On the road at last !

[lloydy]

Shouldnt be too hard to put right though, bashplate and exhaust hanger.
i do like that made up bit between the towbar and bashplate though

[Roving Rich]

Why am i not suprised.
Well it works
I liked MGs custom version, that is kinda what I had figured I'd have to make. But his exhaust is mounted down the side, where as mine is in the way across the rear.
So If I get a diesel bash plate and bars is it gonna fit with the petrol cradle around the diesel engine....

Cheers
Rich

[Roving Rich]

Well I escaped for a few days RnR,
Ditched my Syncro in a hedge in Wiltshire and took off by mountain bike for a few days with some mates. We had a great time, stealth camping up on Salisbury plain was a little restless with helicopters hovering overhead, landrovers circling us with their lights off, and search lights across the fields. No one slept too soundly. The next night was not much better. Camping in an amazing copse in the Pewsey vale, lots of voices in the darkness, human owl calls and shouted directions. What on earth was going on ? Crop Circles !
It was a lot of fun, got a little green laning in up the ridgeway, Rig spotting amid what remains of the hippy convoy.


Mmm breakfast after a fitful night...


This strange hollow copse, just two rings of trees form a perimeter, regularly spaced, and reasonably old our theory was that they formed a sheep fold for the great tan hill fair that took place for centuries.


Trees to close for hammocking, so slung under an overhanging limb.


Bloomin crop circlers keeping us up half the night. Then flippin helicopters, planes and microlights photographing it all morning !



Loaded back in the van, 4 bikes, luggage and 4 burly blokes, well three anyway


Rig spotting, ex military 4x4 Mmmmm Thirsty, uncomfortable, noisy....but still has some strange neanderthal appeal


Bedford RL - this is a nice rig, sposed to be quite capable. Oh the open road......



Couldn't resist a drive by and on up the ridgeway. The ruts got pretty deep in places, but nothing we couldn't handle. Everyone was amazed that we just breezed right through all this mud and ruts. I was amazed.

So having skived off needed to get some work done on the van...

[Roving Rich]

So Syncropendence was looming and my half hearted search for a bashplate while cycling had come to nothing.
"Man in shed with welder...." comes to the fore again.

So evening of pipe bending, weld a bit of box section onto the existing bashplate, make up some mounting plates (having discovered where it is sposed to fix to)
Presumably the original didn't fit around the Tdi ?





Oh missed a stage in the phots, getting carried away bodging, I mean fabricating.
Welded a huge piece of angle iron onto the tow bar mount that lurks behind the bumper. lined it up to be central between the bumper bolts then cut a slit in the bumper
and replaced it over the angle iron.
Next drill and bolt a much smaller piece of angle iron to the part sticking through to attach the support tubes to.
Plan A was to go through the bottom of the bumper which would look much tidier. But this isn't possible due to the rear panel sticking out too much.
As it is, it can all be unbolted to remove it, and replace the wibbly slitted bumper.


cut n shut ....

tack em on. Move them to avoid the tow hitch socket...

lots of snotty welding and grinding back later quickly bolt the tow ball back on, pick up a trailer and help a friend move house


I believe the towbar tie is supposed to go below the bashplate ? but it just doesn't line up, so I took it off and tucked it up above.
Note the luxurious workshop facilities. Copious light and passing strangers. Even the occasional outbreak of not raining.

From there the plan was to bolt on a piece of 6mm aluminium checkerplate. But it just will not bend ! The frame bends up slightly to the back, and I wanted to put a 45deg bend on the edges. This will help it not to lip on rocks, aswell as strengthening the flat plate. Somehow it just looks lethal flat.
A friend suggested squirting it with washing up liquid, to show the temperature change as i heated it up, otherwise it could melt ? Mapp gas didn't do it. It was just to thick. I will need to take it to an specialist folder to get it sorted.
I managed to bend a little of and attempted to bolt it on looking pretty flat, but would at least offer some protection to the sump which sticks out the side of the petrol plates by quite a margin.
As it was I ran out of time. A mates car broke down, so ended up fixing that instead of fixing and packing the syncro.
So all last minute stress as usual.
Got the front diff lock working late Friday afternoon and set off very late for Syncropendence, Bashplate,drill and bolts onboard to see what the scrutineers thought.

Fortunately we made it through without any damage. The worst scraping being the campsite river entrance once the farmer had kindly dumped a load of sleight over the mud. Phew !

So not sure what to do now, stick with Frankensteins bashbars or get the proper diesel ones and see how they fit around the Tdi?

Cheers
Rich

[max and caddy]

The proper bash plates will fit round the tdi...perhaps...normally they do anyway.

[syncropaddy]

I believe the towbar tie is supposed to go below the bashplate ?

Nope. The towbar has nothing to do with the bashplate at all. This is a diesel bashplate ....

[Roving Rich]

Wow thats quite different to my petrol one !
That's a different towbar too ? Mine was on when I got it, and was the only thing holding the bashplate in place.

