Plenty of people swap out the engines in their car. Honda has the K and B engine swaps while the muscle car crowd has the LS swap. Changing out the engine for a higher power alternative is nothing new. Although plenty of people are trying to create the next coolest car or in this case, truck.
John Deere is a tractor company that has been around for about 184 years. They specialize in creating agricultural, construction, and forestry machinery. you’ve probably seen some of the machinery posted with a deer logo.
The founders of Kern Machinery, which sells John Deere equipment, started selling tractors in 1969. Years later they passed the reigns onto their children. Clayton Camp who is one of the sons, and a VP for Kern Machinery, decided to build a 1969 GMC truck.
The twist was he wanted to swap a John Deere diesel motor into the truck. Instead of taking an old engine out of a tractor, Clayton’s brother donated a new 4 cylinder engine. The engine output is 170hp when mated with a turbo. The truck also has a custom six-speed Allison automatic transmission.
There is tons of metal fabrication that had to be done to get it all to fit. Because this had never been done before. Mark Campanella who is a service manager for Kern Machinery, had to enlist a CNC shop to get some of the metal fabricated. After the parts were made Campanella welded them together to support the transmission and other parts of the truck.
There is A/C in the truck and the owner opted to have cruise control. With these accessories, you can drive this truck daily. Plus it will probably outlast most diesel engines.
If you’ve ever heard a John Deere running it has a distinct sound. When they start up the truck on camera there’s no doubt that its powered by Deere.
How are they controlling the trans ?