I have been wanting to do a diesel swap into a 60s travelall for some time, and when I saw this one pop up I decided to go check it out since the diesel was already there. It's really cool, but it is a lot more project than I can take on right now. If I had somewhere to store it, I would consider it for a long-term (1-2 year) project, but I do not.
The pickup body (and maybe even the frame) is totaled, and from its state I would assume that any mechanicals would need to be rebuilt. The axles could be useful but the rest of the pickup is basically parts or scrap. 70s IH pickups are very cool, but there are plenty around still that are in much better condition than this one.
On the Travelall, to do it right, at a minimum the front floors, rear fenders, and parts of the front end sheet metal would need to be cut out and replaced (rust). I've already done this on my Scout II, it's not too bad of a job if you know how to weld, but it's still a lot of work, or a lot of money to have someone else do it. Plus, you can never know the extent of the damage until you start cutting, so expect it to get worse from there. Surprisingly, the cowl and rockers seemed solid, but it's impossible to tell what was going on behind the visible parts. The roof is caved in (looks like someone jumped on it), not bad enough that you can really see it from below but again, "to do it right" it would need to be fixed. The headliner needs to be replaced, the paint is shot, brakes are bad, most of the rubber window and door gaskets are shot, and the right rear curved window is very cracked (and made from unobtanium). It was running for about 20 minutes (I took it on a short test drive), and it was belching light colored smoke badly the entire time. I didn't get the chance to figure out if the smoke was water related (coolant/head gasket) or unburnt fuel, but it certainly smelled of fuel, so it could be as easy as an adjustment or air restriction, but it could also mean the injection pump and/or injectors need to be rebuilt. The engine was also stumbling pretty bad at times. This engine had tons of torque and sounded great, so my guess is that the smoke and stumbling would not be too hard to sort out, but it will take someone familiar with diesel engines to do so.
The owners (*very* nice people) said that the axle swap from the pickup that they had planed was to increase the braking capacity, since even when the brakes were working properly (which they are not today) they were never designed to handle the extra weight of the Perkins and that made long downhill grades unsafe. So that would need to be done.
This is a very cool rig but very much a project for someone with a lot of money or time and skills.
