1.6L TD in a Dodge Caravan

[arb]

its a chunk of 1" steel stock about 6-8 inches long with a right angle bend on the end and a hole. yea, exhaust flange, downpipe, whatever you wanna call it, same thing. i welded it to that. just takes the flex out of the exhaust. and since my exhaust system is made from 2.5 inch flex pipe, i have some serious flex.

Maybe I get some aircraft nuts (with the wire holes drilled in them) and safety wire the 4 nuts so they can't viborate loose. Welding seems so much easier though and it only changes the manifold, no my turbo.

[truckinwagen]

I had issues with my turbo bolts working loose on my old stock turbo/manifold.

once on the trip to anchorage from homer all four bolts fell out and the turbo was held in only by the oil lines!
I was pulling vacuum and smoking like a freight train for close to 150 miles.

I ran extra long bolts through and put nuts on the protruding ends, then I tack welded the nuts to the bolts and problem solved!

[arb]

I had issues with my turbo bolts working loose on my old stock turbo/manifold.

once on the trip to anchorage from homer all four bolts fell out and the turbo was held in only by the oil lines!
I was pulling vacuum and smoking like a freight train for close to 150 miles.

I ran extra long bolts through and put nuts on the protruding ends, then I tack welded the nuts to the bolts and problem solved!

Homer ?? !!!!  WOW. I had a friend who was a world traveler (brain surgeon / radiologist) who firmly holds Homer as his most favorite place on earth !!

Anyway, great approach. it would certainly be easier for me to tack weld the nuts rather than weld the entire flange to the manifold.

[truckinwagen]

yep, and that way if you need to remove it sometime you can take a grinder to the tack welds and then disassemble.

I love Homer too, grew up there, wish I could stay but there is no work.

I am going to school in Anchorage(230 miles away) and head down to visit Homer whenever I can.

[arb]

It looks like I'm going to have to weld more than just the TC mounting bolts... these engine mount bolts had lock-tite AND nylon locking nuts, but this is the 3rd time they vibrated loose. I have to tighten the anti-torque mount bolt to the firewall for the 3rd time too. The front anti-torque mount my brother and I installed fractured. Photos to follow of that repair. here's the mount -


NEXT problem, someone tried to steel my Garmin specific GPS cradle from my diesel while my family was in Life Time Fitness. Glad they realized it was very specific, but they cause some other damage too - They apparently tried to yank my instrument cluster. It was moved. When I started for work this morning, SERIOUS electrical problems, so I turned off the alternator. After a few hours at my first meeting, I noticed the alternator switch had melted !!!!  The car always gets locked now...

[Rabbit on Roids]

so what about when you wanna take it apart? you kinda have to destroy the bolts. its kinda just a less permanent solution to welding the turbo on?

and wow, 4 posts since i tried to post this little piece.

[arb]

so what about when you wanna take it apart? you kinda have to destroy the bolts. its kinda just a less permanent solution to welding the turbo on?

and wow, 4 posts since i tried to post this little piece.

Like Truckinwagen suggests: grind them off, so yes, destroy the bolt. I'm not going to weld the turbo on, but rather the bolts that hold the turbo to the flange, and the nuts that hold my flange to the manifold. I might weld the flange onto the manifold for a perfect seal.

As far as grinding, I have an air powered 3" or is it 2 3/4" cut off wheel. It cuts through any grade bolt rather quickly. Besides, sure cheaper than something breaking from one of these letting go on a trip to Florida or other distant locations she will travel.

[FoXBoXRaCiNG]

ok, i gotta ask, did you paint your freakin brakes? like the disk and all?

That is an excellent idea. I wanted to paint them red, but I ran out of high temp red. Maybe this weekend ! I did coat the mating surfaces of the hub to pinion arm (Could not remember the proper name of the chunk of steel that ball joint, strut, tie-rod end, and wheel hub bolts too) , disc to hub, brake bracket to pinion arm, etc with Never Seize.

On the  Jack stands, I thought of the 1/4" plate too as I have a nice chunk, but I too was worried about sliding. The 2" wide angle iron gives a lot of surface area so it will not sink, but also allows some grip so it doesn't slide. If I was going to use it on sand, I think I'd do the plate but have it recessed so the legs still bite about 3/8" for when you're on uneven gravel like mine (it has a crown and slopes towards the garage.)

Could not remember the name

Knuckle lol

[FoXBoXRaCiNG]

Could not remember the name

OMG... i want one of those. lol.

The kid that got beat up on the bus yesterday needed them !! http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/illinoisnews/story/60D37B6EC5FF4711862576320011605B?OpenDocument

My heart goes out to that kid, as I was once he    Funny running into the bullies 15 years later, I love being 6'8" at 300lb 

[arb]

Attempted to tighten the anti-torque engine mount and found it had shattered !!!



I'll have to remove it this week end and make it much stronger at those stress points. So, short term I dragged my 300# TIG welder up the gravel drive way to stick weld the broken front anti-torque so I could get to work... I wanted a little more clearance from the lower water pump hose.


Not the best weld, but seems to work for getting down the road today. I'll have to remove this one too and beef it up too.


I also tried to find the damaged wire from the attempted theft of my gauges.. thought I had it, I also re-wired the Chevy alternator as it was putting out 17v - 18v !!  No change, so it will need to be replaced. Good thing it has a lifetime warranty.

[Rabbit on Roids]

how are you going to make an anti torque mount work on an engine that has nothing but torque?

[arb]

how are you going to make an anti torque mount work on an engine that has nothing but torque?

LOL !!! LMAO !!!  Yes, good question indeed. It would probably be technically correct to call it the side Torque mount :-)

[Rabbit on Roids]

these diesels rock like a mofo. back and forth. you would need a shock absorber instead of a solid mount you would think. the higher horse cars ive seen with the side torque mount, it has been a shock absorber. all the normal ghetto cars ive seen with them are just a gay crappy piece of metal bracket. honelstly i would consider a Vw a high power engine. just from the amount of torque they can produce.

[macka]

what about a high durometer rubber puck sandwiched between 2 steel cups? Like the old muscle cars.

[arb]

what about a high durometer rubber puck sandwiched between 2 steel cups? Like the old muscle cars.

That's almost what I made - I have several pieces of thick radiator hose cut into pucks with a hole drilled in the middle for the bolt to go through. When I remade the mount, I really tightened the bolt compressing the pucks too much. Man, when that engine started the entire firewall and everything attached to it shook too !!  At first I thought something had come loose inside the engine. A look under the hood revealed it was idling normally. So, this morning before work I loosen the bolt a bit more than a turn. That help quite a bit, but there is still vibration translating to the steering column and everything else. Here's my mount saga. It now weighs about 3x what it did before. Here's the damage - it broke in four pieces:

and it bent quite a bit during the bake-up:

Here's the part that went to the differential housing, taking most of the torque.

I decided to weld the bracket that goes to the differential housing to the bracket that goes from the firewall to the bell housing.

Turns out, the bending had more effect than thought - the hole for the differential bolt was about 1 cm off. I used the TIG torch to heat the bracket and bend it back some. They I seriously gusseted it on both sides so it would not fracture from the stress of bending / stretching the metal.


Also, my new alternator had increased its voltage to 18 volts !! It caused some damage to my ECM (many body functions including the wiper motor goes through the ECM.)  I have a spare someplace in my garage... but the nice folks at Autozone warranty exchanged my alternator (I bought the one with life time warranty)