Mer-Chevy Project: Biofuel 40mpg Pickup

[Ryland]

what are the power curves of your two engines? might want to keep your current tranny if possible, you might also check out kits for addapting other engines in to S-10 trucks, it's an Issusu truck (right?) so you might want to see if they did make a diesel...

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by my first gmc

Like this?

Eggasctly.

Originally Posted by bennelson

Of course it is NOT going to match the engine mounts or the transmission. Making all that work is going to be the fun part.

Just grab a manual trans from a 65 or earlier (IIRC) Mercedes diesel so that way you only have to fab a crossmember for the trans and then use an adapter/lengthen or shorten the driveaxle. The motor mounts are in the same rough locations IIRC so that shouldn't been too bad. That said, like Ryland mentioned, it'd probably be easier to grab a diesel out of a 85 or earlier S10. Given GMs track record it'd almost certainly be bolt and go.

[my first gmc]

Originally Posted by bennelson

Of course it is NOT going to match the engine mounts or the transmission. Making all that work is going to be the fun part. (I also have no idea how to make the speedometer work right!)

Engine mounts should be pretty easy to fab up. And trans cross members are easy as pie to make. Have you looked at after market gauges, that would be way easier than trying to get the stock gauges to work properly.

[metroschultz]

Take the clock (the big round face part of the speedometer) and cable from the Merc and graft it into the S10 cluster.
!?Poof?!
Instant speedo
The tires should come out to approximately the same diameter.

OR

Put it all together grafting the Merc trans cable to the S10 clock and get your local speed shop to re-calibrate the speedo to match the speed.

[MetroMPG]

15th post in another epic thread!

I vote for the Merc hubcaps also. And "S-Class".

[Big Dave]

I like the project idea. A Benz four cylinder diesel and four speed dropped into a S-10. The engine is legendary for its durability and being straight mechanical, it requires no computer brain surgery.

I myself like the funky panache of the five-cylinder 617.952 (you have to learn Mercedesspeak) engine at an idle, but at 125 HP, it is probably too powerful for a fangs-out MPG project.

There are all sorts of mod kits for S-10s. I’d start with a practical 3”/5” lowering (slam in sport truck parlance) kit. This is low enough to get you a noticeable improvement in MPG but will not high center you on every dead dog on the road.

Air dams and “ground effects” (side skirts) kits galore are available off the shelf.

One thing to consider. The drive shaft will have to be specially made. Benz drive shafts use a DIN flex plate (three big rubber bushings) each end at each end where the GM axle uses a SAE U-Joint. The DIN joint is a bit touchy about alignment where the SAE is usually A-OK if the alignment mismatch does not exceed five degrees.

In any project the fewer “wheels” you have to re-invent, the better the project. The wealth of off-the –shelf stuff available for the S-10 makes it a favorite among project builders.

Don’t forget a tonneau or fastback fairing. Very effective in improving MPG.

[my first gmc]

S-10's sit pretty level, so if you lower the back more than the front, the back will be lower than the front and might cause adverse aero affects underneath. I have a friend who did a 3/3 and it rode really good, and my other friend did the 6/6, riding in that thing was sick.

[Christ]

Ben - check the .pdf here:
ftp://www.rustrepair.com:24/s10.82.pdf

They have 1/4 and rockers for your truck, and if you go here:
Auto Body Parts, Body Panel, Quarter Panels, Rocker, Door Skins, Floor Pans
They have instructions for both welding and glue-on panels.

[my first gmc]

Ben, if you can, get good quality panels. Cheap Chinese ones are out of shape most of the time and are super thin so they dent really easy.

[bennelson]

After messing around with that Mercedes hub cap, I realized how the crummy plastic rim covers I have would be a great start for some aero hub caps!

The master plan on the entire project includes:
Diesel engine swap (and running on Bio-diesel)
Aero-hubcaps
Aero-Cap (possibly hinged, more than likely to be fiberglass)
Lowering the vehicle? (not sure about that one. I lowered the back 3 inches with blocks a while back, but then I couldn't load up my electric motorcycle anymore, the bed hit the bump stops. Maybe airbags?)
Different differential gears (I don't know too much about this, but I think with the extra diesel torque, I could go to a little higher gear in back.

I have a Mercedes 240D sitting in my driveway right now, to use whatever parts off of it I need. The 4 cylinder diesel is almost the exact same size as the S10s 2.2l engine. Unfortunately, only the automatic transmission was available in the US for the 240D.

Unless I can dig up a 240D MANUAL transmission (and customize the driveshaft) the current plan it to pull the diesel engine and figure out what adapter plate would be needed to mate it to the truck's transmission.


I did do a search for the diesel S10s a while back. They were made for about 2 years, and basically DON'T exist anymore.
That's sort of the the starting point as to why I am doing this project. There ARE NO decent (not HUGE) diesel pickup trucks in this country! The old Mercedes diesel engines have a great track record - so, put the two together!