AFN TDI + DHL A4 Box Conversion complete!

[davegsm82]

Just covered 140 miles in this today, runs sweet as a nut but is losing oil from the 'sandwich' oil cooler top seal. Need to address this soon as it's making a mess of my driveway and there's little flecks all over the back of the van.

Other things to note are that I think it needs better engine mounts as it's very vibey around 2000RPM in 4th. Need to sort out some better suspension/damping as it's all over the shop in the winds we've been having lately.

Economy is about 40MPG driving like I drive, which is NOT the most efficient it could be. Could do with a few more horses for the hills but 110 is enough for now. 60mph is still a nice leisurely speed for the chassis, 70 mph is easy enough to get on the flat, 80 is possible although I wouldn't recommend it for too long.

A couple more pictures,

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Dave.

[davegsm82]

I should add that just leaving the intercooler loose in the bottom of the Pillar has given me intake temperatures of between 45 and 55 degrees C under constant high load. Not too shabby.

Is the engine area a particularly low air pressure area? there must be significant air flow down the rear air intake channels.

Dave.

[davegsm82]

After devouring a bit over half a tank of diesel (35L) and covering 336 miles I have worked out my economy (50/50 urban/dual carriageway) is about 43.5MPG.

That's not bad at all

Dave.

[davegsm82]

In the last 2 days I've done 730 miles in the van, fairly mixed driving, around the hills and valleys of Wales.

Cost about £100 in fuel which worked out at something like 36-38mpg (estimated), but I wasn't hanging about. Was worth the looks from people in other, newer campers as I passed them at 80 in a 27 year old vehicle.

Half the journey was carrying a spare engine and gearbox (the original 1.6TD and 5-speed box) in the back. Didn't affect performance/economy really.

Ran like a dream all the way there and back, no problems, didn't have to lift the engine cover once. I do think that my driveshafts are shot but that's old news really. 1 happy engine customer on the south cost of wales and 1 gearbox delivered to our very own Aidan Talbot.

Still Very happy with the result.

Dave.

[racebiz]

A good interesting write up Dave. You are obviously into your electronics to be able to sort the golf clocks out to operate, and that does give the dash a nice modern look about it.

What did you do for your gear shift in the end and any chance of a couple of pics.

Cheers.

[davegsm82]

Hiya Racebiz,

Yea you're right, I'm quite competent with electronics so the clocks were no issue, making them look OEM is going to be more of a challenge but I'll sort that in time, currently the lens over the dials is just taped in place so looks a bit naff.

with regards to the gearchange, I'm currently still running with inverted gears, directly coupled to the original gearlever. Surprisingly you get used to the gears like this very quickly. I do have something planned to convert them but I need a spare gearchange box/gate/lever etc first.

I'll take a few pics when I get a chance but will probably be a couple of weeks before I can get underneath etc.

Cheers, Dave.

[racebiz]

Your clocks look very much OEM from a distance in the dark !

The electronics side of things does interest me so may need to contact you sometime if I decide to have a play.

For the gearshift 'willowreilly' over on brickyard has done what I think you are on about. So currently have you managed to adapt the origina ball & socket onto the Audi box selector shaft.

Only interested as I am once again looking at going the flipped box route even though I rulled it out once originaland dropped the GTI lump in.

[davegsm82]

Your clocks look very much OEM from a distance in the dark !

The electronics side of things does interest me so may need to contact you sometime if I decide to have a play.

For the gearshift 'willowreilly' over on brickyard has done what I think you are on about. So currently have you managed to adapt the origina ball & socket onto the Audi box selector shaft.

Only interested as I am once again looking at going the flipped box route even though I rulled it out once originaland dropped the GTI lump in.

Yea they only look OEM from a distance and in the dark. With the lights on you can see the Black tape and the crack across the plastic.

By all means give me a shout about the electronics, I'll help if I can.

I've not modified the ball and cup arrangement, it's a completely different arrangement on the Audi box, just a simple shaft which I've made a new selector rod for, connects directly to the cross shaped CV 'thingy' about a meter in front of the box. My gears are all back to front but it's not a problem, I'm used to it but I do have a plan for the future to correct it.

How's the GTi lump working out for you?

Dave.

[racebiz]

Cheers for the offer to help with electronics - I may be glad of that sometime.

For your gear shifter - have a look on FB T3 TDI group, a post started by a Jon Evans on 23/07 has had several people share their ideas and is deffo worth a read.