Well I have a diesel bashplate on the way hopefully, thanks to a kind PM

So Andy and Alex (not Alec ) kindly took a look at the Tdi setup at Syncropendance.
There was the odd snigger, but no hysterics head shaking or heads in hands Phew
The consensus seemed to be it is a reasonable install using what was available. That being a petrol Syncro, a diesel pickup and a welder it seems.
So Alex immediately pointed out the wobbling bottom pulley Hopefully this is just the auxiliary drive belt pulley, which has some anti harmonic backing spacer which i think has disintegrated.
Andy connected a plug for VAG COM. He seems to know the loom colour coding from memory pretty much ! So ran VAG COM and got 4 error codes.
Simple ones are brake and speed signal not connected. I suspected this might be the case.
But the engine runs badly. Hunts on idle, gutless unless its on turbo, so it got thrashed up the mountain to maintain boost. And spews oil out of the inlet temperature sensor. I assumed the turbo oil seals have gone ? But it could just be breathing heavily from oil breather.
The other two error messages are are a little more ambigous. 1710 Start of injector regulation start difference and 0575 intake manifold control difference.
They mean nothing to me but the diesel doctors suspect a sticking sensor on injector 3. And a leak in the boost line from the intercooler. I did have a split hose on it when I got it, so this message could date from then ? I wonder if I have to change the injectors to sort out other ? So error codes were cleared down, so I can see what reappears.
It was fantastic to meet Andy and Alex and get the whistlestop tour of what make the TDi tick. I have driven many VW Tdi's and always been impressed, but had no idea how they worked. So having these guys explain it to me and tell me what that sensor does, what the ECU is measuring to make it run was an absolute eye opener. The dark arts of vehicle electronics revealed. I struggled to find ant coherent information online, only long threads I could glean a little from and still not put the picture together. They are great engines, and I think I'm begining to understand them.
Thanks Guys - you have no idea how enlightening it is to understand what is going on with my engine ! I really appreciate your time and knowledge.


"The Diesel Doctors" Alex and Andy in action.

So other diagnostics showed the timing to be be off the graph ! So I was only to happy to dive in with a spanner and adjust it while I had these two and computer on hand.
We adjusted it as far as it would go, and got it back within the graph lines, but still a way off.
That mornings trip up the mountain and it was a different van ! More power low down, much more torque, boost coming in stronger and earlier it seemed. Lots more guts to get up the hills. Slopes I was gunning in G, I could now run up in 1st. What a difference !

So I have ordered a new pulley (£68 + VAT ) new timing belt and tensioner, and "fan" belt. Pick them up tomorrow for more tinkering.
Not sure whether to go for new injectors ? I have yet to find the engine number to identify it accurately, and I suspect they will be expensive.
I'm hoping to find the means to lock the injector pump, cam and crank. We couldn't fine TDC marking on the flywheel as the doctors think this is from the golf and not visible through the window on the T25 bell housing. I think that so long as I can lock everything up and mark the crank pulley then not move them. I should be okay to replace the timing belt. The idea being to move the pump up the belt a notch and back within its adjustment slot. To allow setting the timing properly. While I'm about it replace belt and tensioner for piece of mind.

Standby for a "mayday" post tomorrow lunchtimeish

Cheers
Rich

[max and caddy]

Your welcome Rich and ta for the praise. With regard to the injectors...a set will be quite expensive, i would just keep an eye open round the scrap yards or ebay for the no3 injector or "commencement of injection" sender as it also known. lots of engines use the basic injector body but if its not from a 1Z you may need to get a new nozzle of the correct size put on so try and find the right one i reckon.

the cambelt...well they dont take kindy to being paint marked so be warned...i would try and find TDC by removing a glow plug as thats your only option at present, a DTI gauge would help here for that part, then lock cam at the rear with a steel plate with cams on no1 pointing upwards and undo the cam sprocket and knock it off its taper with a punch from the rear (there is a hole for this) lock the pump with that hole i stuck my finger into, its about a 15mm pin ish, then fit an d tesion the new belt with cam sprocket still lose, check TDC and only then tighten up the cam bolt, this get the cam timed up perfectly..like a vernier pulley if you get me?. Then you need to reset the pump timing like at S/P to about 80 for max advance within the factory specs...pity your miles away as i would gladly plug in a diag machine.

[max and caddy]

Oh! and i had a thought about the oilyness in the pipes etc....how much oil is in the engine? the dip stick is a golf one if i recall and cant be right so might be worth dropping the oil, fitting a new filter and putting in 4.5lts of oil and seeing if it shows on the stick...if not adapt stick to suit, high oil level will cause oil to exit via the breather and may cause the engine to run away...messy and often terminal!

[max and caddy]

http://www.haywood-sullivan.com/vanagon ... ik-eng.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

you may find this intresting if the link works..

[Roving Rich]

Now there is a useful link
So there is no way to lock the crank/pulley ?
Why do I need to remove the cam pulley ?

Surely if I can lock all three and not move them I can fit a new belt without finding TDC ?

I'm not confident In the accuracy of me finding TDC through the glow plug hole. I have done this on petrol engines, but have never been convinced exactly where it lies, can be either just before or just after, and I'm never sure of the inlet/ exhaust valve timing relative to TDC....
And no computer to check it with I figure I could change the belt. reposition the pump, then wait until my next encounter with vagcom for accurate timing.

Or don't touch it until I have vagcom to hand.

BTW where are the engine numbers ?

Thanks
Rich