Off-Highway Diesels Power Pickups

Off-Highway Diesels Power Pickups REPOWERED EQUIPMENT Repowered Equipment 33-4-19 Simon Vanderkooy had a couple good reasons the first time he repowered his pickup truck with an off-highway diesel engine. He had four teenagers he didn't want racing his V8-equipped truck, and he wanted better mileage. The first converted truck worked out so well that he just kept using non-highway diesels the rest of his life. "Dad liked getting 30 miles per gallon with a full size truck, even if it did take about 30 seconds to go from zero to 60," recalls Brian Vanderkooy. "His first repower was a 1980 GMC Jimmy 2-wheel drive. He used an Isuzu diesel from a Union Pacific refrigerated car." The engine worked so well that by 2000, when the Jimmy wore out, the elder Vanderkooy kept the engine and installed it in a 1989 F250 with 4-WD. Meanwhile, he had picked up a Ford diesel from a 1968 New Holland swather, which he installed in a 1974 F250. A few years later, he moved it to a 1988 F250. Before he died, he gave each of the diesel repowers to interested sons. Brian got the Ford/Ford and an older son, Ralph, received the Isuzu/Ford. "Swapping the engines was never much of a problem," says Brian. "He took out the motor mounts and had pieces of angle iron welded to them and drilled with holes to match the new engines. A friend, who was a machinist, made new bell housings to match the new engines and the old transmissions." The only other big changes were to add vacuum pumps and to modify coolant hoses to match the diesels. Vanderkooy also altered the gearing. "First gear is a creeper you can pull a mobile home with," says Brian. "Third gear tops out at 35, and you can get up to 76 mph going down hill in fourth." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Brian Vanderkooy, 7442 8th St., Turner, Ore. 97392 (ph 503 851-7910; famvk@wbcable.net).

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