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Old 05-18-2013, 04:01 PM
raw raw is offline
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Default Converting to D24 :)

hi, i'm new on here but been a member on volvoforums.org.uk for a while. i'm from England and currently 18, my first car is an '89 740 that we bought back in '06 and have been running ever since. i've been maintaining it and learning about it ever since, and driving it since i passed my driving test last year and it's just passed 232000 miles. originally it's a B200E N/A 8 valve petrol 740 GL so pretty pathetic.

here's my thread on volvoforums.org.uk for anyone interested: http://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=99391

plans have always been to put a more interesting engine in when i could afford to, originally it was always probably going to be a B230FT from a 940, but in the last year or so (mainly thanks to Steve with his 960 converted to D24 power), i've been more and more keen on the D24, and eventually decided this was the way i was going to go, but not until i could afford the insurance and had some money for the swap.

as we all know, the best laid plans always go wrong, and on tuesday morning i was pulling off the motorway on my way to university (i'm an aeronautical engineering student), when the temperature skyrocketed and when i managed to pull over i found all my coolant was everywhere but in the engine. first time the car has actually broken down in the 6 years we've had it, but before long (before it had cooled down) i'd decided that the tired, knocking B200 had driven it's last mile, and was on the lookout for a D24TIC

a few months back i had been talking to a guy off the VOC who had advertised a 940 D24 on the forums for sale, and had said that i'd be interested in buying his car maybe, if he could wait till the end of the summer, but i thought that the uncertainty in my emails, and the fact that it would involve a lot of waiting had put him off, and even thought maybe he had sold the car. after trying every volvo specific breaker in england, and drawing a blank, i finally decided to give him a try just in case, and ten minutes later we'd exchanged 5 emails and settled on £350 as a price. if only i'd tried that first! the donor car is a '95 940 which seems to be pretty much tsorlanda spec and has no MOT thanks to rusted sills, however it has a good, well maintained D24TIC and an M90 gearbox (albeit with no synchro on first). still, for that price and given i cant find another i'm not complaining!

here's the for sale thread when the car was first advertised: http://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=172893

so, plan is to swap the engine and drivetrain from the 940 to my 740, along with any other bits that i might need. hopefully this will be fairly soon as i'm getting annoyed with having no car again after just a week! i'll also be nicking a few other bits from the 940 if they're better than mine.

future plans i'm looking at an electric fan conversion, MBC and boost gauge, more fuel and boost (within reason for now), but first i'll be doing a timing belt and all that to basically go stage 0 first. having just finished rebuilding the D5252T (AEL) in mom's V70 i don't want to have another cam belt failure of a Volkswagen diesel to deal with!

that's pretty much it for now, i'll have to get some pics up sometime, but they'll probably be the swap in progress and then the car afterwards rather than any of my stuff from before as i cba to post all the stuff that's in my project thread off VOC again.

hope you all like my plans, if anyone has any advice then please, please give it to me as i need all the help i can get i think!

Richard

Last edited by raw; 05-18-2013 at 04:07 PM.
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Old 05-19-2013, 07:19 AM
v8volvo v8volvo is offline
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Sounds like fun! A handful of us on here have done the gas-diesel swap. It is definitely easiest to do when you have a complete donor vehicle and the space to keep both cars around until the completed swap car is on the road with all the bugs worked out. You will be surprised how many little bits are needed off the diesel to make it all work smoothly! If you're familiar with the innards of the AEL TDI motor you'll have no trouble getting used to working on the D24TIC, they are closely similar in their construction.

