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?

[ngoma]

Tracking down an intermittent electrical problem. GPs energize intermittently when driving (at least indicated by instrument panel orange GP indicator lamp). First thing to look at for any electrical problem on these cars is the wiring-- Bosch soybean-based biodegradable insulation wiring.

Sure enough found bundles of the degraded insulation wiring at the 4-pin GP relay connector.

Managed to re-insulate, using a mixture of Liquid Tape, electrical tape, and heatshrink tubing. Problem persists so I need to investigate the wire runs further.

[v8volvo]

Started pulling things apart on the van last night. Doesn't look too good so far. I was hoping for an outside chance that the engine problems (rapping and thumping noises and a dead miss) could have been a collapsed hydraulic lifter, which sometimes happens to these, but all the lifters are fully pumped up and seem to be working fine.

One thing that is clear right away is that this engine has seen either a huge amount of heat in the cylinder head, or very poor routine maintenance, or both. The inside of the head is coated with black, slimy buildup from polymerized engine oil broken down by too infrequent changes or excess heat exposure from the aggressive state of tune. This does not give me much hope for the condition of the rest of the engine.

Here are some pictures so far, along with some other pictures for comparison to more healthy engines that have seen less abuse (another AHU TDI and my 745's D24T engine -- sadly showing my shattered camshaft from a couple years ago).

See the strong family resemblance between this TDI engine and the D24 engines. They knew they had a good basic design and no need to change it.

Going to pull the head off next and see what that looks like, hopefully later this week.

[v8volvo]

Head is off of my project TDI and unfortunately it's not good news.

#2 and #3 cylinders are scored and have aluminum deposits from the pistons, and #2 piston has visible missing material on the crown. Looks like #3 cylinder might have still been making just enough compression to fire, since it was dry. #2 is the only one that is washed with fuel and obviously was not running. But the pistons and bores in both cylinders are toast. Surprisingly #1 and #4 cylinders look OK. Maybe the outer cylinders naturally run a little cooler. Or I wonder if the piston oil squirters for 2 and 3 could have gotten slightly clogged or leaked pressure, and weren't able to pull out heat as well as the others.

Fortunately the way the engine is positioned in this chassis the oil pan can be removed easily, as there's no crossmember below it. I think I will drop the pan next and pop the pistons out of all 4. This engine obviously should be fully rebuilt and bored, but I have a few used pistons around, and my current thinking is I might clean up the two damaged bores as best I can and put it back together with used parts to get it running well enough to roll along for a little while. That will at least give me a chance to get it on the road and check out the rest of it, to see if it's worth the work and expense.

[anders]

I have now started a few projects! The current one is setting up part of my other shop to have all my d24/d24t parts organized into one room. It’s a 22’x10’ section just for my d24/d24t parts hoard. I built a section of a wall to close it off from the other part of the building, also set up 18’ worth of shelving on one side.
This is a project I have been wanting to do for a while now, having all the stuff organized and out of my shop that I do my work in.

[v8volvo]

Sounds like an upgrade! I'm envious of the space you have, has to be nice to have all that room for work and storage.

I'll add another update here on the work I'm doing, since keeping these updates rolling seems to be helping me stay motivated with this project.

I had to spend a little time stripping down my spare parts TDI engine that is donating a couple used pistons. This came out of a later year TDI and I had picked it up a while ago mainly for some electrical parts I needed for something else (ECU, harness, etc). The engine had a timing belt break at highway speed unfortunately, but otherwise was in decent shape. It is a second generation ALH code 1.9 TDI that has a different external block and head architecture, but the rods, pistons, and a few other internal parts are interchangeable with the earlier type 1Z/AHU TDI engines like the one in this van.

Once I had freed up a couple pistons from the parts ALH (with valve impressions but they measured out OK), I dropped the pan on the van's engine and popped the middle two pistons out. Next, I'm going to do my best with crocus cloth and a hone to get the bores cleaned up as well as they can be, and throw these whacked ALH pistons in and button it all back up.

This engine is now a bit of a science project, running damaged pistons from one engine in another engine's damaged block. Not even going to put on new rings, since I don't have much hope for a great ring seal here either way, just hoping for enough to run on all 4 and move the van around under its own power for now. Planning to reuse the headbolts this time too, as Tom Bryant always suggests, to add another experiment. Only brand new part going in here will be a head gasket. We'll see how this goes. Best case it runs well enough to get a little use out of it, worst case I hopefully don't have much to lose other than a $20 head gasket and the time I waste messing with it.

