Felicia 1.8T transplant thread

[TeflonTom]

I've fixed the problems with the steering column now

it is possible to completely remove the cardan joints from the steering column but it is quite tricky to do, they were certainly never intended to be removed that's for sure... Basically I ground away the peened area with a die grinder then bashed the joint off the bottom of the shaft.

then I press fitted the power steering joint onto the non power steering column. Then welded the joint on to prevent it from moving.. I made sure to only weld a tiny bit at a time and allowed it to cool off to avoid melting the bearings in the u/j.. Gave it a quick spray of paint to cover up the marks made whilst bashing the joint off the other steering column.

[TeflonTom]

i should have spent more time figuring it all out when I did the hydraulic clutch conversion.. Basically if I use the colapsable power steering type column (larger diameter) in interferes with the clutch master cylinder fittings. So I had no choice but to use the smaller non power steering type shaft.. However I have now found out after all that trouble I went to that there is also another type of power steering rack which has the same column attachment fittings as the non power steering type.

[TeflonTom]

Previously I had a turbo discharge flange made from mild steel which had a 3" hole in the middle, I made an attempt at making a down pipe from 3" mild steel tubing but it was an epic failure, it's so tight in there that I simply cannot make it fit... Any who, went for a stainless steel flange instead with 2.5" bore, all the elbows are 2.5" Mandrel bent stainless steel, it was fairly tricky to get the angles right and it took a lot of trial an error ( and a few expensive mistakes).. Ive put a flex section in there to allow of expansion and movement of the exhaust system.... you can see a hole drilled in one of the pipes, this is where the lambda probe is going to live, I have a pre-made stainless steel weld-in boss to go in there but I haven't got a hole saw the right size at the moment... It's only tacked together at the moment but it will be tig welded.

[TeflonTom]

All fully tig welded, both of the flanges are now very distorted due to the amount of heat in the welding process, going to to flatten them off as best I can using a hydraulic press then machine them back to flat again... It's vitally important that the turbo discharge flange is dead flat otherwise gas leakby could blow the turbo up.

[TeflonTom]

I really honestly have no idea how much money I've spent on this, I hate to think about it actually.

[TeflonTom]

I've managed to procure a left and right pair of these babies.. These will come in handy for the rear brakes. More on this subject later...

more updates and pics to follow tomorrow, catalytic convertor all sorted now, exhaust system nearly done.

[TeflonTom]

Home made down pipe in place, you can see from the picture just how little space there is to play with, it's quite close to the steering rack where the first elbow comes out of the turbo, all of these elbows came from a company called jetex, they come supplied with much longer 'legs' and one end has a slip joint whih is supposed to slide over the adjoining piece but I chopped all these off and just butt welded them, the elbow at the turbo is a special one which has a very tight radius so it is made from 2 pieces which sort of look like those crisps pringles which are then welded together

it took a bit of head scratching to figure the least amount elbows I need to buy to make this work, they are fairly expensive to buy so I didnt want to waste any!! it sits nicely under the anti roll bar and it's bang in the centre of the exhaust tunnel.

[TeflonTom]

I couldn't believe how much of an idiot I was.. I've actually gone and left my catalytic convertor in somebody else's workshop so I'm snookered so to speak, He won't be back till 2nd jan now.

I have had this standard oem felicia diesel exhaust system in the loft for nearly a year now, what I've decided to do temporarily is use this system for now until I can dedicate more funds to the exhaust, it's very expensive and fiddly to fabricate a bespoke system like this from stainless steel.. What I plan to do is cut off the pipe just before it goes into the centre silencer and remove the dog leg that normally goes round the gear linkage and just weld a reducer and a straight piece of pipe on there for now.. Once the car is through the mot and on the road I will revisit this and do it properly.

[TeflonTom]

I can count the number of things I need to do to get this finished with one hand now :-D the new front wings are in the paint shop now, not quite sure when they will be ready tbh, probably first week of jan now I should think, I'm going to overhaul the rear axle beam assembly and do a rear disc brake conversion at the same time, I have the stub axles from a mk3 golf, also have a pair of rear calipers and carriers from a golf vr6 floating around in my grandads garage, already have the new axle beam bushes from the dealer sat waiting ready, just need to order some brake flex pipes and make up some new brake hard pipes when the time comes...

[TeflonTom]

I can't remember where I got it from now, but it would have been really cheap knowing me! much against my better judgement I had to put one of these daft cone type air filters in there, couldnt find anything better that fitted in the space available.. Ignore all these myths that tell you that you gain like a million horsepower from fitting one, it's utter rubbish, the vast majority of people who fit these would be far better off sticking with their original air box...

Rant over, ok the 20v engine has an unusual neck size for the filter, 70mm in fact, this one was 89mm but it came with some reducing insert rings to step it down to various other common sizes.

[TeflonTom]

..

[TeflonTom]

Mini update:

started to adapt the centre silencer, had to carefully cut off the little support bracket first

it's well worth having one of these tools folks, it cuts pipe cleanly and dead square... Basically I've cut off the dog leg section that normally skirts round the old gear linkage, the piece of pipe directly next to the silencer is straight so this is the best place for me to cut.

