The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Medium Bolt w/ a diesel motor..

I met a guy who stuffed a new Detroit Diesel 453 motor in a 1 ton 1954 GMC 1 ton truck.

Is this madness, or genius?

a little of both I think!

hey there Fumblin thinking of "Bio-diesel"?

I hear that Bio-diesel can be made for about .70
cents a gallon!

Cliff59

A 4-53 if not so big, it will fit in just about any truck, Like This One, A 1 ton ford Chassis with a 1960 Pete Cab . See more photos HERE & HERE & Here Too .

Now if you thiong that is strange, have look at This Old GMC with a newer GMC Toro-Flow Diesel transplanted into it. OK On More Pic of the truck.

I am about to drop a cummins 4bt in my 53 1 ton. I chose it cause the power band is a little wider than the 4-53. In stock form 120 hp at 2500 rpm and 327 ft-lbs at 1700 rpm. You can pump them up if you are so inclined. If it goes as expected, the 39 1.5 ton won't be too far behind.

Went to moultrie with a guy in a 2002 dodge dually with a cummins and a 5 speed hauling a goose neck with a nova and a 52 sport coupe. Averaged 15 mpg at 70 mph. Unladen he gets 21 mpg!

the 6 cylinder cummins is every bit of 39 inches long, maybe a gmc could swallow it, but not my chevys without some hacking.

He's got it for sale.. altho he's not sure how much.. it was originally a 1 ton truck with a factory pickup bed on it, but he slapped a flatbed on it, and turned the bed into a trailer.

I was kinda thinking about a vehicle sutible for pulling a gooseneck trailer.. I don't really know much about diesel engines, especially not the bigger ones.. but dude assures me that this rig will pull anything I want.

He said the motor was 'new' when he put it in.. and that it had an 'air starter'.. the body of the truck is typical Western Nebraska high plains condition, no rot, orignal paint.. little surface rust here and there.. the occasional dent here and there.. but generally in good shape.

When he asked me what I thought it was worth, I told him typically, I wouldn't expect a stock truck in that condition so sell for more than $1,000 on eBay, and that it would probably be worth more to folks with the original pickup bed on it.

He started going on about how expensive those motors are.. I looked 'em up on eBay and it looks like they sell rebuilt motors with warranty for $2500 Buy It Now and I haven't seen many takers in the last 30 days.

But this is a guy who thinks the rebuilt to stock 393 Hemi in his '56 Plymouth is worth $13,000.. I dunno about that.. looks like you can buy complete running cars off eBay with that engine in it for about $2000.. I can't imagine it would cost another $10,000 to rebuild that motor! Hell, i'll bet you could get it built to the hilt, blueprinted and balanced for $5,000!

But this is also the guy who told me his mid 90's GMC topkick with the Cat diesel and 19 foot aluminum roll back was worth $20,000.. seems like he's about $5,000 to $7,000 overpriced on that, too.

i have seen a cummins in a newer chevy suburban. it looked really good and the guy claimed to get 20+ mpg on the freeway. a lot of off-roaders have made the cummins swap into many different vehicles, they are prized for their tourque and buildability. I wouls imagine that they would be just as valuable in an old truck too, if you spent much tie trailering or working your truck it would be a great swap.

I haven't found a rebuilt 4-53 that cheap. ARSCO has em on ebay for $3500 with a $1000 core. You can get a used one from Adelmans for $2500 and can probably get the brackets and accessories for that price if you are real nice.

I wouldn't put an agricultural 4-53 where a truck engine needs to go.

Don't forget rebuilt units are usually just long blocks, so you'll need an air pump, alternator, brackets, water pump, intake, exhaust, turbo if its a T. Oh and then you need the bellhousing or adapter and the flywheel or flexplate to hook it up to your gm transmission.

Diesel swaps are not cheap. If you can live with a 3-53, Adelmans will sell you an aluminum blocked 3-53 with all electrical, bellhousing and SM-465 trans for $1850 out of a military DUKW. I just don't think the 85hp and narrow power band will work for our trucks. Maybe with a gear splitter or gear vendors unit, but that's a lot of cash.

Grigg probably won't be able to comment until the weekend, but he's dropping a 4-53T with a roadranger trans in his truck.

Fumblin,

I guess the value of an item depends on which side of the negotiating table you are sitting on.

In this same vein, did the $300.00 dollar Diamond-T every materialize.

Stuart

I didnt get around to going over there last weekend, since I was more interested in being available to look at a building a guy has for sale.

And please remember I never said the truck was even for sale.. just that it was sitting, didn't appear to have been messed with in decades, and the most i'd offer for it would be $300.. if I caught the guy home, he was willing to sell, and wanted more than $300 i'd pass on the information to anyone intrested.

Next time I drive by the scrap guys place, i'll try and remember to bring the camera so I can snap a picture of the rust free AD panels and COE's that got flattened for scrap. Farmers out here don't usually value 40 and 50 year old trucks all that much... about $15 a ton.

The guy that has this GMC with the diesel in it is a life long tow truck man and auto mechanic, in the process of trying to sell off his buisness.. a dealer, or somebody in the biz is always going to want more for something than a guy who just happens to have one in his back yard collecting junk and dust.

As far as diesel swaps go for our trucks.
The Cummins 4 cylinder is probably the most practical.

However, I am doing a 4-53T with 10 speed Roadranger, and I thought it would be different.... Sounds like someone beat me to it.
But that won't stop me from finishin mine the way I want to.

I am getting colser to having a running truck without a cab. I will go find some parts tomorrow, or is that today now? And in a few weeks I will have most everything I need to stick it all together, atleast the mechanical parts. The pretty parts will take some time yet.
Grigg

I have a 64 ford pickup that had a 4 cylinder Perkins diesel in it. The installation was sanitary but it needed motor mount cushions that could absorb much more vibration, as it went through it's rpm range it had some severe harmonic vibration problems that shook the truck so much you couldn't see anything in the rear view mirror. Kept the truck and traded the diesel to a salvage yard to use in their forklift.