[anders]

Yes indeed an experiment! I did something very similar when I was 16. I purchased an 84 f41 Camaro with a 2.8 and 4 speed. Anyways it had a horrible rod knock, being a cheap and experimental high schooler I ended up getting a FWD 2.8 from a Chevrolet car. I didn’t realize when I purchased the engine that the blocks between FWD and RWD are different.

I stripped both engines and installed the rotating assembly from the FWD engine into the camaro block. Had a tough time installing the pistons, I found out they were oversized pistons! I didn’t want to spend any money on it other then the $45 for the gaskets and the $25 I spent for the FWD engine. I ended up spending hours honing the block to accept the larger pistons!

Got the engine together with all used parts, camaro block and heads, FWD crank, pistons, rods, along with the used bearings and rings. Amazingly the engine actually ran very well, didn’t use oil or have much blow by! I was told that the engine would blow up, but it ran for the year I had it, I ended up trading it for a seized up dirt bike.

It was a fun experience, it was the first automotive engine I put together.

[Volvoguy]

My quarantine project is a 82 I picked up with a leaky injection pump. She’s getting boost and some more fuel

[ngoma]

What material did you make that exhaust manifold out of? Looks like it took some great skills and talents!

[v8volvo]

Originally Posted by anders

Yes indeed an experiment!

That is for sure. Quite a story with that 2.8, never knew you could oversize a block with a hone! That must have taken some work!

That's funny, this project took me back to some early experiences trying to learn my way around the inside of a motor too. Don't know if that's a good sign or not, but fun memories anyway.

Well, my science project TDI is back together and on the road, and so far seems to be running good. I ended up having to use a couple more new parts besides a headgasket; it needed a few new heater hose sections, and I also threw in a new thermostat just on principle while it was apart. I have never owned a new-to-me vehicle that did not need a thermostat right away, seems like the single most likely to be overlooked part on the whole engine, so I figured the pattern would hold and I would need one sooner or later here too anyway. I also put on a different used turbo to replace the one I took off it, which was a little tired from too much time at double (!) its factory boost level from the crazy computer chips in this motor, and also was drenched everywhere inside and out with oil from all the blowby when it got driven home by the PO on two and a half cylinders.

A couple weeks ago while it was still apart, I also picked up a good spare long block that luckily popped up for sale nearby. Felt better to have it as a backup in case this experiment didn't work out. It was actually kind of fun working on this project, knowing there was no reason to worry too much about the outcome or trying some "creative" ideas, since nothing I was going to do could make it any worse than it already was.

I reused the rod bearings, head bolts, and rod bolts, and cleaned up all the filthy black sludge inside the pan before putting it back together. This engine had some of the nastiest, thickest old oil inside it that I have ever seen -- I am guessing a combination of too much fueling causing heavy soot contamination, plus massive EGT and oil temps causing oil breakdown from heat, and seemingly also too-long oil change intervals to make everything even worse. Hoping a few short interval oil changes with cheap oil helps clean it up inside a little for the next time I have it apart, and I might do a diesel fuel flush with it too at some point. Reused the timing belt and rollers, for now, since they only have about 35k and 6 years on them. If the engine still seems to be healthy in a few months I'll probably at least throw a new belt on.

Everything looked and felt pretty good overall going together, but I wasn't really sure how it was all going to turn out until I got it spinning over on the starter to prime the lube and fuel systems, and heard it crank with an even rhythm. I was pretty certain at that point that this engine was going to run just fine. Sure enough, after getting injectors bled it fired right up and ran on all four! It's actually quieter and smoother feeling in this heavy vehicle than these engines seem to be in the small cars they are usually installed in, maybe a little more mass and sound deadening helps. It's surprisingly refined and decent to operate for a diesel 4-banger.

Been driving it around and the rest of the car is in reasonable shape and seems to drive well, despite having sat for a few years. Needs some new fluids elsewhere and a few other little tweaks but not bad, even the A/C works. Hopefully will give some good usage this summer as a camping/recreation rig. I found a set of stock tune chips on ebay that I need to put into it, and it'll probably need a set of stock size injectors too, then it will be much slower, but hopefully give as much life as this engine is capable of. Right now it's quite quick, but smokes like a train at full throttle, and runs way too much boost and timing, obviously experience shows it's able to hurt itself at this power level in sustained use.

There was one very strange other episode that happened with this engine several days after I first got it running that I'll describe later, completely unrelated to the internal engine repairs. Something that I had never seen or heard of before, I think having to do with the IP's reaction to running on 6-year-old diesel. I'll save that for next time though. For now here's a video of it running, and some photos below. https://photos.app.goo.gl/8j1Sopn83kaDjZxn9

Any bets on how long this engine will survive?