As for the GTI, it works well and is a huge improvement on the wbx and will probably do us fine. I would like a few more mpg, currently 27 on a long run down to 17 on short stop/start town trips, + a bit more grunt on long hills but van has got a heavy viking pop top.

I just got the itch to fit a nice torquey AFN or TDI PD coupled to flipped box that I can rag without worrying about MPG or breaking the box !

[davegsm82]

Trust me, it's definitely nice to be able to hoon it about without worrying that you're denting your wallet

I think the best I've had out of this was about 45-47 on a long, slow (60-65) run, you can't grumble at that. The only thing I worry about is destroying the driveshafts, the AFN although quite aged is still more than capable of some serious torque. The DHL is reasonably low geared, so it's a case of "unstoppable force meets immovable object", i.e. AFN+DHL meets 2 Ton of bus, the weakest point in the chain is probably the CV's since they're already running at an unhappy angle


Anyway, made some progress today, set my mileage to the mileage of the mechanical clocks I've just removed, I've documented this over on TDI Club, since there's already a very useful thread over there on the subject of cluster mods.

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.ph ... ost4853026" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

MOT day tomorrow, Fingers Crossed!!!

Dave.

[racebiz]

I note your comment ref the drive shaft angles which never looks right, however collectively there have now been thousands of miles covered with this setup.

Just tried the TDI club but it seems to be down tonight for maintenance.

Good luck with MOT.

[davegsm82]

MOT Passed with flying colours. However....

Upon getting home I tried to reverse off the (downhill facing) driveway to find myself in 4th instead of Reverse, similarly with trying to get anything left or right of centre.

Turns out the weld had snapped on my linkage, took a little bit of re-welding and about half an hour of swearing and realigning the pinch bolt on the gearchange shaft of the gearbox but all was well again. Noticed the selector fork at the bottom of the gearlever was scraping around on the metal, the MOT tester had obviously pushed down on the lever and popped out the ball joint. Tugged that back into place.

Also, while I was underneath the stricken vehicle, I noted something uncomfortable, on the rear passenger side trailing arm where the weld meets the chassis there is now a small hole. maybe only 5-6mm in diameter but a hole nonetheless. This will have to be addressed by next MOT, and so will begin the never ending cycle of find-rust-cut-weld-rust

Worked out more things to do with the mileage today but as you've noted, TDi-Club is down so I can't post my findings.

Dave.

[racebiz]

So at least it passed but a couple of jobs before next MOT.

For your gear linkage, did you have a look at the fb TDI page.

[Dutchman]

Hallo Dave,

I have a vibration in my bus between 1900-2300rpm in 2, 3, 4, and 5th gear. I lowered the bus 3cm and the engine and gearbox droped 4cm. So that gives the driveshafts an better angle. No problem so far.
I think that the crankshaft and the prise-shaft are not inline.
I made the adapterplate by myself in a hurry. It was a few weeks before we went on summervacation. (4 weeks outher hybridies).
No further problems, only the irritating vibration.

What dit you do against the vibration?

Kind regards, Robin the Dutchman

[davegsm82]

Hallo Dave,

I have a vibration in my bus between 1900-2300rpm in 2, 3, 4, and 5th gear. I lowered the bus 3cm and the engine and gearbox droped 4cm. So that gives the driveshafts an better angle. No problem so far.
I think that the crankshaft and the prise-shaft are not inline.
I made the adapterplate by myself in a hurry. It was a few weeks before we went on summervacation. (4 weeks outher hybridies).
No further problems, only the irritating vibration.

What dit you do against the vibration?

Kind regards, Robin the Dutchman

Hi Robin,

Sorry for the late reply. I've not done anything to rectify the vibration yet, in fact if I'm honest it's not bad enough to really bother me. Some stuff rattles, the mirrors look a bit out of focus but other than that it's not an issue.

I'm going to look at new engine mounts at some point anyway so that may help, a guy on the Facebook T3 group has done a conversion and swears by the DMF, which I don't like and can see it failing very quickly in a heavy vehicle such as the T3. Perhaps if I have a DMF laying around when I next drop out the engine and gearbox then I might possibly try to install one.

I've been driving the van recently as the car has been off the road (mk4 golf TDI), the original ASV engine was badly worn, I fitted an AHU which turned out to be cracked (block). Just yesterday I finished installing a PD/VE hybrid, PD ASZ bottom end with crank and pistons and the VE AHU head. Works well so far.

Dave.