affordable, small, old, high mpg, servisable, repairable, diesel cars?

[blind ear]

Where might I find info on old, small, diesel cars that are still servisable and repairable? 4WD or AWD would be better. Quality like BMW or Mercedes (suggestons) but old enough to be easily affordable. (less than $10,000).
Thanks, ear

[charles p]

Take a trip to Europe and rent a different one each day, then purchase the one you like.  Don't know about the AWD over there.
Also don't know about bringing a Diesel back to the states.  Would have to meet emission standards.  The SmartCar in Europe has a three cylinder Diesel engines and some others do also.
An old Mercedes 180D also comes to mind.  Again, no AWD.  Toyoto and Landcruiser made Diesel SUVs years ago.
Hope you are a good mechanic.

[hillbill]

as far as 4wd or awd ive never seen one in the US.im sure they abound in europe but getting one over here could be a major pain.ford made the tempo diesel, volks the rabbit and the jetta. IH made the scout in deisel but very rare in 4wd. ive heard good things about the scout, a 4cyl i believe that got excellent mpg but i havent seen one in years.all these vehicles suffer from lack of parts availability.the different mercedes diesels are a quality car but most were heavy and rarely did over 35 mpg.which i can exceed with my nissan sentra gas rig on cheaper fuel.ive always thought a solution would be to find the right motor,perhaps a small 3 or 4 cylinder and fit it into a common 4wd like a toyota or a chevy s10 with some gearing work.but even then i dont think you can really break the 35 mpg barrier.

[tacklebury]

There were a few Jeep Liberty Diesel's a few years ago.  They aren't really common.  Couple guys have been running biodiesel in them ok.  Best thing to do is look for a wrecked one and then transfer it to a std. liberty.  Very few still running originals.    There are rare occasional Mercedes around here from the 80's for between 3-10k, but once again timing is everything.    Finally, VW Jetta's have a few diesel's I have still seen around for sale and the rare Vanagon Diesel as well and the last are a few old VW Rabbits.  Saw one sell here for 600 bucks, but body was pretty non-existent.  8(

[blind ear]

Thanks guys, ear

[mannyrock]

 
  But why would you want one?  The cost of diesel is sky high, higher than supreme gas?
 
  Parts for old cars such as these are also really hard to find.
 
  Watcha trying to do?

Mannyrock

[blind ear]

Diesel can be substituted by many things. The right type engine only needs a battery to crank it and it will run until the fuel is cut off. Diesels in good repair will run many times the life of a gas burner.
 
Only if the MPG is high enough. An EMP type scenario. ear

[Lost Farmboy]

  Diesel will last longer before it goes bad. Especially if you ad Sta-Bil fuel stabilizer. Diesel will also get more miles per gallon. There is some good information on this in the book Patriots.

[blind ear]

yes, read "Patriots" and "One Secound After" also. Farmed the first 2/3 of my life. ear

[eye shot]

For what they cost these new green cars are a joke. I had a new 82 Rabbit diesel that got 52mpg and my dads went 350000 miles.

[blind ear]

For what they cost these new green cars are a joke. I had a new 82 Rabbit diesel that got 52mpg and my dads went 350000 miles.

I certainly agree, A car or any vehicle built right will last a lifetime. Cuts way down on sales. That is why they don't make them. They wouldn't be what we have been persuaded that we want either.
 
"I have seen the enemy and I think it is us." POGO

[hillbill]

For what they cost these new green cars are a joke. I had a new 82 Rabbit diesel that got 52mpg and my dads went 350000 miles.

it certainly does seem odd that we could build cars in the 80's that could attain that high of a mpg but now when we really need it we can no longer do it? if we could do 52 mpg in 1982 it would seem that by now 70 mpg would be pretty easy considering the technology we have developed.i have a sentra built in 98 that gets better mpg than most hybrids. what is wrong here?

[blind ear]

For what they cost these new green cars are a joke. I had a new 82 Rabbit diesel that got 52mpg and my dads went 350000 miles.

it certainly does seem odd that we could build cars in the 80's that could attain that high of a mpg but now when we really need it we can no longer do it? if we could do 52 mpg in 1982 it would seem that by now 70 mpg would be pretty easy considering the technology we have developed.i have a sentra built in 98 that gets better mpg than most hybrids. what is wrong here?

