TheSamba.com :: View topic - Pretty Normal Vanagon Build

Fri Dec 21, 2018 9:47 pm

A little progress to report.

After a moon or two I managed to get the engine and trans outta this thang.

Hard to believe there is even an engine in there.

My handy engine dropping tool.

Down but not out.

OUT!

Tight quarters.
Not real sure where I am going to do this work.

Right there will do for now.

So I got the engine and trans dropped, finally.

Separating the two will have to wait a couple of days.

In the mean time I will sort out a couple other things.

I finally got the last of the seals I need for my trans rebuild.
Oh, and some torque converter bolts too.

I need to get the engine and trans apart post haste so I can ship the converter off to Precision Of New Hampton for a rebuild.

In other news I bought some 944 axles to swap out for my stock Vanagon junk.

So I got a pair of axles for a reasonable price and all seemed well until I actually opened the package.

This was one of the "usable" joints that I received.

No problem.
The gentleman kindly sent me another complete axle.
Great! Now I have a spare CV joint for out on the road....
WRONG!

As it turns out one of the original two axles was not the proper axle at all.
It was not until I got the third axle that I realized that one of the axles was totally not the right one.

So here are the boots/joints on the correct axles.

Here is the odd man out.

The axle is shaped a little different and the boot is not the same.

I decided to tear them down and, clearly they are not of the same taxonomic rank.

As we see here the spline count is different.
25 spline

33 spline

Couple of mm difference between the two joints.

My best guess is that these joints are from a 924 or possibly an early 944.
Who knows but I have confidence that the gentleman will correct the situation.
He's been good about everything so far.

In other news, here are the air bags that will serve duty as my springs on this pile.

There is a lot to cover in regards to my suspension where these will be used so perhaps I will just wait until we get to that point.

Ooooo! I almost forgot.

So I did do a little wiring harness work but decided to pass the bulk of it on to someone else so I could do other things.

It's probably a good thing that I did because this harness had some real issues that would have flipped me the F out had I tried to do it alone.

So the crank sensor wire was oxidized and green to the point that is was non functional.
I discovered some of this funk when dealing with the fuel injector harness and as such will be doing to thorough continuity testing before I plug all of that back in.

This sort of thing could have been very difficult for a diy'er to sort out on their own.

Fortunately the builder in this case has proper testing methods in place for just such a thing.
He found the problem replaced a bunch of wire and it all tested out ok.
He also sent me a couple of extra bits that I was having trouble sourcing for the engine harness and I am thankful.

So here is the harness all done in his shop.

Here it is as I received it complete with labels and instructions.

I am not one to advertise for any old place without good reason and I am still not.
However, I will get this harness in place and make sure it all works.
Then I will be more than happy to direct people in this mans direction for any VW/Vanagon engine swaps in the future.

Well other than that I have been working on other things that many of you may have seen in other threads.
I am working on a portable diesel heater using an el cheapo diesel heater from ebay.

With some batteries I hope this will run for about 50 hours with out the need for recharge or more fuel.

Anyway there are plenty of other things happening but we will have to wait until my body and mind catch up to them in order to chronicle such things.

Until then, I bid you good morrow.

Fri Dec 21, 2018 10:37 pm

vwhammer wrote: ... it was easy enough to chuck the pulley in a lathe and pare it down to the bit I needed

VOILÀ!
A fancy German water pump pulley spacer.

Nice build. I just thought I'd mention a couple alternative solutions. I've adjusted the pulley spacing before by adding similar thickness washers to each bolt between the pulley and water pump. Another alternative is to get the VW Quantum 1.6TD or Audi 4000 1.6TD water pump shims. They are basically what you made but are manufactured that way by VW to space the two halves of the water pump in order to adjust belt tension.

Sat Dec 22, 2018 12:24 am

?Waldo? wrote: vwhammer wrote: ... it was easy enough to chuck the pulley in a lathe and pare it down to the bit I needed

VOILÀ!
A fancy German water pump pulley spacer.

Nice build. I just thought I'd mention a couple alternative solutions. I've adjusted the pulley spacing before by adding similar thickness washers to each bolt between the pulley and water pump. Another alternative is to get the VW Quantum 1.6TD or Audi 4000 1.6TD water pump shims. They are basically what you made but are manufactured that way by VW to space the two halves of the water pump in order to adjust belt tension.

Fun fact, JX 1.6td vans had them too ;)

Sat Dec 22, 2018 8:28 am

Stuartzickefoose wrote:
Fun fact, JX 1.6td vans had them too ;)

The diesel Vanagons that were imported to North America had the larger water pump hub size and so the shims will not fit this application. Did the JX use the smaller water pump hub size?

