Should I buy this 1983 Ford F-150 diesel since I can’t get my 1985 Jeep J10 through the California emissions?

It’s a mostly rust-free manual transmission diesel pickup truck for just $5,900 or best offer. How am I supposed to resist this, especially considering where I stand with my Jeep J10? (I can’t get it through California emissions). Then again, maybe I should hold on to the J10 and see if I can figure it out somehow, because I love that machine with all my heart. I’m honestly not sure what to do.

One could argue that since I’m getting married in 13 days (and our wedding car isn’t ready for prime time yet), I shouldn’t be looking at cars.

I already have two BMW i3s, so why did I drive all the way to Irvine last week to see this 2015 BMW i3?

The answer, of course, is that it was one hell of a deal. $7000!

But I resisted since the i3’s battery appeared to be about 75% charged. That means it’s just above the 70 percent threshold required to get a free replacement from BMW, but it’s lower than the battery percentage that everyone actually wants to own. 75% of the 75 mile range equals a 56 mile range. In fact, the white car above was reading 54, so it may have been at 72% health, although the car’s “Kapa Max” battery reading of 14.5 indicates it is at 77%. In any case, somewhere in the world there is a bad region that you don’t want to be in.

During my test drive, the car battery’s charge level dropped from 60 to 57 percent in just one mile, showing me that the battery’s health may actually have been worse than 70 percent. But my trip was only one mile long, so I didn’t have enough data and didn’t want to risk it.

If I had bought it for $7,000 and then paid taxes, I wouldn’t have been able to easily sell the car for any significant profit unless the battery was replaced under warranty, and that wasn’t a certainty, so I did decided not to bother.

Then we have this 1983 Ford F-150 for sale for $5,900 or Best Offer. I looked at it earlier today; The truck has a little rust in the corners of the cab and around the drip rails, but otherwise it is solid:

The interior needs some padding and steering wheel repairs, and the dashboard needs covering, but it’s not too bad.

Even the engine sounded quite pleasant at idle and there was no smoke coming from the exhaust.

Unfortunately smoke did Billows from the oil filler pipe of the 6.9 liter IDI diesel. Listen:

Some have told me this is pretty normal, but I asked a gentleman named Cody who was selling his 1986 Bull Nose F-250 Diesel if he smoked and he sent me this video:

So I decided to give up on the very first Ford diesel pickup truck offered in the US

The Ford would have been an easy way to get a soulful work truck that doesn’t have to endure the smog, as I currently own a 1985 Jeep J10 that just can’t get through it. Should I continue looking for a pre-1975 truck, should I buy a diesel like the F-250 I was looking at, or should I try a fuel injected 4.0L truck from a ZJ into mine Replacing a truck? (I have a spare lying around).

Honestly, my J10 is a little underpowered, so that extra 78 hp and 15 lb-ft would Be nice. Maybe I could actually carry things without it feeling so terrible. So a 4.0 swap could be interesting, although the California government bureaucracy I would have to deal with would be tough, especially if I were doing what I really want to do: a fuel injected 4.0 cylinder head on the 258 engine block swap my truck.

So that might be the route I take, even though that smoky old diesel F-250 is tempting.