Many of the things have been hooked up. Still have the intake plumbing and then the excessively complex radiator hose jungle. I swear it was designed by the same guy who did the 944 turbo - a crapton of hoses and the same after-run coolant pump.
Many of the things have been hooked up. Still have the intake plumbing and then the excessively complex radiator hose jungle. I swear it was designed by the same guy who did the 944 turbo - a crapton of hoses and the same after-run coolant pump.
Back from vacation and dug into the electrical diagrams. The reverse lights are usually lit by the autotragic trans controller, but that's been fooled into thinking that the van's always in D. Coincidentally the reverse light relay is also the Park-Neutral starter safety relay so the hackage stays limited: run new wires from the manual trans reverse light switch up through the engine compartment harness, remove terminals 4 and 5 from the relay block and plug the switch wires in.
The starter interlock was a little harder but the same gent who makes the trans emulator pointed out that the trans controller pulls signal to ground when conditions are right, which is not when the TCM thinks it's in D. I clipped the wire to terminal 9 and scotchlok'd the stub to ground on terminal 7. Then folded the marked-up wiring diagram into the owner's manual, maybe it'll be helpful someday.
My parts supplier has had some life troubles. He's still working on getting the stub axle bracket, and I keep looking for one, too, but it's a rare part as the V6 + manual was never offered here and was a rare combo in Europe.
In the mean time I realized that it wouldn't be too hard to adapt the auto trans bracket. The manual trans stub axle bearing wants to be about 5mm further out than the auto piece, and looking at pix of the two brackets you can see the manual one is scoshe deeper. 5mm leaves enough room for a bit of steel. The stub axle has some play in the splines but it's easy to see about where the middle of the play is, and some t-square and level action got things pretty well lined up. The inside bolt is blocked by the original bracket but the 3/16 plate tapped nicely.
It might come off the jack stands this weekend.
With the stub axle bracket sorted I got the passenger side axle installed and the car is indeed down off the jackstands. Waiting now for the shift rod and shifter bracket that are inbound from Europe, should arrive in the next week or so.
I couldn't convince the PNP relay to fire the starter, spent time today with wiring diagrams, a meter and a bunch of jumpers and failed to figure out why. So I modified the relay itself: the black wire runs from the ground side of the relay coil and bypasses the electronics. Marked it so that future me knows it shouldn't be replaced with a stock PNP relay. Starter turns nicely but will have to wait until the radiator is back in to fire it up.
The relay is marked 'mod' not 'moo', although maybe 'moo' would be better.
good to see the progress!
p/n 701 711 015 direct from Germany, by way of Riga, Latvia. One more piece to go.
So much awesome in this thread.
I knew I was in the right place as soon as I read this:
Old Volvos. Weird AWD like the Mazda Protege. VW vans. AWD VW vans. With engine swaps
Just dropping in to say I appreciate you documenting this. I live in constant fear of the transmission in our Weekender just giving up one day.
After almost 2 weeks in customs the what i thought would be the last piece has arrived! I was hoping this would include the bushing, now a little more waiting but those parts at least are available in the US.
In the immortal words of Galileo: eppur si muove. Lots still to do, but nice to see it out in the rain!
In reply to paddygarcia :
It's always nice to move them outside for a minute. At least you have room to clean up the workspace before the next big effort.
Indeed! First thing I did was get out the broom.
It's a little weird getting used to the manual, I'm used to this one creeping when you let off the brake. Ok, it still does, but often backwards.
The automatic trans key interlock is a cable that runs from the lock cylinder to the shifter. With the cable just loose it would sometimes engage the interlock a little and make it hard to remove the key.
Three screws and one pop later the problem is gone. The lever is spring loaded to always let the key go.
I was surprised to find the right stub axle bracket on US ebay today and pored over the parts catalogs before buying it. Turns out there are a couple of versions of the 01P automatic trans, with major differences between the transaxles and axles used on 12V and 24V vans.
The 12V vans with automatic trans use the same axles as the manuals, with 108mm CVs. The 24V vans got a variant with larger (120mm?) CVs and maybe a different final drive gear housing, so they got a unique stub axle bracket. The 12V auto vans use the same stub bracket as the manuals. So early VR6 (97-01) Eurovan/Rialta axles and bracket will work for a manual conversion.
02G409905A bracket arrived and replaced my hacked 02G409905B bracket. Now the only non-VW part in the van is Dean's little black box which convinces the TCU that the missing automatic trans is happily living on a farm with all the other 01P transaxles.
With about 700 miles on the conversion I'd call this project a success. No check engine or ABS/stability lights. The engine starts instantly and runs very nicely. The clutch is has a narrow engagement but works well and the pedals and shifter are well placed. The van accelerates a little better than before, uses a little less gas (22ish MPG), and the Transmission of Damocles no longer hangs over every drive.
If you can source the transaxle itself and do the work or pay to do it, I recommend this. It might be almost a wash to pay a good VW tech to convert vs R&R a rebuilt automatic. I had to learn Eurovan and also took on a number of heavy WYIT tasks that you might not, so it took a while.
The gearbox is the only real unicorn piece. Quality German Auto Parts in California might have one, or Dutch Auto Parts in the Netherlands. I haven't used either supplier. Other parts needed are:
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