What is the smallest Diesel...

[SoobieOut]

Stumbled on this site that sells small diesels engines.

Kubota Engines for Sale on DieselEngineTrader

[diesel_john]

do a search on Utility Vehicles for some good ideas there at least a half dozen with diesels. JD, Kubota, Cub Cadet, Bobcat, Polaris, Mule... some are almost as big as the old willys jeep we use to plow with.

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by kevins

Interesting. Now to find out if we have any diesel smart cars here in the U.S., in salvage condition... I have found dozens of gas smarts, but not one diesel yet. Does anyone know if they import the diesels here? If so, anyone have a source for a wrecked one, or know where to source just the engine and any bits needed to make it run.

Diesel Smarts weren't sold in the US, but there are a few in Canada. I believe there was someone here at EcoModder with one, you'd have to search around.

You can also import one from Europe. Here the 0.8 CDI engine from a wrecked Smart ForTwo can be found for $400-$700, probably cheaper if you look in Western Europe (France, Germany, UK had a lot of them).

[skyl4rk]

There are many small marine diesels, Yanmar, Beta among others.

[Christ]

Piwoslaw, if it weren't for very high taxes and shipping costs, I'd probably buy a few of them to sell here in the states... I recently sold a3 cylinder kubota diesel engine for 1200, despite not being able to prove it ran. Farmers here will pay.lol.

[d0sitmatr]

Originally Posted by Rick323

Kubota V2203 -> Ranger

thanks for that link
reading through it gave me some ideas for the Xterra, if I plan on keeping it.
I think if i can pick up a nissan diesel engine it might just be worth it to keep the tera.
if I could push 35mpg in it, it would be worth it to me for sure, but I dont know if that is even possible.
there is a guy on the xterra forums Im a member of who has done a conversion and he is only getting 25mpg, but then again, his is built for offroad, so Im sure he is running a lift and short gears, so maybe it would be possible....

[Christ]

Put a highway gear in it and use the snot out of it.

[d0sitmatr]

Originally Posted by Christ

Put a highway gear in it and use the snot out of it.

if directed at me, the tera has the stock highway gears, but if I had to change trans then Id def look into the tallest gears I could use.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by euromodder

Royal Enfield Bullet diesel

I think the engine was a "Robin" - no idea where it came from though. Diesel Car ran one for a while - mega MPG.

[nimblemotors]

I'd suggest an electric drivetrain, no exhaust, no pollution, use your biodiesel to generate electricity, along with solar panels (cheap thermo ones, not silicon) if you have acres of land available.

There are many small diesel engines used for tractors, generators, etc.
look at surpluscenter.com for a few small ones.

Originally Posted by kevins

I think you are definitely right as far as weight and cost when compared to the metro drivetrain. A metro would be dirt cheap, since you can find a complete running car for $350-1200, but there are several reasons for wanting to go with a diesel.

One is due to the fact that we drive a chevy diesel 2500HD crew cab truck, so we tend to keep a small amount of diesel on hand at home and more importantly we usually bring a supply with us to our acreage in the White Mountains of AZ, where the cart will get a LOT of use. We have 65 acres, surrounded by a couple thousand acres of BLM and State land, plus many more thousands of acres of roads and washes to explore. We also use a community well right now, until we can get our own well drilled, so that is about 6 miles one-way to haul water, so rather than only one person pulling a trailer behind a quad, or loading up in the truck we can use the golf cart. The nearest store is also some miles away, and I hate driving the big truck to the store. I tend to ride a quad, which means I have to go alone. That also limits what I can carry back to the property with me. The cart will allow me to carry people (if desired), plus carry a fair amount of goodies with me from the store. It will probably have limited use here in the city though, but who knows it may turn out to be my primary mode of transport in the end.

When a small group of us just want to take a cruise around the mountain property we sit or stand on a trailer, towed behind a quad, and to be honest that isn't the most convenient, comfortable, or safe method of travel, especially for the smaller children (5-11), plus the passengers on the trailer get exhaust blown in their faces.

Another reason is for the additional torque provided by the diesel, since I would like to convert to 4 wheel drive, and have enough power to get through sand, mud, water crossings, hills, etc.. I think the Metro engine will have a bit harder time with that, and be more work to convert.

The biggest reason is probably WVO, which I should have mentioned in my OP. I would really like to be able to run WVO at some point, to save a bundle of money. I have friends that run pumping services, and service restaurants to remove their waste veggie oil, and they would be happy to give it to me rather than having more work (and $) to dispose of it. I will then process it here, and run it in my other projects. I'm converting our generators over to diesel for that very purpose. I'm hoping to have practically free fuel when all is said and done.

The engine does not necessarily have to be TDi, non turbo is fine.

Thank You for the input. I appreciate it.