SD22 diesel engine retrofit in 1985 Cherokee pioneer

This discussion started out in the OEM section, I am moving and copying it here as anew thread:

Quote:
Originally Posted by cumorglas
/intentional hijack/
you do understand that you can't just casually mention a diesel swap like it's no big deal.

How do you like the sd 22 in it?
how hard was the swap?
where did you get the sd22?

i ask be cause i was seriously considering this swap my self. sd33 are available everywhere but fit is not nice and the swap would be awful. I think fit better but might need turbo for driveability.

better than replying here would be new thread in mod tech section.thanks in advance.


Casually speaking of Hijacking (LOL), I hijacked it for $900 cash in 2002 when everyone was holding on to their cash, if they had any!arty:

It sat in used car lot for over 9 months, they started out asking $2,500, but everyone was scared of it because the dealer could not start it, and the wiring and some of the plumbing, power steering hoses in particular were a mess. It was someone elses incomplete project that I took over as a chalenge. I got it running before I bought it, but it smoked real bad. The power steering hose on the high pressure side (they used a worm gear clamp, LOL!!!) busted just I got it 10 blocks to my driveway.

Took me 9 months to figure out what engine it actually was that they had used. The oil filter part number was my first clue and the SD22 on the valve cover the second. It was my first experience with a diesel. Turned out to be out of 1982 Nissan 720 pickup truck. They swapped the SD22 engine with its 5 speed manual transmission as a package along with its power steering pump, alternator and A/C compressor intact.

I have since rebuilt the transmisson, $1,000 major overhaul basically I saved, reused the case and fourth gear, fixed the fuel injector pump (another story), learned a bit about naturally aspirated noisy diesel engines (my Daughter says the whole school can hear me coming, LOL), had the drive shaft rebuilt and balanced (something they did not do), replaced the alternator, blower fan, starter, A/C compressor, A/C and power steering hoses, switched over to 134-a, added an electric fan for the A/C Condenser after the condenser blew up (I replaced it too) bypassed and rewired most of the critical wiring including the rusted and corroded fuse box, replaced the rubber in the engine mounts, and repaired one when the engine bolt sheared (had to drill it out of the engine sidewall, that was fun and scarry), and I installed a custom interior heater since the heater core was shot and I did not want to pull and waste the A/C evaporator and its R-12 refrigerant, since they worked for the first 2 years, just to get to the heater core mad out, and then I cried all the way to the bank with my 34 mpg deisel rig.arty:

It is a bit ruff on hills with the A/C on, except of course on the down hill part, LOL. I have to drop it into 3rd gear and slow down to under 40 mph going up hill in Austin when I visit my sister, but around Houston's, great concrete flat lands here, it does the job. The part I love is getting over 600 miles per fill up! arty:

But to answer one of your questions, the SD22 is a bit light on HP, 68 HP I think, and the top end on the rig is about (I still need to install the custom speedometer cable, roundtoit project) 65 to 70 MPH depending on whether or not the A/C is on and whether it is going downhill (LOL). It is easy to work on and easy to get to everything, just a bit under powered.

I found a group of Nissan diesel engine 720 pick up truck gurus that helped me with the smoking engine and fuel injector pump problems. I am told these SD22's and their fuel injector pumps last forever except for a $27 leather diaphragm in the dual governor body. It was the cause of the smoke in my case. It was making it run way too rich.

The motor mounts were just 1/2" thick steel plates welded to make a peice of angle, resulting in apx a 5"x5" angle 5" long and one big bolt holding it to the original 2.5 liter gasser engine mounts on the jeep frame. The rubber they used between the plate and frame failed so I cut up the tread area of a used steel belted tire and used that as I could not find a suitable part, or other material to use. The tire tread has worked exceptionally well so far.

Mike McGinness
South Houston, TX

pics or ban

Where and how to post them? Need instructions, still a newbie here. Any particular views you want to see?

Mike McGinness

Use a photo host like photobucket/shutterfly...

copy and paste the address into your message and you're good to go...

