Bump diesel?

[rltvader]

Ak at the yards today I saw a bump diesel in the parking spaces, not in the junkyard, someone drove it. Unfortunately I couldn't get a pic in time. It had a weird grille, looked like a 70, but had straight slats instead of a grid with a bar in the middle.
I haven't ever seen one Nd assume they are rare. Looked like a 2wd shortbed. Does any one have any more info on these? I'm intersted.
Btw, it even had a ford diesel badge on the side of it.

[fireguywtc]

there is no way it was factory, had to be a retrofit of some kind. there were some interesting retrofits but no factory diesels in bumps afaik.

[rltvader]

Ok, I'll try to keep an eye out for it do I can get a picture.

[ScottT80]

Someone close to me had built a '70 Highboy with a 7.3 in it.

[FormerMarine1981]

Only Factory diesels in bumps were in other countries like Brazil. AFAIK

[1972hiboy]

Somebody had brought this up a while back. I think somebody saw a bump on craigslist that was stated to have a diesel in it. I think I remember some conversation about a datsun/nissan diesel option or maybe it was a chrysler engine? But yea prob a Brazil thing.

[averagef250]

No factory diesels in the bump pickups in the US. But...

Even back then conversions were pretty popular. Diesels weren't as common or cheap back then so a deal had to be found or the one doing it had to have deep pockets. A lot of the older conversions I've seen were done by diesel parts distributors/repair shops back then. These would have been service trucks or outside sales trucks for the companies own use. I've also heard stories of guys ordering a brand new Ford pickup to take it straight to a truck shop or machine shop for a new diesel engine to be installed. This type of stuff happened, but not very often.

The two primary diesel engines that would have been popular to put in pickups in the 70's were the Perkins inline sixes and 53 series Detroits, but there were all kinds of other engines available too if the installer found a deal and was inclined enough to machine his own transmission adapters. There were some Cat engines that sorta fit in pickups, lots of IH and Deere agricultural engines, some Mercedes stuff and Isuzu came into the repower picture pretty strong in the late 70's. Tons of 6BD1 Isuzu conversions were done in the NW in the late 70's/early 80's- I'm still surprised how common these are 30 years later.