The swap is fairly straightforward but it does take quite a bit of time. If this is your only vehicle, you should be prepared to be without it for a while! You can see how I did one here last year: http://www.d24t.com/showthread.php?t=715

My only hints (which I mentioned in that thread) would be to use as many of the original diesel chassis/electrical/fuel system parts as possible to make things fit together. The result is always cleaner, simpler, and easier if you use the bits that are already made for the job instead of trying to re-engineer the whole thing with a welder and a hacksaw. I've worked on a couple of converted wagons (one 740 and two 960's) that were originally built by a guy who decided he couldn't be bothered to take anything except the engine and trans off the donor car, and equally couldn't be bothered to read the wiring diagrams and figure out how to most easily mate the diesel engine wiring with the gasser body. Those cars were a mess -- poorly fitting engines with home-made mounts, lots of wiring snaking everywhere under the hood, vibration problems from the drivetrain mounting geometry being off-kilter, sloppy welding everywhere, etc. Those cars also had constant electrical issues needing fixed. If the original components are used, the end result can be the car looks and works just like a stock diesel Volvo under the hood -- in fact, if you really do it carefully, it should be impossible for an onlooker to tell that it was ever anything other than an original diesel car! Moreover it saves time and hassle for you, both in assembling it and making it reliable afterwards.

All that said -- it's even easier still to buy an original Diesel in good shape and make it nice. There's a forum member selling one here in the UK in pretty good shape for £300: http://www.d24t.com/showthread.php?t=1053 Just one alternative, especially if you need to have a running vehicle in the meantime...

Welcome to the forum -- keep us posted on how it goes and don't forget to post pictures!
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Old 05-19-2013, 09:27 AM
raw raw is offline
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well, i had actually read your thread before i started mine

cheers for all the advice, and the plan is for it to be as though it was always a diesel, i'm a bit of a perfectionist and quite OCD with these things so i'm sure it should be ok. theres no real rush, as i've only actually been driving the car for about a month or so (until then i'd only been insured on and off when i was home from uni) so i'm not really used to having a car on the road. besides, at the moment it barely runs, never mind drives so i have as much time as it takes to get it right, only issue is that i have exams at uni in a week or so and i probably ought to be revising instead!

yes i could just go and buy a D24 car and make it nice, but F69's been with us for 6 years now, and i've got no intentions of getting rid of it, just planning on making it mine. probably not cost effective or practical, but then again you're talking to someone who just rebuilt the top end of a V70 which cost £700 in the end, and the car was only worth at best £1000, so practical isnt what we do really!

more soon

Richard
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Old 05-21-2013, 01:02 AM
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my parts car arrives in less than an hour , will get some pics up when it's here

Richard
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Old 05-21-2013, 12:17 PM
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it's here took it for a quick spin to check it was ok, seems to run nice and goes well on boost, feels a bit quicker than the B200 but it might take some time to start driving it normally as opposed to enjoying the feeling of that turbo coming in! anyway, last quick spin will be around to the yard where i'm doing the swap later i should think

heres the car:



bit scruffy in places:







think this is where the main MOT issue was:



bit of exhaust missing:



hmm, spartan comes to mind, literally seems to be tsorlanda spec, doesn't even have heated mirrors:



M90 goodness



comparisons time:



methinks someone had a boost gauge!



tinkering time began...

it's going to be a right pita as the 940 wiring is quite different form the 740 i assume :| the issue is that although the main loom should be near identical, the washer bottle is on the opposite side of the car, meaning i'll need to use the loom for that from the 940, the battery cables are on opposite sides, so they'll need swapping over, and the engine loom is obviously completely different so i'll need to attach that, along with the glow plug and egr control wiring to my loom, however as the 940 has post face-lift front lights, i'll need to retain the original wiring for my lights. most of the engine bay looms plug into sockets at the bottoms of the a pillars i believe in both cars, so hopefully i'll be able to swap them over and then just sort the bits inside.

progress this afternoon. stripped out the front end of the 940, coolant out, rad and intercooler off, lights out, wiring back as far as i can get it. next is to free the last two wires that go under the engine to the starter, and then that should be the engine free to be lowered out on the crossmember. i'm planning on swapping everything as simply as possible jut to get the D24 into my car as soon as possible, and then get it back to mine to finish the wiring properly on the drive, as the farmer who's barn i'm working in is waiting for a request to ship 300 tonnes of grain that's in the barn behind my cars!