Same forces governing us then that govern us now, they are just more agressive in blatently milking us dry. "Don't you know it's good for business!"  A coorporation will never curtail thier own sales. ear

[mannyrock]

 
 
  The answer friends is that the pollution control standards for vehicles is much more strict now than it was in the early 80s.   It would not be legal for any manufacturer to make that 1980 Rabbit diesel any more.
 
   I often thought it would be fun to take a small Ag Tractor (such as the J.D. 970, with its 3 cylinder Japanese diesel engine), and try to make a small car out of it, for traveling around on private roads or cross country.
 
   Regards,  Mannyrock
 
   
 
 

[hillbill]

 
  The answer friends is that the pollution control standards for vehicles is much more strict now than it was in the early 80s.   It would not be legal for any manufacturer to make that 1980 Rabbit diesel any more.
 
   I often thought it would be fun to take a small Ag Tractor (such as the J.D. 970, with its 3 cylinder Japanese diesel engine), and try to make a small car out of it, for traveling around on private roads or cross country.
 
   Regards,  Mannyrock
 i realize that pollution control is responsible for the loss of small high mpg vehicles in the US.i just have a hard time believing that a small car getting say 50 mpg by burning diesel or  bio diesel has a larger carbon foot print than the same car getting 30 mpg on gasoline?
but then i guess common sense is not a quality of our elected officals. no matter how much i am reminded of this fact, it still never ceases to infuriate me!
 

[tacklebury]

I was looking at going biodiesel, but in cold climes, it's a lot harder to keep it liquid as some of the bus barns here abouts have found out the hard way.  One school district switched and ended up having to hand melt out lumps of solidified biodiesel and replace all their filters and some other parts that broke.  Anyway, I've settled on going alcohol since I can grow what I'll be using to make alcohol with and then use the left overs from the mash to feed livestock, it'll live a dual life.  I am converting an old Ford 300 straight 6  (tough as nails) to run on pure alcohol with a little starting fluid injector system.  This is being put into my 2000 Jeep for testing and such first, but we have 4 of these engines available and we're going to use one as a stationary and others for vehicles and back-ups. 

[Lloyd Smale]

I was told that even old cars with coils and points wouldnt survive an emp even the entire wiring harness can be fried. Its going to fry even starter motors and alternators and generators. Your best bet is going to be to buy an old car just for the cause and then but the parts to restore the electrical system and store them in an emp proof box. Remember too that even the modern deisels use computers to control fuel injection. I just read ONE SECOND AFTER in the hunting blind this year. Its a good book with alot of truths in it but some of it isnt accurate. Even if you do have a running car in a senerio like that one i doubt your going to get fuel. The gas stations are going to be guarded by gangs of people protecting it and if you think your going to grow corn to make alcohol or corn oil what do you think will happen to that corn when a 1000 hungry people come wandering though and have you considered how your going to process it all. It will take hundreds of gallons just to get your crop in and then with no electricity to process it your going to have a job.. Then your have to figure how long the roads are going to hold up without maintanance. Id bet after two or three years most will be in pretty tough shape. If you want emp proof transportation buy a horse but then your going to have to feed it too. At least with a horse you can eat it if it gets that bad. If i were you id consider putting your money into dry food so that you dont have to travel and sit tight and hope things pass.

[no guns here]

I often thought it would be fun to take a small Ag Tractor (such as the J.D. 970, with its 3 cylinder Japanese diesel engine), and try to make a small car out of it, for traveling around on private roads or cross country.

 
Mannyrock...
 
Check out the http://www.motherearthnews.com/energy-matters/100-mpg-speed-kills-gas-mileage.aspx site and read up on MAX.  Dude took an old frame and a new small turbo-diesel (kubota I think) put a custom made body on it and through all his trials and tribulations is now getting around 100mpg out of it.  There are about 84 updates on how he did it and how it all works.
 
NGH

[Bugflipper]

 Where I live the extreme lows are in the teens for a week or two. With a tank heater french fry bio works in my scout with a nissan 6cyl turbo diesel. It has two tanks so one is diesel and the other is french fry. I switch to the diesel about 5 miles before getting home so it doesn't clog the carb and fuel lines in the winter. I think it starts to solidify at 40 degrees.


They put the sd33t engine in nissan and datsun vehicles as well. I imagine most are in the junkyard by now because the body would rust to pieces before the engine would go. As for the scout a lot of folks including myself are still running on the stock engine without even a ring job 30 some years later. It usually gets about 26 mpg. But it has  33" tires, if gas it would be very low teens in mpg at best I would assume.