I'm pretty sure multiple angles of the engine bay would be nice.

Thank you for the thread.

I suspected a case of anemia. nissan variously rates that engin as 62 to 68 hp. it is a fairly common engine in marine and industrial applications. one of it's selling points there is that parts are available from multiple sources and automotive parts swap easily onto industrial engine. I have even seen one with a dry exhaust on a steel workboat that the owner claimed he took right of a 720 pickup.

I am curious what tcase you are using with the nissan tranny. were 720's divorced cases or is there an adapter plate running to a 231, or some entirely other combo?

My little brother has an 80 scout with turbo sd33. he gets 34 mpg around town and 37 on the highway. his IH fsm covers the sd22 as well but it doesn't say what IH put them i. the datsun/nissan 720's are the only easy to find vehicles with them. and they aren't that easy to find.

and yes pics pleeeeease

Ecomike said:

It is a bit ruff on hills with the A/C on, except of course on the down hill part, LOL. I have to drop it into 3rd gear and slow down to under 40 mph going up hill

Click to expand...

perhaps you need to look at different gears, I mean old yotas run with 90 hp but have no trouble with correct gearing, guy in my club runs 35s on the 90 hp, just runts 5.13 gears I think.

So mabe you need to consult an expert and figure out the new engine and RPMs, tire size etc. whatever gears you have, you mentioned a 2.5L engine mounts so probalby 4.10s? not sure.. but figure out what you have and go deeper, that would solve your problems with that...dunno how it would affect your milage thou.

cumorglas said:

Thank you for the thread.

I suspected a case of anemia. nissan variously rates that engin as 62 to 68 hp. it is a fairly common engine in marine and industrial applications. one of it's selling points there is that parts are available from multiple sources and automotive parts swap easily onto industrial engine. I have even seen one with a dry exhaust on a steel workboat that the owner claimed he took right of a 720 pickup.

I am curious what tcase you are using with the nissan tranny. were 720's divorced cases or is there an adapter plate running to a 231, or some entirely other combo?

My little brother has an 80 scout with turbo sd33. he gets 34 mpg around town and 37 on the highway. his IH fsm covers the sd22 as well but it doesn't say what IH put them i. the datsun/nissan 720's are the only easy to find vehicles with them. and they aren't that easy to find.

and yes pics pleeeeease

Click to expand...

Anemic? Sir, I take exception to that, my Renix 4.0 Gas jeep is Anemic when it comes to fuel economy (LOL) while my SD-22 Nissan/Jeep Cherokee pioneer Mutant gets well over 600 miles per tank of Diesel! (LOL) OK so it is a bit anemic on 45 degree up hile climbs (LOL) but it works just fine going down hill (LOL) thank you!

All Joking aside, The 5 speed manual tranny is an OEM Nissan model #FS5W71B in mine. They had an A, B & C version.
It was built for the 720 trucks and SD diesels as far as know. Al Savage and Philip have a great web site you check out on the nissan diesels and transmissions and the various vehicles like Nissan Maximas they came in. The web site is at:

http://nissandiesel.dyndns.org/

But be forewarned their site is quite addictive :skull1:according to many including me. You have been warned!

Mike McGinness
South Houston, TX

P.S. Tell Al and Philip Hello for me!

twisted_ed said:

perhaps you need to look at different gears, I mean old yotas run with 90 hp but have no trouble with correct gearing, guy in my club runs 35s on the 90 hp, just runts 5.13 gears I think.

So mabe you need to consult an expert and figure out the new engine and RPMs, tire size etc. whatever gears you have, you mentioned a 2.5L engine mounts so probalby 4.10s? not sure.. but figure out what you have and go deeper, that would solve your problems with that...dunno how it would affect your milage thou.

Click to expand...

I would love to hear more about the rear end options, pleassse!