not much particularly interesting from this afternoon, just more and more wires becoming disconjoined form the car

wires everywhere, and this is just the o/s loom!



how it is now, all ready to come out apart from three jobs left i think



then having come home i decided to have a look at the clocks and see if i could sort the rev counter out, side by side you think 940 and 740 clocks are similar just arranged different?



you'd be wrong unfortunately they're completely different, to the point where the 940 revcounter is about 3mm diameter smaller than the hole in the 740, and that's before you even look at the electrics or the mounting

difference between the rev counters:



suppose there's now two options, one, wire up so it hopefully runs the petrol rev counter accurately (cant see why it wouldn't) and look out for a set of preface-lift diesel clocks, or two, swap the dash over and use the 940 ones, or am i now being ridiculous?


Richard
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Old 05-22-2013, 04:12 PM
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WARNING: those opposed to volvo abuse of any kind my wish to avoid looking carefully at the backgrounds of some images in this thread.

motivation is high at the moment put in a 12 hour day working from 9 this morning (was at the yard at half 8 but the keys didn't arrive until later)!

so, progress today, i'll let the pictures do the taking.



convenient having a manitou on hand we found another use for it, but the video didn't work.



old and new





so that's how we are now, all the necessary engine wiring has been separated from the 940, and is ready to be attached to the 740 loom. jobs for tomorrow are:

- acquire new front and rear brake hoses, engine oil and coolant. a proper service with cam belt, oil filter, fuel filter and air filter will be performed soon, as soon as i have the monies as i'm predictably somewhat skint at the moment! - drain 740 fuel tank
- remove diff, prop shaft and fuel tank from 940, along with at least one fuel line.
- remove diff, prop shaft and fuel tank from 740, remove fuel pump and filter,
- replace above with 940 parts
- fit 940 washer bottle, battery tray and air-box to 740
- fit glow plug relay, EGR system and engine loom to 740, run wires through to left footwell
- fit D24 to 740, connect gear linkage, struts, trailing arms, steering column, prop, lines (vacuum, fuel and clutch slave) and wires.
- transfer ARB drop links to replace worn ones off 940
- transfer rack end to replace one i ground off 940 strut :P alternatively, transfer nearly new recon rack form 740 crossmember to 940 as 940 one leaking (will need doing soon if not tomorrow).
- install rad and intercooler, connect
- fill coolant
- fit brake lines
- bleed brakes and clutch
- install battery
- bleed fuel system and start (hotwire necessary connections), remove from yard and drive (500 yards) home to complete wiring ASAP.

necessary wiring, actually a darn sight easier than expected:

- one wire from fuse 13 to glow plug relay (ignition live)
- one wire from existing starter signal to starter and glow plug relay
- oil pressure signal to existing instrument cluster light
- two wires for temperature signal to existing gauge
- alternator charge signal to existing instrument cluster light
- alternator RPM signal to existing rev counter (it's the wire on the spade connector on the back, should get it working, don't know if it'll be accurate or a factor out)
- over-boost signal to instrument cluster light, in my cluster it will appear as choke light, but that can be changed by fitting a diesel warning lights screen
- glow plugs signal to instrument cluster light, don't know where that will appear, but i'm going to wire it as per the green book so it'll be in the right place when i get the right screen.
- make a little loom up from excess wires to connect +12V from the battery to the old battery location to link to the fuse box feed. seems easier than removing the old one and running a new feed. also this loom will have the 5 wires for the washer pumps and the washer level sensor.

hmm, don't know when all this will be done, but i need to get it on wheels by the end of tomorrow as it's blocking the entrance to the barn and the farmer needs to get grain out sometime!

that's all for now

Richard
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Old 05-22-2013, 08:21 PM
v8volvo v8volvo is offline
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Wow, you've already made a lot of progress! I used that same method to pull the drivetrains out of mine when I did the swap. Pretty efficient way of getting it done.

