Ronnie's new runaround - Project VAN!

[Drizz]

LOL

[Melv]

so how many acres did you get ploughed?

[Steve!]

wicked

[rc]

lol was good fun

[Jonny Martin]

Haha love it!

[Spinbitch]

Lol nice work Ron, especially as the van is hardly standard ride height! lmao

[dan_adams_c20xe]

Lol nice work Ron, especially as the van is hardly standard ride height! lmao

its not standard height pal its been lowered a fair bit. have a look a through his early pages to see what i mean.

[rc]

re read lmao

Lol nice work Ron, especially as the van is hardly standard ride height! lmao

lmao

[dan_adams_c20xe]

wind up

[rc]

as some of you may or maynot have seen been breaking a GTE and rebuilding its XE for the van, so heres todays progress

got it in the unit



last run for this economical ol girl



stripped off all the unesserys and disconected the loom, pipes and cables, goona be taking this out all as one



just disconected the brake lines and track rod ends in the arches



lifted the car up on the crane just by the subframe



unbolted the subframe engine mouts and strut tops, remeved the axle stands and let it all down on the floor



then i had to get it all from under the car, on my own at the mo lol



ALOT of sweating and dragging, and many breaks, and got it out! phew! lmao



back down on the axle stands, got in the bay and pulled all the looms out the way for painting!



clean up and a scotch down and a coat of white



got the new engine on the gsi subframe, cept all the mounts subframe, legs pipes etc off the other red mk3 turbo!



had to bell my mate up now as couldnt continue solo, not so easy going in as it is out lol

van up and drivetrain slid under



and all in, reverse order



and the final thing of the night was to of corse try on all my painted bits id done



not bad for a aresol job



will carry on, and hopefully have running tomorrow

[Drizz]

Speedy!

[Jack]

Looks awesome, but you're still gay for ditching the diesel!

[rc]

cheers

[rc]

bit more today, not alot though!

as id been taking the driveshaft in and out in and out of the gsi to do the oil leek i just wacked a standard one back in there for ease, so had the equil length one kicking about the unit, rude not to put it on lol



next problem was the diesel van oil cooler fittings were the different type to the mk2 16v, so had to swap the sandwhic plates from the oil pump off the other red one wihich had the same as the gte



all done and together



next i connected thegear linkage up, more problems lol for some reason where the linkage joins the gear stick is the other way round to normal, normally its the gear stick that goes over the linkage, but on the diesel its the linkage that goes over the stick, so i had two male ends lol

so stuck a mk3 gsi one in



next trottle cable, slight difference lol



then legs on, new breaks too, the 236s used to fade like **** on countryside blasts



next was the wiring,



most where colour to colour but had a few left over, out came the wiring diagrams lol



all done



fitted all the rest of the loom and ecu



for the fuel pump i was just going to run a wire all the way through the car to the other tank, but had a look underneith and theres already a wire and pump there ready for a fuel pump cannot find it the engine bay end though :confussed: any ideas where the front end of the wire is???

that was it for today, wayyy to cold.

so tomorrow gonna make up an exhaust system, and the plan for the fuel system is to try running the diesel tank with the gte inline fuel pump and see what happens! (filled with petrol obviously)

[RickGTE16V]

thats awesome, something i always wanted to do, just wish i could justify fueling a petrol .. would be fun for me for about a week then id notice the wad of 20's getting thinner..

[rc]

thats awesome, something i always wanted to do, just wish i could justify fueling a petrol .. would be fun for me for about a week then id notice the wad of 20's getting thinner..

i wouldnt of normally done it either, but the gte came up at a price i could just about break it for, keeping the engine, so effectively more or less a free conversion!

all sence would be to keep it nice economical diesel, but i just couldnt resist lmao

[eggman]

if the wire u speak of is the normal red and blue yolk then the end u are lookin for will be found behind the driver kick pannel my vans both had a wire to the rear but it was not big enough for the pump load and for u useing the derv tank big no no with external pump as the feed pipe to the pump has to be 12 mm minimum id or u get starvation above 4500rpm

[Steve!]

well done

[rc]

if the wire u speak of is the normal red and blue yolk then the end u are lookin for will be found behind the driver kick pannel my vans both had a wire to the rear but it was not big enough for the pump load and for u useing the derv tank big no no with external pump as the feed pipe to the pump has to be 12 mm minimum id or u get starvation above 4500rpm

cheers for that, funny you should mention that, when i found the plug for the pump i did think they look smaller than normal puel wires! might just run a wire down anyway.

the diesel tank is only tempary, i just need to get it up and running. ive got a MPi petrol estate tank ready for this, but didnt come with a fuel pump or cradle, and the gsi one dosent fit, struggleing to find a estate pump and cradle at the mo!

[Steve!]

Might find them cheap from the dealership

[eggman]

derv tank will be fine just run a fat pipe to the pump and route a wire and u will be all the way this is what i did on my mk2 cav it was good i ran 14mm od fuel pipe

[Jonny Martin]

derv tank will be fine just run a fat pipe to the pump and route a wire and u will be all the way this is what i did on my mk2 cav it was good i ran 14mm od fuel pipe

Do you not need the petrol tank as it has a swirl pot? when i first got my van it was still running the Derv tank, so when i was low on fuel eighth of a tank or so, if i put my foot down it would get fuel starvation and jerk about.

