Introduction

[1981isuzupup]

Hello,

I will post pictures of my 1981 Isuzu P'up diesel when I go buy it this weekend. I first saw a Chevy Luv diesel back around 2004 and I just had to have one. I had no clue that a small diesel pickup was ever made, I was fascinated! I found a 1982 Chevy LUV Mikado with the C223 diesel engine and bought it immediately. I was a mechanical engineering student at Oregon State University at the time, so I started to tinker with the truck. I put a 10-gal fuel auxiliary tank in the bed and put a coil/shell heat exchanger under the hood and plumbed it in line with the engine cooling system. I had a number of valves that I could open when the engine came up to operating temperature. I started mixing a ratio of used engine oil and diesel in the auxiliary fuel tank, slowly increasing the oil/diesel ratio until the truck ran poorly. I settled on a 50% mixture of used engine oil and diesel.

I ran this little diesel for 5 years while in engineering school. Sadly, I sold it around 2010. Now they are even harder to find, especially if you don't have social media. But I found one! Super excited to get one again. I'll post projects as they come. I always wanted to retrofit my Chevy Luv diesel with a Toyota 5 speed transmission. Now, I'll be able to design and machine my own bellhousing adapter.

Thanks for reading,

Trace
1981isuzupup

[puttputtinpup]

Welcome! Looking forward to seeing pictures

[JoeIsuzu]

Welcome to the site. Wow, if you wanted to create and sell an adapter kit, others might be interested. The 1981-1985 5-speeds had a high failure rate, compared to the later version.

Jack

[arrowmntdiesel]

Welcome th the forum Trace. Looking forward to seeing some pictures of your project. I am down in the Medford area and have a stash of parts for these little trucks if you come across something you are looking for. Send me a PM here and i will get it.

Welcome,

Mark

[1981isuzupup]

Picked up the old girl this weekend, she runs like a little tractor.

[puttputtinpup]

Sweet!

[Red Truck]

I have to say that it appears to be in remarkable condition for an '81, especially the interior. Prior owner(s) must've taken good care of it; that's a good sign. Great find!! And even more remarkable is the WA plate registration is current (joking)! /R

[Isuzu Faster]

Very nice truck, Trace. As Red Truck says, that DLX interior is in immaculate shape. Looks to be .3 of a mile away from a "big rotation" on the odometer too!

[1981isuzupup]

Thanks for your nice comments. I think my wife is jealous of this ole girl, she said I love it more than her haha! I've done a lot to it in the month I've owned it, just fixing little issues but trying to make it to factory condition, here's a few things I fixed:

1.) Glow plug system. The guy had a 12V relay hooked up to the glow plugs and obviously burned them up. Through this forum I was able to troubleshoot the system and found the root cause to be glow plug relay 1, it had voltage in but not out. I took the relay off and shook it, I noticed a rattle immediately. The screw that hold in the electromagnet fell out and the wires were broken inside, I cut open the relay and soldered the wires back together and it fired up within seconds!
2.) The heater was blowing out cold air and the owner that I bought it from said the heater core was bad. I removed the coolant lines and flushed out the heater core multiple times with my garden hose and nozzle until the brown water turned clear, I did this twice. I put my laser thermometer on the heater vent and now she blows out at 120F.
3.) I put a nice factory style muffler on it.
4.) I disassembled the speedometer and removed all the odometer gears, cleaned and lubricated them and re-installed.
5.) Removed ugly lumber rack.