School me on Diesels

[tut]

diesels are good for a work horse. everything else, diesels suck.

diesel will kill you.


sure, they made those fancy particle filters, but if you drive like a nanna all the time, the filter will get clogged and yuck your engine royally. the only way around that is to floor it in 3rd till redline for a short while, every now and then, to blow through the particle filter. where's the ecology now?

diesels are great if you want to chiptune them. they really respond very well. but they'll blow black smoke.


they're still noisy fuckers, and no fun to drive, at all. sure, they're getting faster and faster, but hthey're still front heavy, and don't like to rev. another thing that seems to be a diesel thing, is their slownes of reaction.. heavy flywheel or something? i don't know. but there's a huge fucking lag between pedal input and engine output.
heel-toe/revmatching is near impossible, as you'll have shifted long before the engine reacts on your blipping the throttle.


but yeah, they've got torque, and they're good on fuel.




oh, and if you're worried about health, don't check the european lung cancer map when you've overlayed the european diesel driving map.




there're these cool "ford econetic" cars. they get government discounts cause they have low CO2 emissions.
and when you floor it, they emit huge clouds of black smoke. but the "industry standard testing environment" doesn't feel the need to floor it, ever, and hugely favours the diesels.

in the end, you end up paying more for your more ecological gas or petrol car. cause diesel is better in the test environment.
diesel is a big huge hack, and europe has no idea about how to preserve the environment.



that said, if i'd get given one, i'd drive it.
if it were cheap enough to buy, i'd buy it.
but i wouldn't enjoy it, i wouldn't be proud of it, and i sure as hell wouldn't promote it.

that said, diesels are better for off roading and towing.
but not by much -_-

[Jim]

You'll get 300,000k's out of injectors and pump no worries unless you are unlucky.

[tut]

also, if you have your hand under an ijector while it's spraying, say bye bye arm.

[Jim]

If you somehow find yourself elbow deep in an inlet manifold with your fingers in the combustion chamber then a fluid injection is probably the least of your worries.

[JZK25]

Those older Hiluxes are alroght trucks. Slow as fuck but easily remedied with a TDO4L off a rex and an intercooler if you can swing it. It changes them from being pushed up hills to flying up them. Budget for it. I did one ages ago, there's a thread in forced induction about it.

[smellytofu]

diesels are good for a work horse. everything else, diesels suck.

diesel will kill you.


sure, they made those fancy particle filters, but if you drive like a nanna all the time, the filter will get clogged and yuck your engine royally. the only way around that is to floor it in 3rd till redline for a short while, every now and then, to blow through the particle filter. where's the ecology now?

diesels are great if you want to chiptune them. they really respond very well. but they'll blow black smoke.


they're still noisy fuckers, and no fun to drive, at all. sure, they're getting faster and faster, but hthey're still front heavy, and don't like to rev. another thing that seems to be a diesel thing, is their slownes of reaction.. heavy flywheel or something? i don't know. but there's a huge fucking lag between pedal input and engine output.
heel-toe/revmatching is near impossible, as you'll have shifted long before the engine reacts on your blipping the throttle.


but yeah, they've got torque, and they're good on fuel.




oh, and if you're worried about health, don't check the european lung cancer map when you've overlayed the european diesel driving map.




there're these cool "ford econetic" cars. they get government discounts cause they have low CO2 emissions.
and when you floor it, they emit huge clouds of black smoke. but the "industry standard testing environment" doesn't feel the need to floor it, ever, and hugely favours the diesels.

in the end, you end up paying more for your more ecological gas or petrol car. cause diesel is better in the test environment.
diesel is a big huge hack, and europe has no idea about how to preserve the environment.



that said, if i'd get given one, i'd drive it.
if it were cheap enough to buy, i'd buy it.
but i wouldn't enjoy it, i wouldn't be proud of it, and i sure as hell wouldn't promote it.

that said, diesels are better for off roading and towing.
but not by much -_-

Yet no one seems to shout that down the diesel advocates since we don't really have an epidemic diesel pollution problem yet. Whilst I like diesel for everyday driving, I don't think I'd be jumping for one just yet given the soot and particulates that's makes it very hard to breathe when you're standing behind a running truck whilst trying to close the garage door behind. Who knows what damage to everybody's health if everyone was driving around in a diesel car.

