4BT's-Get them when you can!

[Doc Dave]

I haven't been watching Dove Bid lately, because I got my 4BT for a future project, but from the chatter on various forums people who are thinking about re-power with one may want to get their engine sooner than later.
These engines are becoming more and more popular for re-powers of power wagons and other off road trucks like Jeeps and Isuzus, etc, and I just found out something else that makes me wonder about future availablility of inexpensive used 4BT's.
One of my clients is a Frito Lay manager who used to drive for them. He told me that the last group of trucks the regional office bought recently are powered by gasoline engines, not the diesels.
When asked why, he said that the longevity of the gas engines has improved a great deal, and they are cheaper to buy. I am sure the corporate number crunchers have worked this out ad nauseum for the bread vans, and I wonder if this is a glimpse of things to come.

[CGarbee]

True about Frito-Lay and some of the other sources that DoveBid auctions trucks for, but don't forget that the recent FedEX trucks (just before Freightliner Custom Chasis switched to the MBE unit as standard) had the B3.9-170 in them backed by an Allison automatic... :)

Of course, if you can figure out how to import parts from Argentina, my friend Juan on the www.g741.org forum posted the following in a diesel conversion thread (excerpted here):

"You know that, down here, Ford F100s (the same as yours F250 superduty) comes from factory with a Cummins 4BT/ZF5S-42/NV273 combo?
The engine is a 16 valve Common rail direct fuel injection, rated at 203HP and 550Nm."

and

"Another odd thing, the Chevy Silverado came with an MWM (Nice fast, brazilian make) 4.2 L6 turbo diesel engine rated at 160Hp without intercooler plus the ZF S5-42. Meanwhile Ford F-100 Loaded (luxury) models came with the same MWM engine rated at 180Hp with intercooler (Base models came with the cummins 4BTA rated at 145Hp) and the same tranny till last year when they switch to Cummins all around, top models and crew cabs sporting the 180Hp cummins CRD. Who would have thought? Chevy-Ford drivetrain cousins."

I figure that when 4BT's dry up, we'll find something else to replace them.. :)

[MoparNorm]

.....One of my clients is a Frito Lay manager who used to drive for them. He told me that the last group of trucks the regional office bought recently are powered by gasoline engines, not the diesels.
When asked why, he said that the longevity of the gas engines has improved a great deal, and they are cheaper to buy. I am sure the corporate number crunchers have worked this out ad nausea for the bread vans, and I wonder if this is a glimpse of things to come.

I'm sure that after an adult looks at the operating cost of those gassers and with diesel prices consistently 50 cents a gallon cheaper than gas....that there will be quite a few number crunchers out of work soon......

[Doc Dave]

Norm,
California is different than much of the U.S. when it comes to fuel prices.
Until recently, diesel has been more expensive than regular here in the mid atlantic states (and also down south when I was there). This price disparity had been going on for about two years.
Why, I do not know.
Only in the last month or so has regular eclipsed the cost of diesel here.

[MoparNorm]

The price structure is exactly the same here, diesel's been higher artificially for about two years.
However if you do the math, because diesel gets 30-35% better fuel economy, diesel would have to be over $4.50 a gallon before gasoline powered motors make sense. The price premium for diesel motors is paid back in about 70,000 miles or less. When you also consider the dramatically lower maintenance costs...those bean counters are abject failures.

[Doc Dave]

Maybe they are looking at simply the original cost. If they kept them any length of time it would seem the diesels would make more sense.

[MoparNorm]

I'm sure that's all they are looking at.
Anyone with any deductive reasoning powers would figure out the long term benefit of diesel in about 2 minutes. Diesels hold the key to our future ability to be free of foreign oil dependency, cleaner air, improved performance and lower costs.

[Sickcall]

Norm, I'd like to fill up at your pump but I can't understand how diesel has been both atificially higher for the last two years and consistently 50 cents a gallon cheaper?? I am ready to swipe my plastic but need an explaination.

[MoparNorm]

Norm, I'd like to fill up at your pump but I can't understand how diesel has been both artificially higher for the last two years and consistently 50 cents a gallon cheaper?? I am ready to swipe my plastic but need an explaination.

Well,.... you combined two completely different paragraphs, in two completely different posts, so I'll try to clear that up without getting political.

