Any BMW diesel guys here?

yeah, Ford was good for a "Replace Engine" lamp. This one is fancy, it has one for Oil and one for Temp so you at least know what problem is going to destroy your engine.

I know the baby LTD. basically a 4 door Mustang. In 1985 you could get the LTD LX which actually could be had with the 5.0 HO throttle body engine, exactly the driveline used in the auto Mustang that year. Most of them had a V6 or a small straight six, but I think they may have even offered a 2.3 4 cylinder as well. The Fairmont could have been had with a 4 banger and it was pretty much the same car.
I actually had an '85 LTD LX! It was a rust bucket that I bought cheap and was going to swap the goodies to a cleaner car, but never ended up doing it. I just sold parts off from it. I think they only made 3,260 of them in '84 and '85. They had a LOT of options like quick ratio steering, heavier front and added rear sway bar, limited slip rear end with 3.27 gears, gauge cluster with tach, console with floor shifter, etc. The earlier LTDs had the inline 6 or the four banger (rare), and the 4 banger cars even had a 4 speed option (super rare). The later ones had a TBI 3.8 V6.

There was even a sweet white LTD LX in Hot Rod Magazine once. The title of the article was "Find the hidden Mustang Cobra" It had a bunch of motor work done, a 5 speed swapped in, suspension and brake work done, and Cobra R wheels.:bowdown:
110large-1985_ford_ltd_lx-side_view.jpg
Edit: Here's the article.
http://www.hotrod.com/articles/55758-1985-ford-ltd-lx/
 
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If you bought the same caddy with the gas engine and it was as rough and noisy and poor running as the deisel that was available.
You'd bring it back to the dealer screaming.

This is no reflection on your project Gadget , or diesels in general. Just a thought that popped into my head. :dunno:
When the BMW diesel came to the US in the late '80s, the market had already been decimated by the failure of the Oldsmobile diesel cars. BMW marketed the car (to their dealers, at least) as "the first diesel car that won't be embarrassed by . . . " and inside the box was a TAG/Heuer stop watch (which I still have). We took a lot of flack for it being based on a stock Otto-cycle engine block but at that time only Peugeot had a diesel with a specific diesel engine block and it was the slowest, noisiest, and smoked more than any of the others from M-B, Audi, and BMW. My only regret was that BMW never brought the diesel here with the manual gearbox. Oh, and that they all had that crappy belt!
Nice to see you resurrecting one! :beerchug:
 
I actually had an '85 LTD LX!
rare one indeed. I know a guy who had a former police service LTD LX. Not sure what he did with it, it was his second cop car project, along side a 1991 Vic that was a former sherrif's car.

yeah the belt isn't awesome but its not that hard to change at least. I don't think I'd want to run this as a daily driver for a pile of reasons, belt maintenance among them, but I'll put up with it for light usage duty. It would be fun to take this to the Ford Nationals at Carlisle and assemble a complete 80s Ford diesel lineup with an Escort, a Tempo and a Ranger to keep the Continental company. Those are all pretty uncommon too, and may actually have an even worse survival rate than the Lincolns do.
 
rare one indeed. I know a guy who had a former police service LTD LX. Not sure what he did with it, it was his second cop car project, along side a 1991 Vic that was a former sherrif's car.

yeah the belt isn't awesome but its not that hard to change at least. I don't think I'd want to run this as a daily driver for a pile of reasons, belt maintenance among them, but I'll put up with it for light usage duty. It would be fun to take this to the Ford Nationals at Carlisle and assemble a complete 80s Ford diesel lineup with an Escort, a Tempo and a Ranger to keep the Continental company. Those are all pretty uncommon too, and may actually have an even worse survival rate than the Lincolns do.
Don't forget the Thunderbird! Yeah, I know, but I also know what I saw and we had a Ford rep driving a Thunderbird diesel come to our shop looking for engine parts that the Ford dealer didn't have. Pre-Production prototype? Test mule? Probably, but it existed.

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Huh, never heard of a Tbird diesel. Wouldn't surprise me if they ran some test mules though. Its very close to the same car as a Mark VII so it would have been a snap to put the BMW diesel in there. Maybe they were originally thinking to put it in the Tbird? Also not impossible you saw a pre-production Mark VII diesel. I have seen a picture somewhere of a Mark VII with the 4 sealed beam headlights like the Tbird had. Apparently it was designed as a "plan B" in case they couldn't get approval for the composite headlights used on the Mark VII.

Honestly it seems to me the Lincoln diesel program was a bit hastily done. I have the stack of 1984 shop manuals, and there is a specific supplement for the diesel stuff on both the mechanical and the electrical manuals. Makes me think the manuals were written before they decided to put this engine in, and then they had to write up an additional chunk of literature.
 
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