Sure hybrids and EV aren't the silver bullet but at least it's one step in the right direction to getting rid of pollution from the tail pipe and moving it to a concentrated places such as a power station.

[takai]

Ahhhh you're looking that old, didn't twig that straight up.

If you're not sold on the ute tray look at GQ wagons, they're like the AU on gas of the 4WD world. The damn things will go anywhere, parts and accessories are common, and you'll arguably get a much better ride with coil springs all around. Also get a higher tow rating.

Also the diesel/gas stuff you mentioned, acording to the work van that parks down the street from my parents place Lovato auto gas offer it. I'm not a fan of it, I prefer to keep things simple when it comes to 4WD's. Less fancy shit is less to go wrong when you're a long way from home.

Yeah, ute tray is a must, as is four seats. If i was to compromise on one or the other i would just get a Falcon Ute/Wagon on Gas.
Only looking around 2004-2005. They still had the 5L-Es as late as then.

The 5L-E is an indirect injection (prechamber) engine with a VE rotary fuel pump. Those 90s Toyota diesels have some sort of electronic control of the pump, even though it's essentially the same old VE rotary design. The pumps often get leaky, but it is possible to replace the seals without rebuilding the pump (there's some DIYs on the Aus Surf forum). The injectors in an indirect injection engine like this are very simple things, if the engine is smokey they may need a service with new nozzles. Finally as said the pressures even in a "low" pressure system like this are still up around a few thousand psi. Don't go touching that shit!

You'll probably want to change the oil a bit more often than a petrol engine, and change the fuel filter yearly (spin it off, lube the seal on the new one, spin it on then push the primer button ~30 times ('till you feel resistance). Start it, rev it a bit and it's good to go.
Lastly these oldschool engines rely heavily on working glow plugs to start. I'd recommend replacing them just for peace of mind.

Cool, good info. Glow plugs are cheap on trade, as are the fuel filters. I think that whatever i get ill give it a good freshen up once i have it.

You'll get 300,000k's out of injectors and pump no worries unless you are unlucky.

Yeah, a lot of the ones im looking at are up to around 200,000km. Hence the concern.

Those older Hiluxes are alroght trucks. Slow as fuck but easily remedied with a TDO4L off a rex and an intercooler if you can swing it. It changes them from being pushed up hills to flying up them. Budget for it. I did one ages ago, there's a thread in forced induction about it.

Ill keep that in mind. Whats the go with the ECU in these? Can they be chipped? Dale?

[Asteroid]

I think the majority of fuel pump failures were the result of ultra low sulphur diesel and natural rubber seals (this is why old diesel imports always shit the pumps). Later engines used synthetic seals that aren't degraded by modern fuel. But I'm not sure when the Japanese manufacturers switched, somewhere in the early 00s?

[takai]

This is the last of the 5L they produced. After this they switched to another engine design. So it should be pretty well sorted by now.

[15UZU]

stay away from biodiesel and the pump and injectors will last much longer

chuck on a nice big front mount, and a bleed valve and they wake up quite nicely.

tut: no fun to drive? ever driven a dodge ram with cummins 5.9 (6bta) making 600+hp? gives a whole new meaning to "entertaining" wet road fishtailing a 3200kg truck through 3rd gear

[thechuckster]

I owned a 5LE-non-turbo 2WD twin cab. Despite being at the end of the period for this motor, it was still not cheap on fuel use - pretty much the same economy regardless of the population in the cabin. The 4WD lux of the same era is even harder on fuel.

Engines are bullet proof if you change the oil every 5k, filter every 10k, use toyota red coolant and change the fuel filter every 100k. Glow plugs will eventually carbon up but they're cheap and a handy cold-start solution is to give them two goes when cold starting in winter. They will last longer than the timing belt. Timing chain is a belt/tensioner/seal kit every 120k and easy to do once you've got all the belts/shit away from the front of the motor.