In fact today I filled up and diesel is now 63 cents a gallon cheaper than gasoline.

Diesel is about half the cost of gasoline to refine. It gets filtered down or "cracked" less than gasoline, it has less additives than gasoline so the refining cost should be much less than gasoline. I'd suspect that the refiners are not passing along it's true cost. On the other hand, since all prices should, in a perfect world, roughly if not exactly reflect the law of supply and demand, this is what happened:

After Katrina, approximately 40% of all American refining capacity was temporarily disrupted, both by the storm and by the market pressures placed upon other regions of the country. Because of environmental rules the various regions of the US have different fuel standards and fuel formulas. To prevent chaos at the pump and keep the nations economy running, these regulations were temporarily suspended by Executive (The President) Order to allow any fuel mixture to be used at any national location. That allowed CA fuel to be used in Louisiana and Texas fuel to be used in CA and so on and so forth. That allowed refiners, with un-interrupted capacity, to ship their fuels to other locations without changing the refining methods and losing valuable time in the transition.
The paramount importance was to keep the nations citizens moving without undue hardship and some petroleum was shifted away from diesel production and was shifted to gasoline production to insure a steady flow of gasoline to citizens (read voters). Remember, this was two years ago, the same time at which diesel prices rose and the same time that the midterm elections took place.
Diesel prices rose because of the artificial decrease in supply while demand held steady, diesel is used (in one form or another) as heating oil, jet fuel, train, ships, trucks and rabid Dodge Cummins owners...
This flooded the market with gasoline and resulted in the $1 per gallon drop in gasoline prices last year as supplies rose.

Meanwhile the economy powers on and demand has remained high for diesel because of the popularity of diesel pick-ups, improving diesel technology in autos and a booming economy (despite what the liberal press spins at you) Heavy truck traffic is up, shipping is up, jet travel is up and heating oil demand was high last winter in anticipation of a cold winter.

However the winter was not as cold early as most "experts" thought and heating oil sales were weak. With unsold inventory there remained more diesel in the system than expected and supply rose. When demand is less than supply, the price drops. When supply cannot keep up with demand the price raises. It's a fundamental law of economics, no amount of tweaking, conspiracies or voo-doo logic can change that, the market runs by supply and demand.

Driving is up this year, gasoline supplies are caught short. The price rises to match the demand and also to mitigate the driving, it's a self correcting market, so prices should begin to lower soon. Keep in mind that summer vacation season is just around the corner and many people will be driving more and thereby putting upward pressure on gasoline prices again.

In spite of the current cost of fuel, when adjusted for inflation, the price is less of our paycheck than when we were paying 33 cents a gallon back in the 60's. In fact if you price bottled drinking water, gasoline is cheaper per gallon than water, so don't get your hopes up on hydrogen, water is over $5 per gallon.
The future of America is diesel, the sooner we phase out gasoline and get to a one fuel market the better we will be and we have the opportunity to be independent of foreign oil within 10 years if we start today.

Diesel is cheaper to produce and operate than gasoline, ethanol, and hybrid electric. In fact the ethanol gambit is a shell game, costing more in the long term than gasoline ever will. Making fuel from food is idiocy, corn prices are already going dramatically up.

We should be producing non-food oils from "trash crops*" and over abundant crops that can be used to produce vegetable oil diesel, not bio but pure P100 fuels that the diesel was originally designed to run on in the 1800's. Vegetable oils can easily be made from the 'non-food'* byproducts of crops and converted cheaply without disrupting the food supply.

* we pay farmers not to grow soy-beans and other bean and tuber crops that could easily be converted to vegetable oil without disrupting corn production. Sugar cane and beets are another source of oil.

[Sickcall]

Norm, thats exactly what I thought you said er meant! I can agree with all you posted except the simple supply and demand part. There is just too much manipulation on the supply side for the economics 1A to be true. The oil companies and government still control it all.

[MoparNorm]

Norm, thats exactly what I thought you said er meant! I can agree with all you posted except the simple supply and demand part. There is just too much manipulation on the supply side for the economics 1A to be true. The oil companies and government still control it all.