[tacklebury]

EMP will only fry std. wiring systems if it they are very close to the source.  I've done a fair bit of EMP testing on Airline parts and you have to be within about 100 yards or less of a VERY strong source to fry wires.  What it really wreaks havoc with are semiconductors which instantly become magnetized and stay open, effectually nullifying anything that they every could do.  Basically, anything with "chips" or brains will be the most affected and at much greater range, ie hundreds of miles.  If you watch there has been a few EMP tests on Mythbusters and the one show that the ex-seal dude runs.  They put a car directly below the emp source and popped it.  It fried the brain, but std. wiring stuff like lights etc, still worked.    Having a spare parts kit is still a good idea though and make sure it's in a 3-layer Faraday Cage, ie real metal screen layers that are non-conducted to each other.  This will even save some semi-conductors.  The military uses 3-4 layers on most of their EMP hardened electronics, ie. aircraft, vehicles, etc.  I believe they add an active layer defense also with powered repulsion.

[blind ear]

Probably has nothing to do with what we are talking about but the static electricity build up from an ink jet printer knocked the ram chip out in my ungrounded laptop. Started useing a wrist ground wire to the gas pipe and it solved my problen. Amazed me how little electricity it took to burn it.
ear

[Lloyd Smale]

guy has to keep in mind that theres still diodes and resistors in diesel truck alternators and fused ground wires on about every circuit that may be effected. Another thing is that ive done some research on this and its hard to get straight answers. Ive read many who claim to have done testing or witnessed testing and they all have differnt opinions on how much a vehicle will be effected. My guess and thats all it is is that every senerio is diffent and you wont know till it actually happens and i sure wouldnt want to have to rely on a vehicle to survive unless your a mechanic and not many anymore can trouble shoot there own vehicle and fewer yet are diesel mechanics. If they arent  effected they will be a dime a dozen when people start starving. More of a problem will be getting fuel. Even if you find a supply of gas it wont last more then a couple years before going bad. To make your own corn oil for a desiel just isnt going to happen without machinery to farm a big piece of land and few have the knowlage to farm anyway or are young enough or in good enough shape to plow up land with a horse! This country is soft and maybe one in 10000 have what it takes to survive the long haul. Me, like i said, ill put my money into food and ammo and hope it eventually passes because i have no illusion of this 55 year old man being able to support a family off the land anymore. Last thing ill address is the Faraday Cage there sure is alot of opinions on them. Some say a metal box some say screens some say grounded some say not grounded some say a metal pole barn is enough some say not some say they work well some say there a waste of time and dont do a thing. Some say a chain off the hitch of your car dragging on the ground will prevent it some say your vehicle must be undgrounded and its better off sitting on its tires. Wish someone somewhere had the straight scoop on this so a guy could get prepared. 

EMP will only fry std. wiring systems if it they are very close to the source.  I've done a fair bit of EMP testing on Airline parts and you have to be within about 100 yards or less of a VERY strong source to fry wires.  What it really wreaks havoc with are semiconductors which instantly become magnetized and stay open, effectually nullifying anything that they every could do.  Basically, anything with "chips" or brains will be the most affected and at much greater range, ie hundreds of miles.  If you watch there has been a few EMP tests on Mythbusters and the one show that the ex-seal dude runs.  They put a car directly below the emp source and popped it.  It fried the brain, but std. wiring stuff like lights etc, still worked.    Having a spare parts kit is still a good idea though and make sure it's in a 3-layer Faraday Cage, ie real metal screen layers that are non-conducted to each other.  This will even save some semi-conductors.  The military uses 3-4 layers on most of their EMP hardened electronics, ie. aircraft, vehicles, etc.  I believe they add an active layer defense also with powered repulsion.

[tacklebury]

I hear ya Lloyd.  Hard to separate all the data into usable bits.  I guess when I think EMP, I'm talking about a 10k ft + nuclear bomb going off.  The emp wave from 3 of those over the United States could cover about 80% of our country.  This is the only way a large enough EMP pulse can affect us.  Using this scenerio, unless you are directly below this explosion, I don't think the source would be strong enough to destroy wiring, but it would magnetize unprotected microconductors for thousands of miles.  Anyway, there are a lot of varying thoughts on this.  I think we just have to do our best to prepare and it'll be a crappy time for sure... 8(  There would be radioactive fall out down wind of course also, so this is going to have an effect on lots of people.  No real cure for radiation sickness.  8(

[Lloyd Smale]

my understanding and i have to admitt this is just more internet knowlege, is that if a nuke was used to create an emp that would do enough damage to make it worth while would have to be detonated so high in the atmospere that fallout wouldnt be any consern.