I looked into that when I first bought it as I could not get over 50 MPH at FOT the first few months I had it. Then one Day I accidently shoved it into a previously unknow 5th gear when I was trying to go into third gear and it bogged down. AH, HA I said to myself! That solved the top end speed problem real fast! It was one of those very rare pleasant surprises you get with an unknown used vehicle purchase (LOL). I was told it was four speed, but it turned out to be a 5 speed.

It's only real problem is a first gear dead stopped, start up at lights, especially if it is uphill. Need to slip the clutch a bit to get it started or it buckles and shakes. Also need to turn the AC of manually at take off from a stop sign or light going up hill.

Also with 3 to 4 people on board I need to slow down to 40 to 50 mph on steep uphill grades, with the AC off while going up hil.

Mike McGinness
South Houston, TX

Well heres what I can tell you, you might know this, but Ill say it anyways. Like all vehicles Jeep did tests, lots of em to figure out what would be the best gearing package for the engine the Heep had. usually 3.55s for the 4.0L with Automatic transmission, and I am not sure what year yours is but you said 2.5l motor mounts so its either a 84-90 Jeep. That means that it could be 3.31 gearing if it had the Fuel economy package but doubtful, 4.56 if it had and auto tranny, but most likely you have the 4.10 ratio. The easiest way to tell this is to block up the axle and mark the driveshaft with somthing then turn the wheel. as you rotate the wheel one full turn count the driveshaft revoulutions. if its rotates 4 times you are 4.10:1 ration, if its closer to 4.5 times u have 4.56 ratio.

So now you have ur ratio. How does that help, well the deeper you go, numerically higher the gears, the more power you will have, also you will get higher RPMS. This is desirable for most of us running bigger tires. I put on 32x11.50 Mudders and lost alot, my RPMs on the highway were about 2000, and it was slow to accelterate. By changing from 3.55s to 4.56s I had more power than I did stock and I was running about 2700 rpms on the highway. So you can see how gearing can be good.

So the next thing you need to know about gearing is that there are limits. If you are running a Dana 44 in the back which it might be you can run gears as deep as 5.89 which would probably make that thing feel like a muscle car off the line. But chances are you have a Dana 35 in the back, crappy axle which is limted to 4.88s. I guarentte unless they did and axle swap up front its an Dana 30 Reverse Cut Axle in which 4.88 ratio is the deepest you can go.

Now of course if you didnt know you need to run the same ratios front and rear. So unless you do a Dana 44 front axle swap (lots of info around on that) you are limited to 4.88s. Do the swap and you can run 5.89s.

One thing to consider and why its important to figure out your ratios is if you have 4.56s right now, going to 4.88s wont make a huge difference, so you might want to look into an axle swap if thats the case. Now if you were cursed with 3.31s however doubtfull going to 4.88s would be crazy good, but you might only want to go 4.56s, it depends on the engine and tranny and I dont know enough to tell you that.

What I can do is tell you what lots of people do when they up their tire size and loose power (essentially what has happened to you) they go and try to make more hp but thats not the solution. Gear Ratio is the big thing. If you were to change your gear ratio, you would be laughing.

Ecomike said:

All Joking aside, The 5 speed manual tranny is an OEM Nissan model #FS5W71B in mine. They had an A, B & C version.
It was built for the 720 trucks and SD diesels as far as know. Al Savage and Philip have a great web site you check out on the nissan diesels and transmissions and the various vehicles like Nissan Maximas they came in. The web site is at:

http://nissandiesel.dyndns.org/

Click to expand...

That's the tranny i assumed you were using. I am still curious what transfer case you are using in that. although it just now occurred to me that you might have a 2wd cherokee. I live in western new york and have heard such things existed but have definitely never seen one.

will definitely check out the site.

thanks

p.s. gears may help. but you definitely need to remember that that engine will not rev as high or freely as a 20r or 22r

cumorglas said:

That's the tranny i assumed you were using. I am still curious what transfer case you are using in that. although it just now occurred to me that you might have a 2wd cherokee. I live in western new york and have heard such things existed but have definitely never seen one.

will definitely check out the site.

thanks

p.s. gears may help. but you definitely need to remember that that engine will not rev as high or freely as a 20r or 22r

Click to expand...

