right lane and they were in the left and you had your window open you were in trouble.

Y'all got me curious, so I did a little Googling:

The only 4.8L that puts out 160HP I can find is the TAD520VE. This is a stationary/off-road engine. Dry weight is 430kg, or about 950 pounds. That seems pretty hefty for the front of a Wrangler. Peak HP is 160 at

2300 rpm, peak torque is 577 at 1400 rpm.

Didn't I read something a while back about a shop in California that was installing Isuzu diesels in Jeeps? Anybody remember who they were?

Ahh, yes. Kalifornia. It must have been a beautiful place 50 or 60 years ago before everybody decided it was a beautiful place and moved there.

I was in LA three weeks ago. My host picked me up at LAX in a diesel VW Jetta. In fact I think SoCal has a higher percentage of diesel cars than any other area in the U.S., because you don't have to plug them in. I noticed a lot of diesel Benzes, old and new. So someone isn't enforcing that law if it does exist.