Originally Posted By: StormRider
Ford 3.0 Vulcan V6
Chevy 350 (pre-Dexcool)
There was a diesal Nissan pickup in the mid 80s that was a company truck for the shop my dad worked for (standard cab 2wd Long bed, 5spd). It was dangerously slow but the truck rusted out around the engine..
My dad also had a gas Nissan pickup of the same vintage when I was a kid that was relegated to parking lot duty (pulling tires from the warehouse at the shop) with very short trips. It leaked oil and coolant like crazy towards the end of its life (at least 200K if not more) but it always started up and ran. They finally go rid of it after I went to college.
During the 1980s, the gasoline 4 cylinder in Nissan trucks got the Z24 series engine. I tried my best to help a guy with his 1985 pickup, because it had tons of vacuum lines for all the low-tech smog equipment. It wouldn't run right, and at 200K, I couldn't be sure if the smog junk was failing him, or if the engine was out of life.
Later, Nissan trucks got a KA24E or KA24DE engine, those were tough as well.