Sat Dec 22, 2018 10:06 am

The water pump pulley setups on JX engines came various ways, depending on options. Some used the large pump hub setup we are familiar with in 82/83 diesel vans. Some a similar setup with smaller diameter hub and shims. Sometime after 88 single belt version only, no more shims, afaik.

Mark

Sat Dec 22, 2018 10:16 am

crazyvwvanman wrote: The water pump pulley setups on JX engines came various ways, depending on options. Some used the large pump hub setup we are familiar with in 82/83 diesel vans. Some a similar setup with smaller diameter hub and shims. Sometime after 88 single belt version only, no more shims, afaik.

Mark

I could be wrong on sizing, but I just did a joker TD timing belt and the drive belt had those shims to set the belt. No real way to tension it. But it was a similar shim, and I knew some jettas had the same shim in a few models/places, but don’t know exact for sure details. Fun to speculate anyways!

Sat Dec 22, 2018 10:59 am

Stuartzickefoose wrote: No real way to tension it. But it was a similar shim, and I knew some jettas had the same shim in a few models/places, but don’t know exact for sure details.

The only reason for the split pulleys with shims is for allowing tensioning of the belt. The split v-belt pulleys with shims adjust belt tension by adding or removing shims from between the two pulley halves. Fewer shims tightens the belt.

AFAIK, the rabbit/golf/jetta never got any split water pump pulleys with shims.

Sat Dec 22, 2018 1:16 pm

?Waldo? wrote: Stuartzickefoose wrote: No real way to tension it. But it was a similar shim, and I knew some jettas had the same shim in a few models/places, but don’t know exact for sure details.

The only reason for the split pulleys with shims is for allowing tensioning of the belt. The split v-belt pulleys with shims adjust belt tension by adding or removing shims from between the two pulley halves. Fewer shims tightens the belt.

AFAIK, the rabbit/golf/jetta never got any split water pump pulleys with shims.

Just like a type 1 generator, yes, it adjusted it. This was exactly it, but the one I did it to didn’t have any with it because whoever touched it last left them off, so I got stuck making the washers work for what we needed. ;)

Mon Jan 07, 2019 6:10 pm

Some may have already seen my other thread but I wanted to officially post it here and ask for some help.

My auto trans has 230,000 miles on it.
The diff section is pretty wrecked.
For starters my bell housing is cracked.

These is also ton of metal dust floating around in the oil.

All this metal in the oil for so long has done a number on every wear surface within the diff case.
The ring and pinion is toast.
The spider gears in the diff have big dips worn in them.
I am sure the bearings are gone and any other thing where there was metal on metal contact is likely very worn as well.

It is my opinion that is it not repairable.

This leaves me looking for a new transmission.
This is where the Samba comes in.
If you or anyone you know is near Ohio and has an auto trans for a late van floating around that they want to get out of their sight please let me know.

There are a handful in the classifieds but they all seem priced a little high and all of them are in California

I don't really want to be in $600-700 for an old used van trans shipped to my door.
Many of the sellers don't ship anyway.

I have searched the usual places and the closest thing I can find is about 10 hours away.

I am in southeast Ohio but would be willing to drive 4 or 5 hours to pick it up.

I am going to call Cap City Motorsports tomorrow to see if they might have a lead on something.

Other than that I am sort of stuck.

Mon Jan 07, 2019 6:37 pm

https://nashville.craigslist.org/pts/d/vanagon-automatic-parts/6780218708.html

worth a shot?

Mon Jan 07, 2019 6:47 pm

Yeah that's the one that is about ten hours away.
I don't really want to drive that far or pay to ship a transmission.

Wed Jan 09, 2019 9:54 pm

So I tore into the trans side of my transaxle today.

As I suspected it was a bit more of the same worn-out-ness as was exhibited in the diff side of this train wreck.
The case has some beat up spots.

Naturally the frictions and steels that ride in this area were toast.

This is the hub that the ID of those frictions ride on.

Of course the frictions will be replaced and, if I recall correctly that hub will also be replaced but the Audi upgrade bits.

However the case is another story.
It seems dumb to "upgrade" my trans using this beat up case, especially given the fact that my diff side is also garbage.

Beyond the obvious damage there is also a lot of silver dust floating around in the already dark, obviously neglected trans fluid.

Then to top it all off it appears that my second gear brake band piston cover is stuck in its' bore.

Ooo! actually as I type this I just thought of a way to get it out but there is a good chance I will damage it if it is really stuck.

