I've seen two diesel rangers from the 1980's in the last month both long beds one 2wd and one 4wd both standard trans...When did they make these?

 

i've heard, and seen them ( not personally) but on Australias ford website...there is a ranger diesel and with different cab configureitions than the rangers here.

 

84 I beleave (Been way to long )Dad had a 2x4 for company truck not the most powerfull thing but had 300000 on same motor and could get mid 30's MPG on highway trips. There is a low mileage 4x4 locally . I'd buy one . I dont care how slow they may be 30 MPG and a bed to haul sounds good to me.

I wish newer 4x4 rangers got as least 25MPG I have tried every year and combo but lucky to break 23 MPG more like 18-20 MPG . My full sizedF150 gets 16 MPG

 

Theres some info here:

http://www.therangerstation.com/tech...ry/Diesels.htm

The message "still gathering information" has been there for years now.....


I did a diesel conversion on my sister's ranger last year. Found a whole donor truck and bought it home for the swap.

The engine we used was the newer 2.3L turbo (out of an 85), it replaced a 2.9 EFI that her 88 came with.

Overall it performs very close to the 2.9 around town, but it lacks the maximum torque to hold 80+mph consistently (for now at least).

Parts are hard to find, but not impossible, I had to rebuild it before putting it in and was able to find everything I needed (though some of the parts were made in australia).

I can't tell you enough just how fun it is to drive it though, the turbo is easy to hear, and it has lots of mid range torque. My sis never gets tired of the looks she gets when driving it.

 

I own a 83 Ranger diesel. It has the 2.2 Litre Mazda built Perkins diesel in it. It has 166,000 miles on it and still runs great! Not much for power but I really like the 30-35mpg it gets. The 83-84 used the 2.2L engine and 85-87 used a Mitsubishi built 2.3L turbocharged diesel.

 

Both of those engines will go forever, but the 2.2 is harder to wreck since it has timing gears instead of a timing belt, and uses an inline injector pump.

The only reason I had to rebuild the 2.3, is some one had let the oil run low and the #1 conrod literally shredded. Upon inspecting the rest of the engine, I realised it could have been put together last year by the lack of wear on the bearings. The engine had 260 000 Ks on it.

 

Actually the 2.2 doesnt use a inline pump. It uses a Diesel Kiki pump which is a knockoff of a Bosch VE rotary pump. I really like the fact that the 2.2 has gears instead of a belt to run everything. It also has cylinder liners which make rebuilding it a snap!

Too bad they didnt just add a turbo to the 2.2 and use it in the 85-87 rangers.

 

I guess I don't really know what I saw then . The 2.3 is a sleaved engine too, but the one I worked on was in such good shape, all I did was hone them and put new rings in, anything with pistons should have liners that are replacable.

My guess would be that you could put a turbo in a 2.2 if you wanted, it has a lot more strength to spare than the 2.3, which was made for light duty only.

Whats REALLY to bad is that they stopped offering the diesel ranger alltogether.

 

A turbo on a 2.2 would be great! I know of a guy that did it and was having a great time with it until the turbo let go of a oil seal and ended up cracking a couple pistons.

 

Not sure how far off topic this is but when I was in College there was an older fellow that drove a diesel Ford Currier pickup long bed with cream paint and a soot covered tailgate. Never did catch up with him to look at it though.

 

Never actually heard of the currier having a diesel (probably the ford 2.0), but its not suprising, the chevy luv was also offered with a diesel and one time.

There were a lot of diesel options back then thanks to president Regan I guess (tax inscentives). I have heard of a ford LTD that was fitted with a mercedes diesel, don't know it its true though.

I doubt many of those vehicles were very profitable though, it reminds me a lot of the flury of electric vehicles in the late 90s, they too faded away.

 

Perfect timing for this thread! I was just wondering about ranger diesels and was getting on here to ask what years they were offered here in the US.

So far I've seen they were offered up to 1987. Were there any ewer ones than this?
Anybody know what kind of numbers were sold? I'm assuming they are a lot harder to find than the gas versions that are everywhere...


If anyone on here has an old, wasted one I need a title for one...

 

Sorry, but 1987 was indeed the last year that ford offered the diesel in the ranger for this region of the world. In just about every other world market you can get a diesel powered compact ford pickup.

 

87 will do - it is actually good news as I thought they were only in the 83 & 84 trucks. Now I might have at least a slightly higher chance of finding one.


There have been a couple on eBay recently, but unfortunately they are across the country and I can't afford to have them shipped out here.

 

83-84 is the prekins 2.2L 59 Hp, 85-87 is the 2.3L mitsubishi 86 Hp, though both engines have a lot of room to grow in terms of power.

If you don't mind doing a conversion, then the dodge ram 50 was also offered with the 2.3L diesel in case one turnes up when rangers are scarce.