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Posted by Don in Missouri [69.69.205.226] on Friday, January 04, 2013 at 12:40:30 :

In Reply to: Re: Anybody tried a PW bellhousing on a Cummins? posted by ToddW [99.151.39.120] on Friday, January 04, 2013 at 10:52:51 :

You have a good point. The 230 is not to blame, and my reasoning is very subjective.

I have a bias against gas engines mostly because of my own inability to keep a carburetor, points, coil, condenser, spark plugs, and spark plug wires all in working order and properly adjusted. The Chrysler flathead is pretty robust, but I've lost respect for the finicky gas engines that have to have the fuel/air mixture just right, the spark hot enough, the ambient air temperature just right, and your mouth held in just the right position to make them run decent. Contrast to that, give a diesel fuel and compression, and it will run consistently every time for hundreds of thousands of miles. Actually, that may not be fair of every diesel, but that sure has been my experience with the Cummins.
I never set out to be a collector. I want to be a driver. I choose my Carryall as one the coolest trucks ever made. I chose it to drive and make it a useful part of my life. I studied how others were converting to V-8 and 4bts. And I realized that part of what makes the old Dodge cool was being discarded in those conversions. If you drive your truck every day, there is good reason to go to hanging pedals and to make the truck a little quieter, etc. etc. But the old cast iron gear boxes and the forest of levers sticking up through the floor is part of the charm that first got me hooked on Power Wagons. So, for a dozen years, I preserved my WC with the only modification coming from civilian Power Wagon accessories.

Every once and a while, I think about selling it because I don’t drive it much. I need to drive it more.

I think the 4bt is a good conversion. I hesitated before, of all things, because it seemed wrong to mate a metric engine with a WWII truck. Now, as I think about driving the truck more, I realize the dependence on imported fossil fuel is a real liability. I suppose I could tune the 230 to run on ethanol, but I’d rather go with the combination of American-made biodiesel in an American-made diesel engine. I now think that putting a Cummins in the truck and burning biodiesel is most in keeping with the spirit in which the truck was created. After all, this truck was built to defeat the Nazis. Driving it on gasoline defeats America and gives power to oil exporting countries.

Realistically, my Carryall is likely to stay the same for a long, long time. When I’m not driving it, I can have fun daydreaming about modification. The puzzle of possibilities is a fun mental exercise that requires no fuel at all.




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