My family is relocating east (Ithaca NY) and this has forced me to scrutinize and evaluate whether or not the 80 stays with us. I've already posted it for sale but have actively been pursuing what options are out there to "green" these boats up a little. I'll start out there, that the primary focus and concern for us is not sinking any more time, energy or $$$ into the low mpg game. My goal is ~25 mpg diesel that can go bio-diesel and have the possiblity to go WVO/SVO.
I posted my options above so please weigh in with anything enlightening (or not). These are pretty much the only options right now - only them. At least I have options so I'm grateful for that.
If it sold today my plan is to look into something newer that 2005 so I'd get the updated features lacking in the 80 like side-impact air bags. I've even considered the 4-door Jeep Wrangler if it does indeed come out in a diesel.
The 1HD-FT from Toyota is available as a half-cut and is mated to a H155 or H151 or ??? manual 5-speed and retains the viscous coupled full-time 4wd transfer case. This costs more than the entire Cummins swap, parts will be harder to source and more expensive. It will be a Toyota, fit perfectly and will have a high neat-o factor. The swap will be hugely time consuming, especially to retro-fit the clutch assembly.
The Cummins 4BTA conversion would be Proffitt's and is pretty well documented. The Cummins seems to be a really good match and parts, service, etc would be common-place. It has also already been proven to be a great performer for bio-diesel and SVO/WVO. This option also has some interesting pros/cons depending on what your position is. The 4BTA is not currently able to be mated to the A343 tranny in the later 80's so a heavy duty 4-speed 700R4 w/ torque converter lockup is used and mated to a 60-series split transfer case (w/front lockout hubs added) for true part time 2wd/4wd. This would likely increase daily mpg and seems to open the door for dual cases/crawler gears at some point if desired.
And lastly, if the diesel conversion is the way to go, what would be a conservative estimate of what I could hopefully recover $$$ by selling the petrol 1FZ-FE, A343 tranny and xfer case and the Safari turbo setup? Keeping the 80 and doing a swap would hinge to a great extent on this number. If all of that is worth only $2K this likely all academic...
Thanks again for any input.
I posted my options above so please weigh in with anything enlightening (or not). These are pretty much the only options right now - only them. At least I have options so I'm grateful for that.
If it sold today my plan is to look into something newer that 2005 so I'd get the updated features lacking in the 80 like side-impact air bags. I've even considered the 4-door Jeep Wrangler if it does indeed come out in a diesel.
The 1HD-FT from Toyota is available as a half-cut and is mated to a H155 or H151 or ??? manual 5-speed and retains the viscous coupled full-time 4wd transfer case. This costs more than the entire Cummins swap, parts will be harder to source and more expensive. It will be a Toyota, fit perfectly and will have a high neat-o factor. The swap will be hugely time consuming, especially to retro-fit the clutch assembly.
The Cummins 4BTA conversion would be Proffitt's and is pretty well documented. The Cummins seems to be a really good match and parts, service, etc would be common-place. It has also already been proven to be a great performer for bio-diesel and SVO/WVO. This option also has some interesting pros/cons depending on what your position is. The 4BTA is not currently able to be mated to the A343 tranny in the later 80's so a heavy duty 4-speed 700R4 w/ torque converter lockup is used and mated to a 60-series split transfer case (w/front lockout hubs added) for true part time 2wd/4wd. This would likely increase daily mpg and seems to open the door for dual cases/crawler gears at some point if desired.
And lastly, if the diesel conversion is the way to go, what would be a conservative estimate of what I could hopefully recover $$$ by selling the petrol 1FZ-FE, A343 tranny and xfer case and the Safari turbo setup? Keeping the 80 and doing a swap would hinge to a great extent on this number. If all of that is worth only $2K this likely all academic...
Thanks again for any input.