Note my preface:
"On the other hand, since all prices should, in a perfect world, roughly if not exactly reflect the law of supply and demand, this is what happened:"

You must remember that the "Oil Companies" are not what we think they are, the "Oil Producers" ie: the governments of middle east countries, are now the oil producers, they control the flow and the price artificially. Our Oil Companies are mere refiners these days. They no longer control the price. Also government regulations and taxes artificially influence the market, taxes are over 54 cents per gallon in CA, even with the huge profits that oil companies make (because these are huge quantities of oil being sold), the government makes more per gallon than the oil companies make, which is on average about 32 cents per gallon.

At the end of the day, it's still supply and demand, plain and simple. If we changed our habits and drove energy efficient vehicles the world would be awash in cheap oil in about 14 days. Producers, refiners, governments, cannot influence the price without our help, if we need to have a bogeyman to blame, we need look no further than our mirrors....

[MoparNorm]

Posted this today at the fuel cost thread, but since those guys just got in a spaceship and left the building I thought I'd re-iterate about how stupid/short sighted /dumb (insert your term here) those bean counters are:

... about 4bts being phased out by bean counters for gassers motors, AND my point that diesels are the one true answer for energy conservation and economic independence,...I ran these numbers, feel free to check the math:
A diesel powered truck is driven 20,000 miles per year.
It gets 16 mpg average. It used 1,250 gallons per year.
The price of diesel is $2.97*, those 1,250 gals. cost $3,712.50.
A gasoline powered truck driven the same 20,000 miles per year.
It gets 13 mpg average. It used 1,539 gallons per year.
The price of gasoline is $3.53*, those 1,539 gals. cost $5,430.76.
The diesel @ only 3 mpg better (that's giving the gasser a huge benefit of the doubt!) costs $1,718.26 less to operate. In 5 years that is $8,591.30 less to operate than a gasoline powered truck.
Deduct the extra $3,500 cost of the diesel and you're still way ahead, multiply by the number of trucks in an average fleet and you'll see why those bean counters should be fired and how easy it would be to save millions across the nation.

We know that the true difference between a 4bt and a gasser is much more than 3 mpg and I assume that fleet trucks are driven WAY more than 20,000 miles per year, so the savings are huge! It sounds like there is a kick back going on between the so called bean counters and the gasser salesman....because the true savings is probably closer to $5,000 per year per vehicle, even AFTER the cost of the motor is factored in...

* I'm using current SoCal prices.

[BobbyMike]

Norm, I followed up your post on the other thread, but I realize that this might be a better one to ask this in.
I seem to recall that you had posted some reasons why the US lagged behind everyone else in Diesel engine usage in passenger cars. Was it emission related?
Please elucidate.

[MoparNorm]

Europe, especially the German home of Rudolf Diesel, has been receptive to diesels because their fuel costs are higher than ours and anything that saves fuel is looked upon favorably. European emission standards for diesels are a tad ahead of ours and for years the environmentalist in the US have tried to kill diesels because they think of them as dirty, smelly and gross polluters. The regs in CA are so strict that most diesels cannot be sold there or the 4 other states that adopted CA emission standards. With the advent of ULSD and new technologies, the diesel is clean enough to meet those regulations next year and that will see a big breakthrough in diesel usage as the consumer is starting to "get it" when it comes to diesels. I forget the brand, (Audi?) but there is one car racing in CamAm road racing this season with a diesel and F-1 has talked about making ALL F-1 racers V-6 diesels. That would really propel diesel technology!

[BobbyMike]

Thanks, I thought that it was something like that.

[Warren Watt]

to jump to gassers need to talk to the mechanics who maintain the fleets. I believe that their insight based on maintenance related occurrences would really be a telling thing. The longevitiy of the diesel vs the gasser would enter into it as well as the routine maintenance involved.
Of course, I know that those two departments are light years apart and probably don't communicate so it is not likely to happen. But, the bottom line is just that, so why can't they see those other costs??