Anyway it seems pretty clear to me that I need a replacement.

The search continues.

Wed Jan 09, 2019 10:03 pm

elizer wrote: https://nashville.craigslist.org/pts/d/vanagon-automatic-parts/6780218708.html

worth a shot?

Just for fun I contacted this person (who has the same van posted on here by the way) and asked specifically for the year, the mileage and how much they wanted for the trans.
Their reply was simply this:
"Vanagon is a 1984 and has 150K on it"
If that's all the harder you are going to try then I am going to put about as much time into trying to buy your trash as you are trying to sell it.

Sun Jan 20, 2019 9:55 pm

Just a small update.
I decided, while I search for a new (used) trans, that I will start on something else so I can get as much of this stuff done as possible in my down time.

That something else is suspension and brakes.

This will be the last time that these brakes will barely stop this van

I suspect that there are some other issues in many parts of this system because you could practically stand on the pedal and it would just casually come to a stop.
An emergency stop with the existing set up would have been all but impossible.

Fingers crossed I can get this bit to fit under my Mercedes wheels.

I had the same set up on a pre 86 van with a set of Sparco Terras but I did have to do some machine work to the caliper to totally clear the wheel.

Here it the same brake set up on my 85.

The wild thing about all this is that I might actually have a brake set up that will work on both early and late Vanagons, with a couple of changes of course.

You will need at least a 16 inch wheel and I am not even sure which ones will actually clear this set up.

I will know soon whether it clears an an early CLK320 steel wheel.

Anyway the rotor is a substantial upgrade over the stock solid rotor.

I needed to make a slight change in my bracket that I made in the old design but never actually changed in my drawing.
I did this but apparently screwed something up because nothing fit.

The lower caliper mount hit the spindle down by the lower ball joint.
You can see in this pic that it is touching and you might be able to see that the hole that bolts the bracket to the spindle is also off.

Initially I chalked it up some other differences between the early and late spindle designs.

I then checked the bracket against the new calipers, which were the same as the ones used on my 85, and realized that those holes were also off.

Clearly either my drawing was messed up or something got screwed up at the laser cutter.

Sure enough, after comparing my new drawing that I saved a while ago to the old one it was totally not the same.
I messed it up.
I don't know how it happened but it did.

No matter.
I made the changes and sent the new drawing off to the laser cutter.
They are usually pretty quick about getting my parts so I should have the proper bracket soon.

Other than that I stared at this image for a while trying to sort out how I was going to get my air bag to fit.

It going to be tight but I think I can make it work.

I also took out the rear spring and shock so I could cycle the suspension and get some idea for the specs of my new rear shocks.

I have been talking with Bilstein in regards to my shock selection and valving for my air suspension idea.
I have settled on a front shock and front and rear valving.
I just needed some dimensions for the rear shock and I can send all of that off to Bilstein and have them built.

I don't know how long it will take to get the shocks from them but they have been super responsive and helpful so far and I am excited to see if this whole idea works.

I am being a little vague but I don't want to carry on about too much until I know it is actually going to work.

So next on the list is getting both of my stock Vanagon rotors off to the machine shop to have them whittled down so they fit inside of my new rotors.
I did the last ones myself but ain't nobody got tome for dat.
I probably could have bought new rotors and sent them off a while ago but Imma cheap bastitd and the old crap looks usable so to the machine shop they go.

Hmm maybe I should see if I can actually hack them up in house without a lathe and make them work.
Meh that's stupid.
It would probably take twice as long and I would get garbage results in the end.

Anyway, I have so many ideas for this suspension but I need to weigh the pros and cons and see which ones make sense and which ones I bail on.

I need to get the shock and spring out of the front so I can put the spindle back and cycle the suspension and get the data I need to sort all that out.

If you like suspension and brake stuff then you will want to pay attention because I have a lot of big ideas.

Going to keep going on tearing all the suspension out so I can get it all cleaned up and modified.
I will then replace every bushing and joint and put it all back together with my fancy new air suspension set up and bit 4 wheel disk brakes.

Until next time....

Mon Jan 21, 2019 5:49 am

Sounds like fun. :D :popcorn:

Mon Mar 25, 2019 8:05 pm

Well gee whiz it's been a minute since I posted up anything here.

Don't have a ton of physical updates but I have been doing a lot of homework.

However, have you ever studied really hard for a test only to bomb it and wanna drop outta school.
Well, it happened to me.

Got my shocks. Yaaaaaay!

Then tragedy struck.

The rears fit as expected but the fronts are a no go.

