Quarantine Project Thread

[v8volvo]

While many of us are stuck at home more lately, thought it would be fun to start a thread where we can share pictures and updates from projects we are working on in our newfound spare time. These might be D24-related, or anything else -- other vehicles, house projects, whatever seems interesting.

I'll start it off. My current project is an old VW minivan (picture attached) that was diesel-swapped a few years ago by a builder who did a nice job with the conversion, but unfortunately went way overboard with power increases on the engine. This is a little 1.9L engine moving a heavy, tall van, and they tried to compensate for the extra workload by just turning up the fuel and boost, using a set of huge injectors and an aggressive computer chip.

Didn't take long for the poor guy who bought it to blow the engine up climbing a mountain pass, of course. It still starts and runs now, but sounds like no compression on at least one cylinder and a pretty bad tap. Never lost the coolant or oil so hopefully it's rebuildable at least. I'm expecting either a melted or cracked piston, or two, or maybe a badly blown head gasket and/or head. Plans are to refresh the engine (or replace it if this one is too far gone), and get it back down close to stock power output for reliability.

I'm also finally getting started on my Audi Allroad TDI conversion by doing some work preparing the 2004 Passat 2.0L BHW engine that will be going into it. Attached as well are a couple shots of the TDI engine coming out of the donor car last month and one of the Audi eventual swap recipient.

Volvos are temporarily on back burner, but both of them need transmission work or replacements this year, so hopefully give them some attention soon.

What is everyone else working on?