2.3 diesel info? swap into 87 with a 2.8?

David85 said:

I had a complete donor truck to start with.

What we did with ours was swap the bell housing over from the diesel to the gasser tranny. If both trucks are the same year it *should* work no problem. The 1985 diesel donor truck had a toyo kogyo 5 speed transmission and the late 1987 gasser had the mitsubishi 5 speed.

Ideally you should use the toyo transmission if you can because it has better and closer gear spread. The 2.3 turbo diesel is peppy, but it has a hard time spreading the gap between gears with the mitsu transmission in our diesel swap. Not a deal breaker, but it can take some more planning to get the most out of it when driving.

The diesel donor was 2wd and our truck was 4wd, so keeping the diesel transmission was not an option. The only snag we had with the bell housing swap was the newer style gasser tansmission had a bolt on slave cylinder and the older one was held in by the bell housing (I think the change over year was 1986). We had to modify the face plate of the newer transmission to accomodate the slave cylinder of the older one. Still working a few years later.

A little late, but hope it helps.

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David85 said:

That was the engine my sister's ranger originally had. I would argue its the best of all the ranger gas engines in the 1st generation. Ran well when we pulled it but all the EFI electrical was starting to develop gremlins and sis got bit by the diesel bug after driving my 86 F250 one day.

We found a diesel ranger donor and the rest is history.

But the 2.9s can often rack up crazy high miles before they die.

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