I totally overlooked the fact that those stupid Schrader valves completely get in the way of my upper mounting arrangement in the front.

What sucks is I was originally looking at the model that did not have the Schrader valve but wanted as much ability to tune as I could so I went with the valves.

The reality is I don't have any of the equipment to play with the nitrogen charge on these shocks anyway nor do I plan to buy it so I should have just stuck with my original plan.

No matter.
I sent my contact at Bilstein a message to, at the very least, order the other shocks without the valve.
However, I also inquired as to whether or not any of the parts from my current shocks can be used on the new bits to save me a little coin.
We will see how that goes.

I am also hoping that it will not take another 6-8 weeks to get the new shocks as I am kind of crunched for time here.

Time will tell.

I still have not torn all of the suspension out of the van as I have been tweaking and tuning my designs to get it as right as I can before I go making any hard parts.

I did manage to get a boat load of the parts I need for the suspension.

First off is my gauge unit that will monitor all four bag pressures as well as the tank pressure.

This has all of the wiring and sending units needed for the whole thing.

Speaking of tank pressure, you gotta have a tank to actually have tank pressure.
So I got one of those too.

3 gallons should be more than enough for what I have in mind.

Originally I was going to go with a pair of cheap compressors because there are a handful out there that have been serving people well.
However I just could not convince myself that that was the best path forward.
In the end I decided to get something that could be mounted outside and has a 100% duty cycle just to make me fell good about beating on it.

This is the Viair 450C
It has a IP67 rating and can supply 100psi at 100% duty cycle.
It was twice as much as the pair of cheapo compressors that I was considering but should be able to handle much more harsh environments and more abuse.
I hope.
So with the air source sorted it was time to control all of the pressure to the bags.
I decided to take a chance on a cheap-ish solenoid unit and controller from ebay.

I have tested the unit on the bench and everything works as it should.
It will be mounted inside the vehicle so I think it will do just fine.

In a pinch I have designed in the ability to air the bags up manually should everything else fail but the bags.

I still need a safety blow off valve and a drain valve but those are easy enough to come by and I will get them later.

I did at least spring for a decent compressor switch.

Back to the physical side of the air bag set up.
I picked up a set up adjustable coil spring buckets that I am going to use in the rear so I can really fine tune the suspension.
The gold things in this pic.

The hopes are to have the ability to get the air bag pressure just right for everyday use then I will be able to fine tune the ride height where I want it.

The adjustment in the front will be totally different than the rear but it will accomplish the same thing.
Overall I will have about 2 inches of height adjustment over the ability to adjust on the fly that the airbags offer.

I did get a couple other boring bits as well.

Got some new bushings and washers for the radius rods in the front.

Also got some new nuts but they are not here yet.

I had big plans to replace these parts with some new joints that might allow a little more suspension travel but the time does not allow such things at the moment.
I will get this beast on the road and think about that upgrade then.

Other than that I did manage to get all the crap I need to rebuild my front calipers.

Ok I think that's it.
I am finishing up a kitchen remodel but I am trying to squeeze in a day or 3 here and there to work on the van.

I totally plan on driving this thing this spring so real stuff with start going on any day now.

Sun Apr 14, 2019 7:00 pm

Another little update and a few things for discussion.

After a few months of searching I finally found a transmission.

Came with a handful of spare parts and so far looks good.
The person I bought it from did say it slipped a bit when shifting when it was cold but only for a couple of shift cycles.

He said it never did it when it was warm.
No matter because I am going to tear it open anyway and put all the parts in it that I bought.

Pretty stoked to have finally found one and it was cheap.

It's been really slow going on getting parts back from shops so I decided to buy a few more tools so I can do more metal work in my space.

I have a plasma cutter, a couple of welders, a dry cut metal saw and some grinders but I really needed something that would make it easier to cut and shape brackets of all sorts.

I have seen good things from the Bauer Portable band saw from harbor freight and they were on sale recently so I went for it.
I then picked up a table from swag off road that clamps in a vice and BAM!

Now I have a nice vertical band saw set up that I can get out of my way when I don't need it.

I did spend a little extra on some good blades for it since it does not come with a blade on it but over all this set up does not disappoint.

I then moved onto my belt sander.
I have had the sander attachment for my bench grinder for a few months but never used it much because to be honest it kind of sucks all by itself.

I needed a work rest to really do anything useful.
Just so happened that trick tools just released a new work rest for the sander attachment.
It was cheap so I bought it.
I now know why it was cheap.
If I would have read the specs on it I would have realized that its only about 4 by 8 inches.
It's not enough.
It also required that the grinder is mounted on its side (I knew this part)
So I rigged up the grinder to mount it sideways and am in the middle of adding to the table part to make it bigger and better

Nothing about this set up worked out the way I wanted but I can probably get by with it for now.