Yes it is 2WD. What is a 20r or 22r?

Yes I know about the top end engine speed limits, also the engine speeds overall range is shorter than a gasser adding to the problem.

Ecomike said:

Yes it is 2WD. What is a 20r or 22r?

Yes I know about the top end engine speed limits, also the engine speeds overall range is shorter than a gasser adding to the problem.

Click to expand...

the toyota four cylinder gassers that twisted ed above was referencing. they will run all day at 5600 rpm with no complaints. reliable tough motors, but not fuel efficient and not powerful.

and 2wd means i can't ask you about clearance betwixt oilpan and diff either. shoot.

but thanks. am still thinking about it.

OK, for those of you who have visually challenged imaginations , or who have been simply dying to see pictures of this beast there are a few photos online now at:
http://s120.photobucket.com/albums/o185/Ecomike_photos/

Enjoy! party1:

Mike McGinness
South Houston, TX

for the lazy

I hate to be a demanding nag. but i have to know. riding at the height shown in picture what is the distance from ground to the bottom of the oil sump. I have a stocker sitting around here. from that measurement i can extrapolate clearance for an actual axle. then figure from there how much
lift and bumpstop it's gonna need to work.

and sort of tangentially how much room do you feel you have under the hood. could the engine come up an inch or two if needed, or is that pretty much it.

cumorglas said:

I hate to be a demanding nag. but i have to know. riding at the height shown in picture what is the distance from ground to the bottom of the oil sump. I have a stocker sitting around here. from that measurement i can extrapolate clearance for an actual axle. then figure from there how much
lift and bumpstop it's gonna need to work.

and sort of tangentially how much room do you feel you have under the hood. could the engine come up an inch or two if needed, or is that pretty much it.

Click to expand...

Finally stopped raining:woohoo:here long enough to get it. It is 12.75 inches to the lowest part of the oil pan just next to the drain plug.

There is some clearance between the engine and the hood, but some hoses and wiring (cables) are up against the hood, rubing already.

Specifically the fresh air intake throttle body assy and intake hose are rubbing or nearly rubbing against the hood already. You could gain a couple of inches, maybe 2 at most if you went with an external hood air intake of some sort(?) for the throttle body air intake. After 2 inches ( or maybe even 1") the compressor and power steering pump would become a problem for sure.

cumorglas said:

Thank you for the thread.

I suspected a case of anemia. nissan variously rates that engin as 62 to 68 hp. it is a fairly common engine in marine and industrial applications. one of it's selling points there is that parts are available from multiple sources and automotive parts swap easily onto industrial engine. I have even seen one with a dry exhaust on a steel workboat that the owner claimed he took right of a 720 pickup.

I am curious what tcase you are using with the nissan tranny. were 720's divorced cases or is there an adapter plate running to a 231, or some entirely other combo?

My little brother has an 80 scout with turbo sd33. he gets 34 mpg around town and 37 on the highway. his IH fsm covers the sd22 as well but it doesn't say what IH put them i. the datsun/nissan 720's are the only easy to find vehicles with them. and they aren't that easy to find.

and yes pics pleeeeease

Click to expand...

There is a guy on Ebay that regularly imports these engines from Japan and sells them on Ebay for as little as $699 (sometimes $899) at times, with the manual 5 speed tranny attached. Seems Japan has some national law (to support their auto industry) that requires that Japaneese cars be scrapped to the junk yard at some rediculous mileage like 50,000 (?) miles, so he buys these power plants from the junk yards, ships them over here on a boat and sells them used with something like only 50,000 miles on them. Something about not being able to re-register them after the odometer passes 50,000 miles. Just search "Nissan deisel" on Ebay sometime.

I am back to driving this beast as my DD the last 6 months!!!

This Jeep-beast, my frankebeast is still alive and well.party1:

Are you planning to eventually convert it to 4wd at a point?