Club 80-90 Forums

Thinking of converting my 2ltr Aircooled to watercooled and then Subaru-ing it; Has anyone done the Aircooled to watercooled conversion and can give anything to watch out for or tips?

nothing drastic - VW planned for T25's to bw W/C from the off... You'll need all the bits of course and either cut your front panel or weld a new un in to allow for the rad to work properly.

Dunna also forget your going to need the dash out and a new heater box in there too

Do you think it could be done without the extra radiator hole? If the air is properly chanelled in and sealed through the upper grill only?

why bother buy a decent water cooled with a duff engine loads cheaper!

'Cos I love my green machine! And if I did buy a water cooled it'd cost a whole lot more than I've got, that's for sure.

Why would you want to adapt the front to work when you can make the conversion look factory finish using all gen stuff so no pissing about making things work. cut front panel and install rad as vw did and you won't have any probs with cooling system and can get any bits from breakers or off the shelf still.

I wasn't thinking of adapting the front panel as such, in fact I don't want to cut the lower hole out. I was just going to use the top hole only, but seal it all up on the inside so all the air going through it just goes through the rad, if that makes sense.
A guy round the corner from me has had the Subaru conversion done on a bay, and they've put the rad at the back, behind the engine but I've heard this isn't so good as you can burn the fans because the're on all time, due to the fact there is no air pressure pushing the air through.

Then your friend has the wrong fans fitted, and it has little to do with air pressure pushing through.
my current van is an ac to derv conversion, beleive me you will need to cut the lower front panal open ,in an ideal world I would have the whole front open but therein lies another story.

appart from fitting the new lump with required engine mounting bars you need all the water plumbing stuff. fr/rr pipes and as said dash out and new heater unit, new switches and dash clocks etc the list goes on,
mike

Looks like I might be getting the jigsaw out then
And did I mention that mine's an automatic too...

Oh joy of joys
mike
go for it