Military Dodge with Perkins Diesel?

[84cucv1009]

Back in1996 i wnt to a local scrapyard and wreckersevice to buy some "new"
Tires for my M880. The owner of the company was a czech guy who bouhgt
some Dodge D200 crewcab trucks to convert them into tow trucks. He also sold some surplus parts and tires for this trucks.
When i was in his shop, i saw in an edge of the shop an mid seventies Dodge
W300 cab and chassis truck with dual rears, no bed and military paint.
All i could see is that the truck was in good shape (in 1996) and i ask what is
whith this truck, so the owner told me it was for sale and it has an Perkins
inline sixcylinder diesel engin whith about 160 hp. i couldn´t believe it and ask
him about a cummins swap, but he says no no it is a perkins the cummins is in his other civilian D350 towtruck.
Since this i search on information about dodge trucks whith perkins diesel, but
the only thing i found was the Mitsubishi diesel engine in the late seventies.
Who has an idea ?

 

[trog]

Dodge offered the 354 Perkins option in the 1967 3-ton, of which I had two that served me for many miles. These were flatbed trucks and would get 20 miles per gallon at 55 mph, without a load, if I had ventilated racks behind the cab. With solid racks the mileage was 15mpg at 55 mph.

 

[84cucv1009]

Hi Trog,

thanks for the information.
How long was this engine available and was it used in military trucks?
The truck i had seen was built between 1973 and 1978.

 

[Ruppster]

Dodge started using the engine in the early 60's heavy duty trucks (500 and 600 series). From what I understand there was a couple of special order 1 ton (300 series) 4x4 trucks built with the engine. Some info about it can be seen at:

Big Dodge Trucks:'61-'71 Dodge Truck Website


I have several scanned images from Dodge truck brochures from the 60's and 70's on my dodge-semis.com web site that have info about the Perkins diesels in heavy duty Dodge trucks. I think they used them up till the mid 70's.

1962 Dodge Truck Diesel Power Brochure

1964 Dodge Truck Gas & Diesel Engine Brochure Pages 12 & 13


As far as military use I don't think they were bought by the military with a Perkins but I think there were some companies that specialized in converting ex-military Dodges to Perkins power.

Ruppster
www.dodge-semis.com