Not sure if the nissan/datsun 2.8 diesels are common over there or not, but they seem to fit nicely in an a-body.
They are kinda old...but...

My ´65 have had one before. Too bad it didn´t come with car...

The Nissan/Datsun 2.8L diesel (LD28) seems like it would be a good choice. Nissan had put diesels in IHI Scouts backed by a Mopar 727, so it makes you wonder if it might work in our cars. Now all I have to do is convince my wife to let me try. Though they are a bit hard to come by and parts can be a bit of a challenge to find sometimes.

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The old white brick

It think this has come up before.

My father in law has a 73 4 door Dart that has "the" Nissan diesel conversion. I have driven the car and it is a bit of a slug. We have no idea who converted it, but the trans adapter and accessory brackets are not one off parts. Some one made a kit or was doing the conversions and was tooled up for the parts.

The story that came with the car was that it was a "factory" set up and very rare. Maybe a dealer somewhere did it, but I really suspect it was just some small shop.

I looked at the car again about a year ago, it has the factory emissions sticker that shows it was a 318 california car. It is a six cylinder and has an adapter plate fitting it to, I think, the stock 904. It may be a 727 but I don't think so. It seems to have the stock torque converter as well, which does not work too well with the diesel. It really should get a tighter converter. It really looks like a fairly simple conversion, even the stock radiator is used with some custom welded tubing on the engine and straight sections of hose.

As far as cleaning up a mid seventies slant, how about a propane conversion? It is hard to imagine it being slower than a diesel.

This slant six diesel thing is a new one on me. Never heard of it before. Take some pics, calc some mileage.

I have a decent 1977 Benz 240d and early in the game thought of putting that engine in an early a body (and putting a SBC back into the benz). My choice would have been a 60-62 Valiant. The 240 weight 3200-3300 lbs so it seems like it would be okay. Stock the 240 is slow, slow, slow. Mine has 297k on it and the blowby will dry your hair, so it's slower, slower, slower. But I drove it daily and managed. A fresh motor in the 240d gets 36 highway. Add a turbo and get a tiny bit more. Lose the 500lbs by putting it in the Valiant, and you got nowhere to go but up.

But after careful consideration I decided not to do it. Mostly because it's a SHAME to put anything in an early valiant other than a slant six. What more could you want?

Also, the benz motor is great in some ways and absolute, insultingly bad garbage in others. Really REALLY bad engineering. I could regale you with dozens of examples, but I won't. At the end of the day, the legendary benz is unreliable and frustrating.

But I am going to hang onto the 2.4 diesel motor in case I get the yen for more punishment. I'm thinking Nash Metropolitan.

Kip-on-Truckin'

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1965 Valiant wagon Turbo slant (work in progress)
2000 Chevy 155" cargo van - The Abductor
1970 Newport convertible
1996 Buick Roadmaster Wagon
1966 CruiseAire motor home
1990 Toyota 1 ton box truck TURBO slant (scraped)

Well, since it will require a lot of effort and wouldn't really provide the outcome I had hoped for I have pretty much given up on this. I may instead go the fuel injection route that I read on this forum. Maybe rebuild the six and perhaps tighten it up a little. At least that is the plan for now, until another bone head idea hits me!

I'm a little sketchy on details here, but there was a diesel option on the duster/sport, about 1975. It was a conversion using a Nissan diesel (as I recall not the Nissan of Datsun Fame), and it was not done in a Mopar factory. The conversion just about doubled the cost of the car. It was short on performance and long on vibration. My impression at the time was that you would have to want a diesel awfully bad to buy one. Somewhere around here I have an article written about it, when I find it I will post some details.

that would be great! I would really like to read the article.

1973, it was. See here . The next time I'm at the downtown reference library; I'll find the article, photocopy it, scan it, and post it here.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

1973 "and later", it actually was, as it seems. Outfit called Wilcap, out of Torrance CA. As promised, here's the article (downloadable PDF...I've configured it so you can zoom in for E-Z reading).

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Zoinks! Never even heard of that! It's making me rethink my abandoned diesel A body plan. I mean....I HAVE the engine, and it's backed with a 4 speed non-overdrive automatic. And I HAVE 3 small spare turbos just lying around. I'm sure $500 would get me an engineless A body of some kind. Perhaps an early van. Perhaps an early Dart. Perhaps a Volare station wagon. Perhaps a K car! Nah...no K cars.

Wait! I got it. Brace yourself......rear engined 64-66 Diesel Barracuda. 60 hp wheelstander. Big vertical exhaust stacks. I even got the name....

Semi Under Glass

Kip-on-Truckin'

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1965 Valiant wagon Turbo slant (work in progress)
2000 Chevy 155" cargo van - The Abductor
1970 Newport convertible
1996 Buick Roadmaster Wagon
1966 CruiseAire motor home
1990 Toyota 1 ton box truck TURBO slant (scraped)

Did I mention that the benz motor is simple it doesn't have electronics? None! Nada! Not one single wire. Put power to the starter, and it starts - it's too stupid to know the difference. Shutting it off works by passing vacuume thru the key (!) which deprives the injection pump of fuel. The world's dumbest engine equals the world's easiest swap.

Things It Doesn't Have:
Doesn't have an ignition system
Doesn't have a throttle
Doesn't have a mixture
Doesn't have a choke
Doesn't have a carb
Doesn't actually make vacuume, has a belt driven vacuume pump
Doesn't have an EGR valve
Doesn't have any sensors of any kind, had a tach but it broke
Doesn't have a neutral start switch (it did, but it broke)
With a turbo, doesn't even need a muffler
Doesn't need fuel - will run on lard, motor oil, transmission fluid, crisco, mine is so shot it will run for a while on it's own crankcase vapors
Doesn't get emissions tested or state inspected in any way. Can be completely unsafe and pollutive - legally!

My wheels are turning....er my WHEEL is turning as it doesn't have a LSD.

Kip-On-Truckin'

_________________
1965 Valiant wagon Turbo slant (work in progress)
2000 Chevy 155" cargo van - The Abductor
1970 Newport convertible
1996 Buick Roadmaster Wagon
1966 CruiseAire motor home
1990 Toyota 1 ton box truck TURBO slant (scraped)

A book to watch for in used-book stores is "How to Convert Your Car, Van or Pickup to Diesel", byPaul Dempsey (Tab books. 1978)
Not a lot of specific how-to information, but he does discuss some of the conversions that have been done.
One interesting quote: "The Valiant seems to be the most popular subject for conversion. Chrysler-Nissan engines will bolt up to the manual or automatic boxes and front-end weight can be compensated for by additional pre-load on the torsion bars."
Trouble is, I don't think that's quite true. Chrysler did import the Nissan 6-33 engine (6 cylinders, 3.3 litres) as an industrial engine but they never put it in a vehicle. I had one in a Ford half-ton with a home-made adaptor. The name cast into the valve cover was Chrysler-Nissan. It has an SAE bellhousing, not Chrysler. It was hopelessly underpowered for the job. I hated it but couldn't kill it.
IH did use this engine in the Scout II and the latest versions were turbocharged. Apparently it was adequate in this application. The Scout used a Torquflite, but as far as I know the bolt patttern was IH, not Chrysler.
Nissan (Datsun) used 2/3 of this engine (called the 4-22) in their early diesel pickups. There was a lot of parts interchangeability between the 4 and 6 cylinder engines. The later pickups used a 2.4 litre engine about which I know nothing.