Are Nissan diesel trucks good for a 'stealth' house truck?

[dburt]

Here is some info and pics on a 'stealth house truck' I bought at auction the other day. It's an '04 Nissan UD 1400 box truck. It has a 4.6L 4-cylinder diesel with an auto o'drive transmission, 131,000 original miles, power locks, windows, tilt and telescopic wheel, A/C that works, good tires, runs and drives well. It has a 14-ft box with a nifty tuck away lift gate that could be a cool rear 'stow-away back porch'. It was a lease return and I bought it to resell, but I'm now curious about Nissan diesels, does anyone out there know anything about them? Are they good engines, do they have any built in flaws, etc?

I can't really afford to keep it to make a 'stealth' camper out of it, but the old creative juices got to flowing as I looked at this blank white canvas and thought of all the neat things a person could do with this truck. Maby put in some windows, a curbside door, and use it both for a truck to move stuff, and have some removeable modular type cabinets and appliances that you could put in when you wanted to go camping, etc.

If the diesel engine is a good one, and it would get decent mileage, it might be a good truck to build up. Or maby I'm just dreamin'?

[Dualfuel]

Perhaps this may help,

I have owned my Nissan SD22 four cylinder diesel since 1989. I bought it in West Germany, with 30000 miles on it. I drove it 60000 miles without having to do anything to the engine. At 90000 miles I replaced the Airconditioning belt.
Years ago, the body got too rough to use, but I keep it because the engine runs like a top, and when I drove it, the lowest mileage I got was 30mpg, with the best being 50mpg.
My SD22 seems to run better on B100 then pump diesel as well. There was a noticiable difference in the amount of smoke at start up.

Nissan has been selling diesels in the US since the late sixties, they started out with a partnership with Chrysler. If I could get Nissan bodies here on the island, I would be driving a Nissan. Sadly, that is not the case, but if you have parts availability there, then I'd give the Nissan high marks.
BPJ

[rlaggren]

Isuzus have been the gold standard of cheap-to-run reliable forever trucks since at least 1998. I suspect many of the other imported cubes provide good value also.

One cube-home I saw at Pescadero beach a couple years ago had no windows but huge skylights. The guy figured he could enjoy the weather while nobody knew he was there.

Rufus