gifted with broken down 81 convertible

[sparrow2]

well, there once was a dead rabbit, that wasn`t welcome at it`s home anymore, so now I got the dead rabbit. Since it needs a new engine anyway (previous owner accidentally tried to run it on water instead of gasoline), I figured I`d try to convert it to diesel, and from there to bio diesel. as far as I understand, a regular diesel engine will operate with bio diesel. is this correct? if not, what would I need. Also (I`m not the mechanic, my boyfriend is) can I just take a same size diesel engine and pop it into the existing fittings for the current 1600 cc gasoline engine? can I keep the original tranny? any helpful info or links would be highly appreciated. thanx
Sparrow

[zagrot]

a diesel engine requires no modification to run on biodiesel but vegetable oil is a different story. you can probably reuse your gasoline transmission on a diesel engine, as well as the engine mounts, but you will have to revamp the fuel system. if you are going to do a conversion from gasoline to diesel try to find a turbo diesel or eco-diesel (both are turbo engines; the fuel pump is the distinguishing difference), you will not regret it except that turbo diesels are a bit more rare and expensive than the naturaly aspirated 1.6d.

[againdays]

Originally Posted by sparrow2

well, there once was a dead rabbit, that wasn`t welcome at it`s home anymore, so now I got the dead rabbit. Since it needs a new engine anyway (previous owner accidentally tried to run it on water instead of gasoline), I figured I`d try to convert it to diesel, and from there to bio diesel. as far as I understand, a regular diesel engine will operate with bio diesel. is this correct? if not, what would I need. Also (I`m not the mechanic, my boyfriend is) can I just take a same size diesel engine and pop it into the existing fittings for the current 1600 cc gasoline engine? can I keep the original tranny? any helpful info or links would be highly appreciated. thanx
Sparrow

Actually theres a difference in the diesel transaxle and the gas transaxle or transmission. You wont get the top end or power with a gas transmission that is sometimes needed and it wont be good for the engine.