In rec.aviation.owning David Lesher wrote:

Well, the Rabbit I had was built with exactly the same block, pistons,
crank, etc, as the gas version. The basicly just slapped a shallower
head on the thing to increase the compression ratio.

I could have sworn the Rabbit Diesel had a way different engine,
but I could be wrong.


The debacle I'm talking about was Chevey's (?) attempt to power pickups
with a gas engine converted to diesel by basically the same method.

Not pickups AFAIK; station wagons and maybe sedans. This was Roger
Smith at his finest.

A friend bought one with a dead@55000 mile engine. It was an stock
gas block; no where NEAR beefy enough. The blowby was so bad, the
engine soiled itself at every seal; he'd get 250 miles to the quart;
all leakage. At least it didn't rust!

It had a one-of-kind starter and flywheel. The distributor was
replaced with a vacuum pump to drive the HVAC door flaps. It had
dual batteries, designed wrong. The brakes were run off the PS pump,
so when the engine stalled, stop NOW.

He put in a gas 350 and drove it for 10 years more.

--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

There were pickups.

A friend bought one new and had the engine blow at about 40k miles.

Thanks to California smog laws, he found his choices were replace it
with another new diesel (big bucks) or get an old gas engine and convert
it to propane and try to recover some of the investment. This was way
before 50k warranties.

--
Jim Pennino

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