Nice looking color on your 740. Sounds like it should be a very nice setup once done. Yes the clusters are completely different from the beveled later type to the earlier rectangular units. Your best luck to get a tach and glow plug light that works in the rectangular cluster might be to get a junkyard cluster out of a diesel built before 1991 (or before 1988 if it is a 760 -- 760 got that later dash earlier than the rest of the series, the others didn't get it until '91). Could also use a Dakota Digital adapter box to make the gasser tach work -- I have used them before and they work well, but they're spendy (plus shipping from US), and then the redline is in the wrong place anyway.

I have a spare tach from the earlier style cluster I could sell you that would drop into yours, but the shipping cost might be killer and you can probably find a whole diesel cluster easily enough close to you anyway in a junkyard somewhere. That way you'll get the warning light strip with the GP light in it, too. Seems to me that would be the easiest option. I wouldn't want to think about swapping the whole later dash in -- IIRC the climate control setup is different on those later cars too, would be a lot of work to get a tach installed....

Be sure to hang onto those E-code headlight assemblies from the 940 -- those fetch good money if you want to sell them to someone in the US! Much better than the lights those came with on our side of the pond....
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Old 05-22-2013, 08:27 PM
v8volvo v8volvo is offline
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BTW, that 940 does look pretty basic. A 900 series with no A/C and wind-up windows is a strange thing to see! Heated seats, though, of course....
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Old 05-23-2013, 01:24 PM
raw raw is offline
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right, progress report...

today, this happened:







before this, i sorted all the wires for the engine. used the wires from the old engine loom as, with the exception of the glow plug and over-boost warnings, who's wires are used for something to do with the ignition ECU, they're all there and used for the same thing already so this means only two wires need changing behind the dash, and they already go to the drivers footwell. convenient

then i realised i'd forgotten my soldering iron :| then i realised that the farmers dog had eaten my sandwiches :| then it started snowing so i didnt fancy going outside to drop the diff and fuel tank from the 940. instead the engine went in, the mounts all connected, gear linkage in and working, all engine wiring and plumbing is back in and connected, and the 940 washer bottle is in. i realised during this process that the gearbox crossmember is really very rotten, so a new one will need to be made or found in the near future. really isnt good at all! the brakes have been swapped back from the 740 crossmember, as has the rack.

the remaining updated list is:

- soldering
- swap fuel tanks, lines, exhaust, diff and prop
- replace all brake lines
- tighten rack end ball joints
- attach o/s trailing arm (was being a pain so i left it)
- re wrap loom, particularly my +12 that runs across the front (can be seen in the pictures) and ensure it's all secure and not able to wear on anything.
- sort wires for warning lights at clocks end
- remove fuel pump and ignition ECU wiring.
- bleed brakes and clutch
- test all electrics
- bleed injection system
- START!!!!!

also sold the 940 shell, and the V70 for £250 today so will have monies to buy some parts in the morning

thanks again for the comments. it was the forklift through the windscreen to lift it over the engine that i was expecting anger for, but yeah, all worked well!

it is a nice colour, and i really hope so! will look better with better alloys some day and shorter springs (i'm not sure what's available for the D24 cars though?), and all in one colour again would be nice!

already looking for a 740/early 760 TD dash, but for now will have to just see what the petrol rev counter comes out with :P hoping to get boost and pyro gauges in the top corners if i can find some that i can make fit too

yeah, i'll stick to looking in the UK, unfortunately these diesels aren't that common! thanks for the offer, also, thanks for the heads up about the 940 headlights! would probably have junked them not knowing that!

of course it has heated seats :P literally nothing else though, doesn't even have heated mirrors! no A/C is quite common over here though. i do wonder whether it actually is a tsorlanda which has had the decals removed perhaps, it's certainA/C is quite common over here though.

Richard
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Old 07-29-2013, 02:29 PM
m-reg m-reg is offline
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Default 940l

hi that donor car would be a 940L same as the Mreg keep fit windows and all not even got remote locking the only 940 i ever seen without it and it has to be the one i get . was that the one that was on the bay in Northampton a while back?
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