Anyway I am pleased with my cheap bandsaw set up and not so pleased with my not so cheap belt sander set up.
live and learn.

I did have pretty good luck with some new 6 ton jack stands from Tractor Supply.

I needed to get the van higher than the 3 tons stands would allow

OK so, onto the actual van.

Don't know if I mentioned that for my air suspension set up I decided to switch over to some early lower control arms so I can weld to them more easily.
Quick search on here and I had some.

One of the radius rods is bent all to "H" "E" double hockey sticks if anyone has some but I will deal with that later.

I got my air bag and shock mount design finalized and ordered all the metal for that. The last of which should be here tomorrow.

Now for some discussion.
Most of us know that a ball joint spacer is the hot ticket for the lifted vans so you can get the camber set right.
However it is my opinion that that is kind of a band aid fix.
It seems to work but I feel like there must be a better solution.

I camp up with my own better solution that I hope to assemble soon.
my main goal here is to raise the upper pivot point at the spindle.
I plan to do this two ways.
1. getting a taller ball joint
2. raising the mounting location on the spindle itself.

I decided to go with some GM truck joints because you can get them anywhere in the US. (don't know about anywhere else in the world but this van will likely never leave North America)
There is also the option to get Taller than stock studs for these joints that usually come in .25 inch increments.
I have seen them up to 1.5 inches taller.

I am also going to mount some new tapered sleeves in the upper spindle that will not only accept the new ball joint taper but also raise the mounting point on the spindle

The OD if these will be machined down significantly and they the spindle will be drilled to accept them.

They will also sit a bit higher than what I am showing in the pic above.

How do I bolt these in the upper control arms you might ask.
Well, with these doo dads.

They need some trimming on the outer lip so the arm does not contact the tire similar to the stock arm on some lifted Vanagons.
More or less I am going to remove all the material beyond the outer edge of the ball joint.

Then, with a little hacking, they will be massaged into the stock upper control arm.

With a stock GM truck joint and the raised spindle mounting point, the upper ball joint pivot will be 0.5 to 0.625 inches (12-15mm) higher than the stock set up.
I am likely going to run a 0.5 inch taller joint to bring the overall raise of the upper BJ pivot to about an inch.

I spent some time today measuring all the van suspension mounting points so I can really dial in the upper BJ pivot height.

As I mentioned there are several heights to choose from and I will pick one after I analyse it a bit.

I am going to try the arm at stock length first but I also have a plan sorted to make it so the upper arm can be lengthened or shortened should I need that as well.

I know it does not look like a lot is going on but believe me I have spent plenty of time in front of the computer measuring, designing and redesigning all of this air suspension and front suspension design in the hopes that I can make it all work.

As I mentioned the last of my metal for the airbag set up should be here tomorrow and I should have my belt sander all sorted out tomorrow.

Then I can start piecing all of this together.
It should make more sense then.

Wed Jun 12, 2019 8:38 pm

Well golly!
It's beenaminute since I've updated this thread.

I have been slowly progressing with the build but now its crunch time.
I have a thing I want to do that involves the van so now I have a bit over a month to, at the very least, get this thing drivable.

This means that I have had to bail on a few things that I hope to get back to at a later date.

First thing on my to-do list to go is the air suspension.
Machining all of the parts is just too time consuming at the moment.
I'm just going to run some of the moog springs that seem to be popular up front and a set of westy springs in the rear with some spacers to get it just right.

I am still going to run the custom shocks that I purchased so the dampening should be pretty good at least.

So my front shocks are a bit longer overall than the stock shocks but also have about 2 more inches of travel than the stockers.

I bought a set of early lower control arms so I could modify them to work with my air bag set up.
I managed to get through the entire modification process before I bailed on the air suspension.

They are not pretty but here are the modified arms.

I lowered the shock mounting point by 2.5 inches so I could squeeze all that airbag junk in there.

As is turns out this will also work for my longer shocks.
More or less I can run my longer shocks with more travel and not limit any of my compression travel.

As far as droop is concerned, the lower control arm will likely bind before the shock runs out of travel.

I have also been working on some geometry correcting mods for the upper control arms.
You may have seen in my last post that I was changing the arm to run a taller ball joint in order to raise the upper pivot point.

I have the upper arms wrapped up.

