Farm truck engine convert question

Can this truck be converted to a manual transmission and 6.9 diesel reasonably?

What are the hidden expenses?

Thanks -

A friend of mine bought a recovered stolen Ford pickup some years ago. It had been a diesel, but the engine and transmission had been stolen. The chassis only had about 30K on it and it was in almost perfect shape, except for the missing engine and transmission. After pricing replacement diesels (probably the reason the pickup had been stolen to begin with), he converted it to a carbuerated 460 and C-6. He did a real nice job, and the pickup worked just great. Until he had to have emission inspection done on it....there was no way it could pass with the earlier engine and of course could not pass as a diesel. He went round and round with the licensing people, but they would not give him an exemption. He ended up selling this very nice pickup to a guy from Idaho, where they didn't have inspections, for about half what it should have sold for.

The electrical systems of those trucks is fairly complex, with different wiring systems depending on which engine the pickup was made for. If I was going to try to do it, I would try to find a similar truck with a bad body, but good drivetrain, like maybe a rollover, and plan on transferring a bunch of stuff from the parts truck.

It's sure not as easy as it was in the old days. My friends and I put a number of different engines in cars and trucks and no one really cared. They might now. Good luck!

I had a 93 Ford with a 7.3 & factory turbo & a 5-speed. They have a generic problem with dual-mass flywheels coming apart, plus you can't resurface one if its worn. Mine was starting to chatter when I sold it. Several places sell replacement single-mass flywheels. Not as much power as the new-to-me Powerstoke I replaced it with, but a good truck & got about the same mileage as my 99. Handled our travel trailer just fine, although it was pretty slow going up a 6 or 7% grade at 10,000 ft...It had way too much split between 2nd and 3rd. Really needed another gear in between.

Pre-powerstroke Ford (International) diesels used a mechanical injection pump. In addition to changing from indirect to direct injection, the powerstokes are an electronically controlled engine using electrically actuated, hydraulically powered injectors.

Wiring for a pre-powerstroke diesel is about as simple as you can get. Off the top of my head there were only a few connections to the engine; a cutoff selenoid on the injection pump, a timing selenoid on the pump operated by a temperature switch, the glow plug feed & control wires, plus the usual guage connections.

I'm not sure what other problems you may run into. A diesel weighs considerably more than a gas engine, but I'm not sure how much difference there may be in the front suspensions.

Personally, I think it would be a fun project if it wasn't something I absolutely had to get done right away. Good luck,

Keith

Just a few thoughts, from someone that doesn't know a lot about it.