I think whats odd (in a good way) is that to some people this would be a massive deal fitting a valver to their car/van, however your taking it in your stride like its changing a wheel.

[RickGTE16V]

i have an idea , i remember from looking at my mk3 estate tank that it looks like the tank sender and feed and return pipes are fitted onto a peice that looks like you can remove it from the tank maybe you can remove it and fit a bigger feed pipe and fit it back, then just fit the gte pump underneath somewhere , so long as its secure should be alright there is that thing that was said about the swirl pot but just keep it topped up or take it easy when its low , which is sortof a normal thing to do anyway isnt it after all that you have achieved so far your not gonna let something like this slow u down are you ! keep up the pace!

[rc]

Do you not need the petrol tank as it has a swirl pot? when i first got my van it was still running the Derv tank, so when i was low on fuel eighth of a tank or so, if i put my foot down it would get fuel starvation and jerk about.

I think whats odd (in a good way) is that to some people this would be a massive deal fitting a valver to their car/van, however your taking it in your stride like its changing a wheel.

i made that error before, i had a nova sr back in the day, and put a 1.6 gsi lump in, and just put a gsi pump inline with the carb tank, started up and ran fine i thought grreat but every time u went round a corner i cut out due to the carb tank not having a built in swirl pot. so had to put a gsi tank in too!

[rc]

day 3, wasnt so cold today just pouring down with rain, but i dont care now i have a roof

first today was to make an exhaust, bit of gsi, bit of scorpion off the gsiT i broke, bit of custom i have laying around lol



and done, nothing special but do the job nicely



the scorion system came with a twin back box, and dont think it'll suit the van, and it wont fit in there any way, i like my tailpipe att he mo so will have to make up some sort of custom cackbox, i'll try it with out, just a center section see how loud it is.



next was the fuel system. just gonna run the gte pump inline with the diesel tank till i can get the a fuel cradle for the mpi estate one i have



had a look under and the inlet and outlet on the diesel tank are the same size, just normal fuel pipe size, but the inlet to the gte pump is hose pipe size, so had to reduce down. got normal fuel hose out of the tank, and put a inset in it



then just gonna clamp the big hose over the lot of it, perfect fit



just cable ties the pump assemberly to the back of the tank brackets, before connecting it to the fuel lines i pumped the last little bit of diesel out



then cut and joined the fuel hoses the other end too



fuel lines in i could put the sfi box and that all on properly, filled with oil and put on the rocker coverand cam cover properly





next was all the coolant pipes, exhaust on and fan on



gonna have to keep an eye on the fan, as the exhaust manifold was on the back of the diesel, its got a plastic fan, bit colser to the manifold now lol

now was ready to start

primed up the oil for quite a while, just to try cleaing the gallerys, plugs in all ready, rah rah rah turning over but nothing, no no no!!! why is nothing easy, started trying everything, started putting earths to everything as id painted it all thinking of bad contacts, then started thinking maybe i didnt get all the diesel out, checked the cam timing again, went through all the connections, tried different coils, 6 hours of head scratching and swearing, ****ing annoyed by this point, half a day wasted, not running not driving, just turning over, getting fuel getting spart, dizzys turning, wat is going on???



then i remembered i used a different dizzy as the mk2 one looked a bit shegged, so painted up a mk3 one, got the mk2 one off the side, which still had the leads on ant it caught my eye where the short no.4 lead was, not in the same place as mine! infact all the ht leads were wrong way round! i'd set them up exactly the same as the turbo, no error, thats what i wrote down in my haynes manual, the way round of the turbos one, but this is different but thinking about it now, taken my leads off before and just phone up my mate to look at his to tell me what way they go. when i took them off my turbo and forgot before i rung up my mate with a corsa xe to have a look, his was also a gte lump, and he told me an order that wasnt right for ****, i just fort it was him being stupid and looking wrong, so phoned up my other mate with a nova let, he looked at his, told me and was spot on for my turbo. so are normal xe's and let's different firing order or something?? :S

anyways put my ht leads the same way round as the gte dizze, and suprise suprise, one turn of the vey.... varooom! straight away, right ****ed off lol

was VERRRRY tappy at first, but was to be expected and after about 10 mins running soon quitened down, and is a very quiet runner indeed

as for wondering if it would be ok with just a center section and no back box, NO WAY lol, it is louder than loud! will have to make up a back box too!

now that i new it was all running and sweet i wired it all in properly, connected up everything, em light the lot



all tidyed up, nice and factory looking, and all going through the twist plug



and so there it is all done the theme for the engine bay was all black and white, basically cuz wasnt gonna spend any money on blue hoses or anything, and i think it works very well

using the gte ait box as my TD one diesnt fit (inlet too small) and i dont really like the mk3 ones anyway, look way too big







not bad for a quick chuck in

so tomorrow just gotta make up back box, then put wheels, bumper, lights etc on, and test drive

happy days