As I mentioned, none of this stuff is all that pretty but the hopes are to get it mounted and tested then work on some fixtures so I can build some proper adjust able upper and lower arms.

I just need to get it on the road then I can start working on all the cooler parts one at a time.

I tend to jump into things with both feet but with this project I went full on belly flop from the high board.
I needed to reel it in a lil' bit.

Anyway, I am still waiting on some tapered bushings from a friend that will be mounted in the spindle to accept the new ball joint.
I would have to go back through my notes but I think with all the upper BJ mods I raised the pivot about 1.25 inches. (about 32mm)
That should help a bunch with a lifted van.

Before I can start putting all of this stuff back together I need strip a bunch of junk from under the van that I will either no longer be using or needs replaced.

I will also be cleaning up some rusty bits, treating it with some rust converter, doing some new seam sealer in a few places and spray bombing it with some undercoating.

Anyway I decided to drop the tank so I can change the usual leaking grommets and such.
Of course the tank is pretty much trash so I ordered up a new one.

Naturally I have to make things harder on myself so I will be welding or brazing some new fittings into the tank so I can ditch all the grommets all together and never have to think about them again.
I am going to make fittings that will go in the tank that will accept these banjo fittings.

The other fitting is for the fuel filler vent and will simply be welded or brazed into place.
I am leaning towards brazing all the necessary fittings in place because it requires less heat to do so.
Who knows what kind of garbage steel this tank is made of so I don't want to push it and cause cracks or who knows what.

I also cleaned out the engine bay in preparation for cleaning and paint.

While in the bay I came across something interesting.
Apparently my passenger side tail light has seen some heat in the past.

Well I guess I can add some tail lights to the long list of things that need replaced.

Speaking of things that need replaced, it turns out I need a new radiator as well.
I took it out and removed the condenser and fan shroud.
The vibrations from my little impact driver shook so much dust and crud out of the fins it made me wonder how much more I could get.
I ran my needle scaler along the top and bottom sides of the rad and the stuff just kept falling out.
I don't know how there was any air flow making its way through.
the bottom 3 rows of fins were also corroded nearly all the way through.
I can only assume the tubes were likely thin as well.

Then at some point I flipped the radiator on its side and this crap poured out.

I can only assume it was from the corroded insides but I decided a new one was in order.

After all this I carried on removing more crap from under the van and made a big mess.

Funny how much fluid is left after "draining" the coolant system.
Some of that mess is also power steering fluid from removing the most rusty power steering lines I have seen in some time.

Oh yeah speaking of power steering I am switching that up a bit as well.
after looking at the price of new power steering lines I decided an electric power steering set up was in order and was half the price of the stock set up.
Not to mention that I don't have to run line from the engine all the way to to the front anymore.

I also picked up a controller so I can adjust the assist level.

So that's about where I am now.
I did remove the trailing arms last night so I can change all of those bushings as well as other things.

Because off some of my plans and some of the things that I have done with the engine, oil coolers, transmission coolers and heaters my coolant systems will be routed a bit differently than most.
As such I bought some radiator hose that I will be using to replace the stock plastic lines front to rear.
I hope to eliminate a few of the extra joints in the process.

I picked up a new shift linkage boot because mine was toast.

Went ahead and bought the cable that runs from that boot and linkage to the trans because the boot at the other end was trashed and the plastic bracket that holds it under the van was broken.

Lastly ordered some new 944 CV joints because I was tired of being shafted buying used crap.

There is bound to be more things rolling in over the next week that I have forgotten about.

Naturally there's going to be a lot of worn out parts on a 230,000 mile van but in hindsight I kind of wish I would have spent the money up front for one that had fewer miles and was a bit more sorted.

Meh I will get it sorted.
Until next time...

Sun Jul 07, 2019 9:05 am

OK back at it.
Due to a transmission issue with my replacement transmission I am not going to meet my late July drive time goal.
As such I am back to the build as usual.
so we are back on for airbags and my rear disk set up will get built as planned.

I am not that far yet so lets get to what I have done.

First off the trans issue.
Some may have seen this in my other thread about this issue but I want to put it here for total build coverage.

So I realized while cleaning my trans for disassembly that the diff was not spinning.
if you grabbed both output flanges and tried to spin them both the same direction they would not move.
I am no trans expert but I know this is not right.
I opened the diff section and it still was stuck.

Naturally I decided to tear down further and it did not take long to sort something out.
I popped these bolt out

As if by magic the diff started spinning.

Tighten them back down and its stuck again.
Thinking that it my have been a bearing preload issue I then started torquing the bolts down a bit at a time to see when it would stop spinning.