[TeflonTom]

Stainless steel cone reducer welded onto the left over pipe stub...

straight piece of stainless pipe replaces the original dogleg pipe, then a 2 bolt flange at the front..... This is just a mock up in the above picture, until i retrieve the catalytic convertor section I made up I've got no idea how long the straight pipe needs to be, it will be roughly half this length.

there will be a hanger rod on top of this pipe somewhere near the front where the flange is too but again I'm not going to estimate where it goes

[TeflonTom]

edit: these are the rubbers that hold the standard exhaust system on, cost £6 for the lot from my local motor factors.

[TeflonTom]

I can't remember why I took this picture now but I'm sure I will think of it soon..

It shows the intercooler pipe that runs along the bottom of the chassis rail anyways

[TeflonTom]

Ah ha yes

the ill-fabled ever elusive catalytic convertor that's been sat in my mates workshop since before christmas. Basically it has a 3 bolt flange one end to mate with the down pipe, then a 2 bolt flange to join to the exhaust system, it's all stainless steel, tig welded.

fitted up to the car, it looks really strange from this angle.. Never mind it fits anyway.

[TeflonTom]

Catalytic convertor joined up to the shortened oem diesel exhaust middle silencer as mentioned a few posts above, thee exhaust system is now completely ready to go. Just need to get some paste for the slip joint where the rear silencer joins the middle silencer before i bolt it together :-D

next job is to go and put a rocket up the backside of the geezer in the paint shop and ask him where my wings have gotten to.

[TeflonTom]

I fired the old girl up this evening, it's the first time everything had all been fitted and plumbed in, exhaust system intercooler cooling system etc, ran it up for about 15 minutes to get it good and hot and check the levels and check for leaks etc..

Apart from a split vacuum/breather hose everything is absolutely kosher, I can officially say that the engine transpant s fully complete now, all the rest of the remaining jobs are not related to the engine or drivetrain...

it does sound awesome though, it's very stealthy, and the oem recirc valve makes a quality noise too, I was surprised it was so loud tbh...

more on this thread later..

[TeflonTom]

it still needs a bit of work doing before it's ready, then I've got to get it through the mot. After that I'll tidy up the bodywork, there is a massive gash in the left hand rear door and the rear arches are shot,

I did manage to get a genuine oem rear quarter panel off eBay for 99p, I won't be replacing the whole panel I will jut chop off the bit I want and use that, then just buy a wheel arch repair panel for the other side..

[TeflonTom]

I've had a quick look at a few things on this today and i realised that the speedo is not working, it's odd because I know the speedo actually works and the cable is attached as both ends properly, I'm wondering if it's because the felicia oem cable is not fully engaging with the speedo drive on the gearbox.. I'll think of something..

[TeflonTom]

Right it appears I need a speedo cable from a mk2 golf 1.3 petrol model... Same fitting at the speedo end as a felicia/favorit.. Apparently it's what all the mk2 golf boys use when the convert to using an 02a gearbox in a mk2... Legend. All I need to do is find one now.

[TeflonTom]

I'm feeling utterly demoralised again now, every time I fix one thing I find something else that is broken...the speedo is now fixed basically the square drive on the gearbox wasn't quite engaging with the cable, ended up getting a new speedo cable from my local motor factors, mk2 golf 1300cc model, has the same identical fitment as the speedo head end but as a slightly different fitting at the gearbox end, the mk2 golf cable is about 25cm longer than the oem skoda one but it's all back together again and working.

which leads me on nicely to the next problem.. The alternator is not charging the battery, I must admit I forgot to check this last time I ran it up, I had forgotten to plug in the alternator sense cable so the battery light on the dash didn't come on so I didn't think any more of it, turns out when I tried to start the car the battery was flat... After starting it from a jumper pack there followed much swearing and contortion, it was an almighty royal pain in the hoop to get the alternator out; intercooler pipes, fuel lines, expansion tank, throttle body, power steering pump and drivers side headlight all had to come out to just get enough space to squeeze it out..

[TeflonTom]

Omg I'm seriously a bell end.... 3 letters can solve this.... DFM..... There's an outside chance that this will go straight over every bodies heads but sat here this evening the penny has dropped and I now realise what the 'fault' is...

[TeflonTom]

Forgot to link in the picture.. Alternator antics, not the highlight of my week to discover it wasnt charging the battery. It's back from being tested now, despite the fact that the DFM terminal wasn't connected it's was broken anyway, a couple of the diodes are open circuit.

[TeflonTom]

Mini update;

finally got round to sorting out a replacement alternator today, I went to 4 different breakers yards and still couldn't find exactly what i was looking for, in the end I opted for using a 70amp alternator from a mk3 golf with a 1.4 8v petrol engine, don't know if I mentioned this but pretty much all late vw alternators will interchange with other models in terms of physically fitting the engine brackets, broadly speaking there are 2 types... 3 lug and 4 lug, the 3 lug types are only used on cars without power steering, the only other thing is that there is about 10 different types of pulley too, some of clutches, some are electro mechanical, and there are different diameters, plus different belt widths...

any who, I had to swap the 55mm pulley off the 1.4 alternator for the 60mm one from the original alternator, you're not supposed to be able to swap them over because the shaft on the alternator is a different length but with a bit of jiggery pokery with some spacers and washers you can make them fit

by some strange quirk of luck I had a brand spanking new voltage regulator for it too which has been sat in the top of my tool box for about 5 years so I swapped that over too just for luck.

wings are now painted and will be going on tomorrow.