Diesel engines to mate to an old VW beetle gearbox???

[Henryuk]

Dear all

Some friends and I got way way too wasted the other day and decided to try and put a diesel engine onto an old VW chassis and build a sand rail. Then ride 20,000km around the sahara with it and two motorbikes.

Has anybody had any experience of whacking a diesel engine into an old beetle, or could recommend a suitable engine that might match the original VW gearbox with as little bodging as possible(we have a big bag of gearbox bits so are happy taking this despite the pounding its going to get)?

If anyone thinks we are full of poo the last time I got that wasted I ended up riding my first motorbike round central asia on my own. We are fully commited to this and serious technical advice would be much appreciated. As would parts???
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Diesel VW beetle based sand rail tranverse crossing of the Sahara, surely not....

[ElusiveStranger]

Welcome fella,

Firstly hahaha to p155ed up bets - gotta be done & congrats to seeing them through.

Famous Phil does adaptors for dirty diesels, have a look else where on the forum for diesel powered stuff. There's plenty

I'm sure Phil will be along soon.
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The advice you receive on here is worth the paper it's written on.
Your experiences are worth shed loads to others, including the f'ups - live and learn.
Wouldn't YOU rather learn by someone else's mistakes? So would they.

'78 Bay, 2 litre 091 box, EJ20 NA & the ashtray's on the 'right' side.
I don't lean forward for hills any more
Bugger, missed out on "Live fast, die young"

[Alex (FTS)]

Yer the peugeot diesel engine seems to be a favouritr for many off roaders-my mate Robin is really into his off roading. He has alittle but beefed up to the max Suzuki and has fitted a 2.1 pug tdi in it-aparantly a common conversion for off roaders!

I run a Ford diseasel 1.8 in my camper-very simple to install so dont think youll have any probs in a sand rail-not sure about gearing on a bug box though but hay you can always put massive tyers on!
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[Henryuk]

thanks for the info, knowing it can be done is the first step, now where's my welding for dummies book gone?
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Diesel VW beetle based sand rail tranverse crossing of the Sahara, surely not....