However, during this time something made a crunchy popping noise and I was able to torque them all the way down and the diff still spun.

I then noticed that there was what appeared to be a ton of slop between the ring and pinion.

Upon further inspection I noticed that the pinion was moving a lot on the pinion shaft itself.
I knew this was not right.

A proper tear down commenced and I found the issue.
The splines were all but gone from both the pinion and pinion shaft.
in this pic you can see the splines are nearly gone.

This pic better illustrates what the splines are supposed to look like and how worn they are.

I think there was enough slop that the pinion actually got cocked on the shaft and was causing some serious binding between the ring and pinion.

So now what?
Well I thought I would take some parts from my old trans and try to make it work.

I figured I would just take the diff and pinion/pinion shaft and put into the good case.

Sadly this would not work because I found this after tearing into my old trans.

Ok not all is lost.

I have a good carrier in the "new" trans and a good ring and pinion in the old trans.

I had enough good parts that I could build a rebuildable core but it would need a proper set up.

I called German Transaxle hoping that they might be interested in the set up.
Alas, they were not.

So I talked with Matt Steedle and he agreed to do the set up for me, for money of course.

It's all packed up and will go out tomorrow.

Ok enough about all that.

Whats next.
Finally got around to machining my brake hubs.

Just need to make my concentric spacers to make sure the rotor is centered on the hub and they will be ready to use.

While on the lathe I also made the fittings that I will be brazing into my new gas tank to ditch the old grommet and push in fitting arrangement.

Moving on.
Got my spindle bushings to run my new ball joint set up.

After a little drilling they fit thusly.

They will be welded in place eventually.
I would have to look at my numbers again but, if I recall, I raised the upper BJ pivot point by nearly 32mm (1.25 inches).

I also have the option of buying taller ball joints should I need to but if you go too tall there may be some issues with strength if you beat on it too much.
I think this is a good increase without having to worry about bending BJ studs.

A much smaller project involved finding a replacement for this thing that did not cost $50 or more.

Since I work in an electronics lab I figured this would not be too tricky.
After a little scrounging I came up with this.

Don't quote me on this but from what I could tell in the wiring there are actually 3 speeds for the rad fan on the later vanagons.
One essentially comes on when you turn the AC on.
Since I will not be running traditional AC then I do not need this.
I would, however, like the low speed fan option so the fan does not come roaring on at full blast when it does not need to.

I can mount these on the heat sink, wire them in series and plug them in and, as long as I tap into the set up at the right place I should have 2 different speeds depending on what the rad temp sensor puts out.
Total cost: Zero dollars.

In the mad rush to make this thing work I am kind of all over the place here so I apologize.

There may be more but from what I can remember right now that where we are.
I did manage to get a few more of the new parts I need.
New Radiator.

New Radiator hose

After a few failures trying to buy some used real deal 944 CV joints I decided to just get some of the new ones that Burley offers.

Probably the best feature of these joints is the fact that every joint came with a pair of gloves.

That is a super idea.

I got a new trans mount as mine was hosed.

I am going to fill the big hole on the bottom (actually on the top in the pic) with a two part polyurethane foam to keep the mount from breaking down as I have seen on all three old mounts that I currently have.

I also finally got through the nasty job of cleaning up the underside and hosing down some rusty bits with Ospho.
I then sprayed most of the underside with 3M rubberized undercoating.
No pics because it was messy and it sucked.

There are some rusty bits that need properly dealt with in the future but to be honest I am not sure I will actually worry about it I just want to drive it.

Perhaps as it evolves I may deem it necessary to do the work but for now I am just going to slow the rust down and focus on the mechanical bits.

Ok that's all for now.
I got a busted AC unit at the house and its 90 degrees.
Imma git divorced if I don't get off the nets and go fix it.

Until next time....

Sat Aug 10, 2019 8:14 pm

I'm sure it was some well read intellectual that once said "every inch counts", surely.

Well I gotta couple of inches I wanna show ya.
Wait, that didn't come out right.
Nevermind.

Carrying on, I tinkered with my front brake set up a little bit to see what it was going to take to make these big'ol brakes clear my relatively mundane 16 inch Mercedes steelies.

Turns out about all I am going to need is a 5 to 7mm spacer depending on how much wiggle room I am comfortable with.

These pics suck a little but this is the area of the rim that hits the caliper.

This pic shows how much more room I still have until the wheel is against the hub.

I could probably do a little bit of profiling on the caliper with a flappy disk on ye'old angle grinder and run a 5mm spacer or leave the caliper alone and run a 7mm spacer.

