Metro,
I've been following JB3's diesel swap over on Astrosafari dot com. It's been a long haul, but he's about got the bugs worked out, looks like he's going to put some shorter gears in it.
The wife has her Wrangler, but this current job has me hopping and I never know what tool's I'll need from one day or hour to the next, so I've pretty much got them all with me.
Cripple,
The XR3 uses a flipped VW type 1 transaxle, which sets the motor height. I had the notion of lowering the motor by connecting them via a gear drive and having the custom made tranz-dapt plate double as a oil chamber. I think with the low torque/HP it's doable, but gear drives are noisy.
My 1st thought was to use a transverse motor, but it would sit even higher. The Geo G10 1L and Kabota D902 1L are less then an inch difference in exterior dimensions 22hx16wx20d
You can kinda make out the motor/tranz alignment here, this builder has also moved the radiator from the rear compartment to the motor bay, as I plan to do. He's running the 34 hp Vanguard turbo diesel.
and just to show what one can do with the nose...
Reilly as done a good job with weight distribution at 70/30 even if you build as an ICE only, you balance it by switching from a 3 gallon tank to 9 gal. The tank is mounted in the tunnel frame so the fuel level never sets you off balance.