[no guns here]

I think the EMP effect was calculated from the 100 miles above ground point.  The original theory was something like a one megaton bomb at 100 miles up over the center of the US.  However, it's harder to build bombs of that size and larger.  So, a much smaller bomb only a few miles up (say 10) would still have a great effect but it would be more localized.  But three of them spread around the US would do us in supposedly.  Then there is the whole thing of the transmission linese carrying the pulse for hundreds of miles and damaging places not initially affected.
 
I REALLY wish there was some definitive answer on this stuff.  I mean, your car is supposedly safe from a lightning strike because it is insulated.  But the answer varies according to who you listen to about an EMP.  Is your car a useless hunk-o-junk or is it insulated?  I pretty don't worry about much of anything else.  I'm figuring that anything I have that is electrical will be toast either immediately or shortly thereafter due to lack of power anyway.  The whole Faraday cage thing is theoretical anyway.  Stands to reason that it would work but it's not a guarantee.
 
 
NGH

[mannyrock]

 
  The EMP is an electo magnetic pulse, that travels as a wave through the air like a radio wave.  When it hits your circuits, it cooks them.  Doesn't matter whether your car is grounded or not.  It is not the same as a lightening bolt, which is a charge of static electricity that is seeking the ground.
 
 
   

[no guns here]

See that's what I mean manny... you say one thing but the next guy says something else.  Supposedly there are some studies out there that the gov conducted but I've only ever read "quotes" haven't found the studies that give a definitive answer.  I think the only survivable vehicle for sure is something from pre-alternator days.  A vehicle that runs on purely mechanical means with no electonics of any kind other than some points.  An old model t type vehicle or wwII jeep.
 
 
NGH

[Lloyd Smale]

I have some knowlege of electricity. I know that electricity allways trys to find the easiest path to ground. Im sure that is why when a emp is produced it comes down on the earth. Its trying to find ground. That said i would have to guess that some kind of a ground system would help but it would have to be able to carry the current. I worked as an electrical lineman for 30 years. I learned that grounding is important but then grounding isnt a guarantee either. We would ground the lines we worked on to prevent backfeed from someones generator. We found out later in my career though that it was not a guarantee that you wouldnt get hurt. The ground must be able to carry all the current that is put on the line and fault currents can be extreamly high. To safely ground a typical 7200 vt distribution line like runs through your neiborhood took ground on both sides of where you were working using 1/0 copper with 20 feet of grond rod driven at both locations. When we worked our 69ooo and larger lines we used 4/0 copper. Note that these wire sizes have much larger current carrying capasitys then the lines were grounding because fault current is much greater then the normal operating currents the lines are designed for.  this still was no guarantee as electricity moves so fast that you could actuall get bit before the current went to ground but the agreed opinion was that hopefully it would be alot lower current because of the grounding. No Im not expert on emps but i am intelegent enough to know that a chain dangling off your bumper touching the ground or your cement garage floor will carrry very little current to ground. To have any hope of bleading this current to ground your going to have to use ground rods and copper wire big enough to carry the full current or your wasting your time and in fact might make things worse. A fault in a circuit which allows current to go to ground and cause a spike in amperage. that is what blows the fuses in your home. A poor ground would act like a fault and actually increase the currents strenght. the way i look at this is if your going to ground youd first have to know the potential current that could flow and youd then have to size your ground wire accordingly and i dont think theres any way to predict how much current would flow as its probably going to depend on how big the emp is.

[BIG Dog454]

making alcohol from corn is expensive.  Did a study (way back in "70s") on making fuel from corn.  At that time found that gas would have to be $2.50 a gallon, and corn would have to be $2.50 a bushel to make it worth while to do on the farm.  Now corn is what? $6.00 or so a bushel, so $3.00 gas is cheaper then making your own alcohol.   
  With alcohol you will get less miles per gallon of fuel.  Gas-alcohol mix that you buy nowadays will give you less miles a gallon then pure gasoline.  Therefore the gov is collecting more tax dollars per mile with the mix.  just another way to get into your pocket.
BD

[Rex in OTZ]

I coverd this in the auto section back Dec 2010
http://www.gboreloaded.com/forums/index.php/topic,222727.0.html
http://www.shadetreeconversions.com/
http://www.shadetreeconversions.com/videos.php