I am inclined to leave the caliper alone and just run a 7mm spacer.

I will work on all that a little more in the future but for now I have bigger feesh tuh fry, as they say.

I figured I would be getting my rebuilt diff section back any day now so it seemed like the right time to tear into my trans section and get that ball rolling.
Tear into it I did.

I started with the van trans and then moved onto the Audi trans from which I would be stealing parts so what you see on the bench is the internals from two transmissions.

Looks scary doesn't it?

Most parts looked ok and I would have my pick of the parts that I need.
Of course nothing on this van rebuild has been that simple.
Upon further inspection it appears that the larger direct drum clutches and frictions that I wanted to use from the Audi are toast.
Naturally these seem to be the most difficult part to come by these days.
Fortunately, the gentleman that rebuilt my diff said he can get the parts so I just have to wait a little longer until those get here.

I don't have a pic of the steels which were scorched and blue but here are the frictions that were questionable.

This is what a good one looks like.

While awaiting the trans parts I figured it would be a good idea to prep a few more trans parts so they are pretty...ish.

With my trans case empty some paint was in order.

It's more of the silly brown color that I used on the engine but of course it does not match even though its the same brand and color.

I suppose in the real world it will does not matter much because it's just spray paint and probably won't last long and most people will never see it.

Anyway I like it and it's nice to have painted things and not a bunch of greasy junk.

In regards to the trans case I figured I would take a look at what it was going to take to ditch the stock trans cooler in favor of my bigger-is-better set up.

I got a cooler and some fittings when I bought the used trans so I looked at those first.
The openings in them were ridiculously small.
I did not measure them but they might have been just a bit over .125 inches (3mm).
The banjo style bolts from the stock trans cooler were not much better.
This lead me to the nets to look for a better solution.

Bel Metric was where I ended up.
I got some of their high flow, M12, fine thread banjo bolts and fittings.
These will allow me to run a 3/8 trans cooler line from the tiny hole in the back of the trans case.

Perhaps pics will better illustrate my concern.

Here is the stock trans cooler bolt compared to my new high flow banjo bolts.

This is the opening in the banjo fitting for the new bolt.

Here is the new bolt compared to the fittings that came with the oil cooler set up from my used trans.

Without enlarging and re-tapping the holes in the case this is about as good as it's going to get.

Mocked up on the trans case.

While working on all of this I got my diff section back.

Apparently someone had some issue with a nut or bolt at some point in this transmission's life.

This was a budget rebuild so the unit arrived cleaned and rebuilt and it was up to me to paint it up all pretty.

Paint it up all pretty I did.

I hit it up in a few places with a needle scaler and cleaned it up a bit with some brake parts cleaner to prep for paint.

I have a diff pan and trans pan that is in better shape that I cleaned up and painted.
I will wait to put those on until after the engine and trans is in the van so I can slide this thing all over the floor without worrying about wreckin' muh pretty bits.

It's probably about time to pick one of my three torque converters to send off for a rebuild.

I did manage to disassemble both trailing arm assemblies today but I did not get any pics for some reason.

I am going to start cleaning all of that stuff up to prep paint and some new bearings and bushings.
I will also be working on my rear disk brake set up.

Oooo!
I know I mentioned in my last post that I was going to get back at the air bag set up but I think I have decided to bail on that idea permanently.

It just does not click with me for this build so to save time I am just going to run some springs.

I already bought some moog springs for the front and will be running some westy springs in the rear with some spacers.

Hmm what else?
I think a bit back I mentioned that I cleaned and under coated the van
I found a couple of pics of that.
This is more or less what it looks like.

The white spots you see in this pic is from the Ospho that I sprayed in the middle of the van running over the parts that I already undercoated in wheel well.

Lastly I took a chance on a company that I have not really heard of and got a monster new alternator.

This baby is rated for 250 amps and supposedly puts out 170 amps at idle should it need to.

Why do I need that much power?
For electric air conditioning of course.
I will get into all of that once the van is on the road but this should cover the electric AC system as well assisting the solar in charging the house battery that I have in mind.

I have also been tossing around the idea of running a second 120 amp alternator to run the electric power steering and all the new fans for the trans and oil coolers.
There is also a strong possibility that I will run a decent stereo in this van as well as some customs off road lights that I have been working on.

Bottom line is I want to make sure I have the electrical power side of things covered.
All of this is, sort of, an experimental set up to try a couple of things that will be scaled up for use in my 4x4 Vanagon.

Well that's all for now.
Going to tackle something else tomorrow but I can't say what that will be.
Stay tuned to find out.