which model gu would be easiest for a td42 swap?

[SilverGQ]

ok, so my 1999 GU dx 4.2 wagon met an untimely end a few weeks back and its been written off as a repairable write off.

I've bought the wreck back from the insurance company, and because the td42 wagons for sale are as rare as hens teeth i and am now in the market for another one to swap the td42 into. The wagon took a hit in the front right corner so apart from the body and maybe a few other bits and pieces everything should be ok to swap over if need be, essentially I'm just looking for a good complete body and chassis to swap everything onto. A zd30 with a blown motor would be good, but with most of those models that were prone to going bang already having detonated and been replaced there not even that many of those around.

now for the questions

1. Which of the models, if any, would be easier to swap the td42 into. I've done a bit of research and from what i can gather know that the rd28/zd30's require one of the engine mounts being moved or relocated, and the gearboxes are different, but with the complete drive train out of the 4.2 this wouldn't be a real drama, and being diesel already would i need to swap the fuel rails and everything over? tb45/48's i heard might be a straight bolt up, but then you have the extra drama of having to swap all the fuel rails and everything over.

2. Engineering wise would there be a drama putting the older motor into a newer body with the emissions and all that?

3. The car was used for towing my play car and trailer and the tow ratings on the other motors are less than the 3.5t of the td42. Is this purely because of the smaller motors, not differences in the chassis or anything??

thats about all the questions at the moment i can think of, so if you can help out with any of it, or if anyone has done the swap and has any words of wisdom feel free to sing out.

cheers in advance!!

oh and one last tip, if you decide to have and accident, dont do it when mother nature decides to try and wipe your state off the map... small time claims like car accidents tend to get put to the bottom of the pile when thousands of people's houses get wiped out, mine took 4 weeks and 2 days from the time of the accident to the money getting deposited into my account.

Cheers, silverGQ

[Josh n Kat]

I'd probably say the petrol 4.5 or 4.8 models just for the fact they match up engine mount and gearbox wise.

you've gotta do a complete wiring loom change anyway so a couple of fuel lines and a tank aren't that much bigger of a task are they (famous last words...)

[lozz_ti]

if you unstitch the mounts off the old chassis u can re weld them onto a 3ltr chassis pretty easily. i've been told by a guy that had done this conversion into a 3ltr that the td42 wiring all plugged straight in and everthing work except his tacho was out of time because its 6cylinder.

i dont know how true the wiring is but if it is i would go that way. but it is getting hard to find a blown up the 3ltr these days.

i've just about finished doing a td42 conversion into my ti gu. ended up being more exy then i thought. but i also went from auto to manual and put a turbo on at the same time. plus having to do wiring as well.

hope that helps, lozz