Dusted off the Lincoln Precision TIG 185 !

I haven't TIG welded in almost 2 years.. finally got a new tank of Argon yesterday. Tonight I did a quick practice butt weld with some scrap roll cage tubing. Beveled each side at 45 degrees and then did a 2 pass butt weld. I surprised myself! Soon I should be fabricating the exhaust manifold for the TDI 4Runner. Tentative plan is a tri-Y style header, but we'll see if I have enough room to do that. Going to be tight.

Working on the ECM wiring harness

In the last few days I have starting working on the wiring. This means spending many hours studying the diagrams, figuring out exactly what each wire does, is it important for the Toyota swap, etc. It's not terribly difficult, it just takes a lot of time - at least for me it does! Luckily my donor car was a 99 Golf, so the ECM is only an 80 pin, and not the 121 pin from later years!

I am hoping to order some schedule 40 weld els tonight so that I will be ready to fabricate the exhaust manifold soon. Not sure yet if I will TIG or MIG the manifold, but leaning towards TIG. More on that to come when I get to that step.

I believe that once the wiring harness is finished and the exhaust manifold is finished, the project will easier to make progress on. At that point it will be lots of small things to do and less major issues to work through.

Flywheel, clutch, & starter is Installed

The clutch kit came in yesterday, so I pulled the engine back out and installed it last night. It turned into a bit of a job because of the way the engine is oriented. I have moved the lift chains all around and worked with the load leveler, but still can't quite get the angle correct - it is a job to get that engine to line up and bolt in! The flywheel, clutch, pressure plate, and throwout bearing installed with no problems. I manually turned the crank and the 4Runner moved forward, so that's a good sign!

Today I installed the starter. It is a high output gear reduction starter for a 98 3.4l Toyota Tacoma. It fits perfectly when installed with the spacer plate supplied with the Acme Adapters kit. I did have to drill out the threads on the lower starter mounting hole so the bolt would thread into the bell housing. 

I also installed the clutch slave cylinder - the pedal has a very nice feel and is not too heavy at all. Feels about like a stock TDI Jetta Clutch. 

I made a mistake when fabricating the engine mounts - the driver side mount is too close to the AC compressor. It lightly hits the center of the AC pulley. This is not the end of the world since I was not going to run AC at first. The center of the pulley only turns when the clutch is engaged. I should be able to fix this fairly easily - I'll just notch the mount holes and move the mount. I only need about 2 or 3 mm to clear the AC clutch.

Acme Adapters did their job - alignment looks dead on!

The driver's side motor mount is a bit close to the AC clutch - needs some adjustment!

Engine mount for TDI is done!

This weekend's project was to fabricate the engine mounts for the TDI. I ended up changing my plans some as I went along, but it turned out great - I am very happy with the results! 

I welded a 2" box tube between the frame rails to hold the motor mounts. I am using the factory VW B5 Passat 2.8 V6 hydraulic mounts. They are affordable and should do a good job. Time will tell how well they work, but by moving the engine around by hand, they feel similar to stock VW TDI mounts in a Jetta.

I connected the mounts to the engine by making a brace. It's a similar idea to a motor plate in a race car. I bolted the brace to the existing factory VW bracket on the front of the engine. The round pipe you see in the pictures below is some left over roll cage tubing from my previous Mustang project. This mount/brace is probably overbuilt, but that's better than being inadequate.

In other news, my clutch should be here either tomorrow or Tuesday. I ordered an F1 Racing Stage 2 clutch. The next level up was a 6 puck ceramic clutch, which I do not want for a daily driver. I did not find anything better, so I'll give this a try and hope for the best. 

I also ordered a 1/2 thick laser cut exhaust manifold flange; soon I will be ready to start fabricating the log manifold.

My welding isn't as good as it used to be - I haven't welded in the last 2 years, so I'm a bit out of practice. It'll come back to me soon, though.

First VW TDI test fit in the Toyota 4Runner

Since I finished the transmission lift mount yesterday, I decided to go ahead and do a test fit with the engine. Took a while to get the angles just right for the adapter plate dowel pins to drop into the bellhousing, but it finally dropped into place. I secured it temporarily with 2 bolts. After moving the engine around a bit and measuring to center the engine, it appears there will be enough room all around to fabricate the necessary parts. The oil pan clears the front differential by 0.75" and I can even bolt on the facotory VW AC compressor (will have to trim a corner off the old motor mount plate). Next to do is fabricate the engine mounts. I have a plan ready to go for that, just need to get a bit more material to work with.