diesle xj?

does any one have a picture of a diesel xj. i would love to see one. and eventualy buy one and convert it to biodiesel.

if you search the internet for european or australian xj's i'm sure you could dig up some pics. they were offered oversees (and canada???) w/ a diesel as an option. a friend of mine has a right hand drive england one that is absolutly bad ass. and pretty cool to drive.

Supposedly there were some made for the Canadian market.
I'm not sure, but i think they were late 80's or early 90's, and not high in numbers.

Maybe check on ebay, might pop up there.

I'm in england, diesel XJ's are a dime a dozen. Don't bother trying to get one cause the engines are crap, they usually don't go 100k. If you want one you need to transplant one of the newer liberty engines. The new ones are a 2.7CRD of german? design, the older ones are a 2.8 VM, don't know much about them except there on ebay being parted out ALL THE TIME.

The older ones were Renault 2.0l Turbo-Diesel

i remember hearing the history of them. they had the motors because they where licensed out by the French to make some of there military vehicles. when they wanted them to have there diesels in them. when they stopped manufacturing them they had left over diesels and put them in the Cherokees.

90xj06 said:

i remember hearing the history of them. they had the motors because they where licensed out by the French to make some of there military vehicles. when they wanted them to have there diesels in them. when they stopped manufacturing them they had left over diesels and put them in the Cherokees.

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The Renault turdblow diesel engine (actually it has 3 major issues. Injector pump is junk, waterpumps are near impossible to find and alt/starter are French. Nuff said, mon dieu!) ended up in XJs due to the AMC/Jeep and Renault partnership in the early '80s. When the French minister who was responsible for the French gov't (since Renault was govt owned) was murdered in '86? (maybe because of his link to outsourcing jobs to the US?) his replacement sold out to Chrysler at the first opportunity. (economy was slowing and the French were wondering why the govt had outside jobs instead of sourcing in France)


Now, for my take on this: DON'T run the Renault diesel (available in the US XJs/MJs '84 to late '86) and get a Toyota diesel (much stronger and long lived. If you haven't seen the video, then you should! ) and swap the AW4 bellhousing (if possible. Early smaller engines used an AW4 type and later ones used a heavier duty one) along with torque converter (taking care to ensure splines, etc are same size) and make motor mounts.
I suggest a 4 cyl turbo early one (for ease of emissions and lack of computers) with a 3" front lift coil set put in (the extra weight will drop the front end to match stock height in short order) Radiator from custom rad guys (Flow Kooler?) and you should be set.

90xj06 said:

does any one have a picture of a diesel xj. i would love to see one. and eventualy buy one and convert it to biodiesel.

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OK, I'll bite.... What conversion do you think is needed to convert it to run on biodiesel? Properly produced WVO will go straight in, SVO will need a preheater and a few other bits & bobs to make it run properly. All you have to do is ensure that the glycerin is removed from the stuff and then it'll run fine. Try googling Journeytoforever and you'll see what I mean.

As for pics, well, they look just like any other XJ, apart from the engine (obviously). I could send you some bumf if you want on them. One other thing worth bearing in mind is that the *2.5* VM engined ones (available in the UK from ?1993) also share the engines with a whole host of other vehicles - Land Rovers for one. As such it shouldn't be too difficult with the right research to source one in the US and bolt it to an AX15: hey presto, one LHD VM engined XJ!

They do have a reliability issue regarding the heads - there are 4 - and they don't come cheap (about $260 each in the UK), but they have great engine braking, and are considered good offroad machines over here, even if they are sluggish and the fuel consumption's pretty shit.

new gas lines made of a synthetic rubber. that is all. plus it gets better gas milage and will last longer. its a better lubricant.

i have one i got 285000 km before head failure
it is a98 model
has 31 x 10.50 x 15 tyres 2' lift

The Italian VM 2.5 l turbo diesel fitted to XJ's (as well as Land Rovers, Range Rovers, Ford Scorpio's during the 1990's etc) is prone to head gasket failure. Steer clear of the early engines (mid 90's). The later engines were improved but may eventually fail. Apparently there is not much you can do about it, except keep an eye on the heads, the radiator (for corrosion indicating loss of coolant) and the temperature guage. Any indication that the engine is getting too hot may indicate the head gasket's are on the way out. I believe the head bolts should be re-torqued every 40000 miles. There are 4 separate cylinder heads but just one gasket. Change the oil and filter every 3000 miles too. My 2001 with 85000 miles will return 26 miles to a gallon with M/T tyres in city traffic and 33 miles to the gallon at 70 on a motorway.