So yesterday we reran McTaggart’s wild story about the Durango that someone had swapped a slant six engine into. That thing was weird enough but it looks like a top fuel car when compared to this 1971 Dodge truck that we found for sale on eBay. Why? Well when this truck was “restored” in 1999, the guy selling it claims that the big block engine (which he says was a 440 and it could have been but these were factory offered with engines up to 383ci) was removed and replaced with…a four cylinder Perkins turbo diesel engine. WHAT THE WHAT?
There are about a million versions of the Perkins four banger turbo diesel and they were found in boats, all kinds of equipment, and lots of industrial applications. Perkins diesels have also been offered in Jeeps and Nissan trucks and amazingly in Chrysler cars. Now most of those Chryslers that were powered by Perkins engines were assembled in European plants and did not come over the pond but it did happen. If we’re taking a shot in the dark at the model number and output the round number we’d use on horsepower would be 100-110 at the high level and somewhere around 80 at the low end. The transmission is the four speed that the truck originally came with.
There’s an element of this that is cool. That would be the fact that someone looked at the stuff they had and made this swap happen. There’s also an element that hurts our feels that a big block was jettisoned for a little pluggy diesel that makes less horsepower than a 1980s Civic. Thoughts? Opinions? Unbridled rage?
HERES’ THE WORDY TEXT OF THE CL AD IN CASE SOMEONE SCARFS UP THIS DIESEL FREAK –
Its a 71 short bed has a perkins turbo diesel, 4- speed. Was restored in 99 had a 440. Needs the new gas tank hooked up. Has new seat
Trade for 4×4 suv or 4×4 ext cab truck or nice atv or rat or hot rod. No junk show contact info this is not a show truck so do not text thinking u r getting a $20k truck for nothing. Needs some work but good truck
Swaps like that were not too uncommon and led to the 4.0 Mitsubishi diesel engine installed in ’78 Dodge trucks and ultimately the introduction of the Cummins diesel engine in ’89.
Someone’s been reading too much Diesel Power Magazine.
I just like the line: “do not text thinking u r getting a $20k truck for nothing.” Where the F does this guy live? With that excange rate I guss my 04 Cummins should be at least a 60k truck and my Matador should be worth atleast 15k. I think Craigslist should instal an alarm that blares: “Outragous Price!” every time someone post something stupid. That being said there probably is a very small market for a full size truck that can barely haul it’s own weight and couldn’t out tow an ox cart.
I think what he was trying to say was, this isn’t a 20k truck so don’t come pick it apart because it does need work.
Read much? He said it’s NOT a 20k truck.
The poster’s grammar makes my head hurt, I’ll be the first one to admit that I’m a bit of a grammar nazi. The effort in learning and executing language skills reflects in the effort and execution of other projects in my opinion. Looking at some of the wiring and the air filter used on this engine, I feel justified.
Still a cool idea, maybe it can be rescued.
uh… semi colon rather than a comma in your first line there, grammar nazi….just sayin’..
“Restored” in 1999?
.WASTED.EFFORT.
If the price were reasonable, I’d buy it.
Drop the Perkins into a little D50 and make the full-sized pickup into Roadkill’s Muscle Truck’s arch nemesis.
No foul here, if the truck’s not rusty, what can’t be changed? It looks to be fairly straight. The Perkins took a helluva lot more eyeball engineering than an SBC or an LS.