[pybyr]

here's my $0.03 on the diesel vs gas question

I'd _always_ wanted a cummins diesel... finally bought one in April '06. BEST vehicle I have ever owned. Zero manufacturing defects, and torque like it was going out of style; very respectable mileage for a vehicle of its size and mass. Come cold weather, though, with a commute of under 10 miles each way, it barely ever warmed up. Aside from the fact that this was uncomfortable, I figured it couldn't be good for the engine in the long run. Yes, I could've done the block heater/ paid through the nose for a jake brake to help it warm up, etc., but in the end I, with lots of regret, traded it (it did incur very little depreciation, confirming that diesels hold value well) for a little practical gas AWD car BUT the happy ending portion of the story is that the cheapness of my little practical daily driver car allowed me to recently buy my 1951 M-37-- so now I have a truck that is even more 100% real truck than my '06 Dodge Cummins was, and I don't even have to have a truck that makes any pretense of making a practical daily vehicle. My conclusion, for me-- diesels are great IF you don't live in a cold climate OR, even if you live in a cold climate, IF you really, really need the heavy hauling capability or will drive a LOT of miles and really, truly, unlike most of the American public, intend to keep that one vehicle for many years and many miles. I do look forward to the ongoing-ly-improved diesels that are reputed to be ready to come out in the coming few years in more and more different vehicles.

Trevor, in VT

[pybyr]

PS to my last post, every time I see a Dodge Cummins on the road, I do practically feel like it's a reminder of an old love that slipped away. So it's not as if the appeal and benefits of a diesel is lost on me; just sort of like a situation like a wonderful ex who just wasn't cut out to be with me... Only a truck owner could think this way... proving that you can take the boy out of the truck but not the truck out of the boy (and thus, my new romance with my M-37)

[MoparNorm]

I've noticed that my Cummins is slow to warm up also, even in SoCal it takes about 3-4 miles before the heater or defroster start to work. I've had it in temps as cold as -18 and it was the howl of banshees when it fired up, but it still only took the 3-4 minutes to warm up. I wonder if that is common or if there are any fixes that the guys in MN and AK use to get heat into the cab earlier?
Seems kind of silly to use a manifold heater here, when it's only down to 50 degrees at night....

And, yes, I'd be driving a newer vehicle now, to replace my gasser, but I'm also waiting for the new diesels to come out. In CA. you can no longer get diesels as most small diesels are 45 states only because of the Gang of 5 (CA and 4 other leftist states that adopted CA emissions regulations). Time to move to America.

[Chris Olson]

In the winter you always have to use a winter front to block the radiator..
waaay up north (like in the alberta tar sands) the guys just don't ever shut the trucks off...

[IHWillys]

In the winter you always have to use a winter front to block the radiator...

I wondered for a long time why one needed to cover the rad when the thermostat should stay closed until the coolant temp is up. Then I finally owned a vehicle on which the need arose. I was very surprised to find the cycling thermo was allowing the coolant to 'overcool' while sequestered in the radiator with a closed thermostat. Ie, the thermo opens and the coolant that's been sitting in the radiator getting thoroughly cooled down flows into the hot engine and causes the thermo to close, leaving a new charge of hot coolant to sit in the radiator where it gets overcooled just to have the cycle happen again. I sat there with an idling engine(231 Buick in a CJ5) feeling the radiator warm up, cool off, warm up, cool off, etc. and it dawned on me...

Ken

[Charles Talbert]

Been working with diesels, both large & small for over 30 years. All are slow to warm on cold mornings/days. Many older trucks were equipped with thermostatically controlled radiator shutters operated by what is called a shutterstat. This instrument screws into the water jacket for temp sensing, controls an air operated cylinder to open & close the shutters. We had a number of Macks with the shutter systems. Now days the shutters are mostly gone, vinyl winter fronts have taken over where the shutters used to be. Either does the job of holding the temp even very well.

[Juan]

MoparNorm, Down here in Argentina in ´95 a mexican bread company (Bimbo) landed with a lot of fanfarre. They refuse to use our MB, Iveco´s Diesel delivery vans and Imported thousands of Grumman/Chevy P30 "bread vans" cause they said the bread van was kind of a trade mark for their company. The mistake that costed a couple of "counter beaners" (was that your term?) their job was, that they imported the trucks with the 350 v8/th400 powertrain. At those times the diesel costed usd 0.36 per liter and the gas was usd 1.50 per liter down here, that was expensive in dollars.
In one year all the vans were converted to CNG, they had a 100 mile range in CNG and a lot of reliability issues apeared, most of them operator related due to the fuel conversions. I have a CNG/Gas converted Chevy Malibu but it´s mine and I take good care on how to use it.
How about that as wise business decisions?

Now they are on Iveco´s.