If you do constantly run it hot/hard, you'll eventually get cracks between combustion chambers and/or valve seats and coolant gallery but it takes a lot of stupidity to get the head that rooted. If you manage to do this, a reco head+gasket kit is an off-the-shelf job starting from ~$1.8k but are unlikely to face this risk until the 300k+ mark.

The NA 5LE has an annoyingly narrow rpm band (~2.5-2.9k) of useful towing torque (turbo option will obviously spread this out) and to get a decent tow rating, you'll have an arse-pounding ride even if you go 4WD. Even if you get the 4-door cabin, the rides is very ordinary. You also loose a lot of tray capacity/rating with the bigger cabin.

I found the gearing of the 2WD NA ute had the motor doing around 2.8k at 100kph with the motor well out of puff (and making far too much noise) at 3.5k. It really could have done with a taller diff. Best highway-only millage without a trailer was ~700k from a full tank. As soon as you encounter traffic, hills or suburbia that will plummet down by up to ~200k.

I vaguely recall seeing chips on eBay for these ECUs - they only control the fuel pump and something like a butterfly valve in the inlet (what it does I have no idea). They seem to use the same engine loom for NA & FI as my engine bay had a MAP sensor (with 'Turbo Pressure Sensor' stamped on it) mounted to the firewall. ECU had 5LE not 5LTE written on it.

I'd seriously consider a 1KZTE (or even better, a 1KD-powered) hilux or prado if you are going down the oil-burning route. For improved fuel consumption and power output they are a leap ahead of the L motors. If you stick with the 5LE/5LTE, use another car as a daily driver and keep the ute for parts hunting, fishing and towing duties only.


edit: 5LE are drive-by-wire throttle. Any cruise will have to act directly on the pedal or you'll have to scab the factory bits out of a wreck. There's a vacuum pump integrated into the alternator (for the brake M/C) and you can T into it if you get a cheap vacuum-operated actuator.

edit 2: diesel engine specific oil is a must. Also the sump oil is fairly caustic (if you have sensitive skin) and will stain everything in sight. The 5LE oil filter is in a minor PITA spot but at least it hangs downwards.

[Sir Revalot]

Old mechanical diesel motors aren't that hard to work on (well, in my experience so far with my 2.8TD Pajero, 1996 model), however I can attest to certain parts being ridiculously expensive. Cost me $2,100 to get diesel pump reconditioned, and that was with me doing all the labour pulling it out and then reinstalling it once fixed. Since then however it runs much better (you'd hope so for over $2k!!! >.< ).

Apart from oil/filter every 5,000km & fuel filter every 10,000 (it's only a $30 part) everything else so far has been similar to petrol motors I have worked on.

Certain diesel motors do have their quirks though, so best to read up on the one that you are getting/have bought so that you know what these are and are prepared for them.

Oh yeah and they're definitely not quick, although the newer ones are much better and my next fourby will be a much later model turbo diesel.

[Yeti]

I have a 4 month old Colorado as a work car and I freaken love it, good on fuel would pull a house down

on the up side my Mrs hates it so its win win

[Euroboost]

One thing I've learnt is use the best mineral/semi synthetic oil you can every 5000km, we used the Mobil 4x4 oil in the Pajero and changed the filter every 5000km. I know you can get full synthetic diesel oil but it's really a waste of time in most cases, Mercedes had to stop using it because some dumb fuck owners were trying to push the service out to 20,000km on the stuff because it said it was possible in the book. Never mind that was with oil monitoring, and European highway use!

[Sir Revalot]

Yeah my mrs hates mine as well. hahaha

BTW forgot to mention that the 'Paj is quite frugal on fuel, although I'm not a leadfoot. However, I get nearly 10ks per litre around town. On the open road it's slightly better, but not by a huge margin. For a 2.8 litre towing around such a mass, it's not bad. Then again my cheaper fuel costs have now been negated by the cost of reconditioning the diesel pump. :knock: