Author Topic: Please help me decide (TD into 73 bus) (Read 34243 times)

moTthediesel · « **Reply #75 on:** January 27, 2008, 09:44:58 am »

For priming the fuel pump, fit a boat tank squeeze bulb (available at WallyMart) into the fuel return line (make sure it's in the right way

). Squeeze it till it bleeds!

moT

speedy · « **Reply #76 on:** January 28, 2008, 09:57:48 pm »

The time has come for me to get rid of the 85 Quantum TD donor car. It has a good 5-speed transaxle. The members of this board have been a great help to me so I would like to offer up the tranny for FREE to any listmember who wants to come out to Dallas, Tx. and remove it. Other parts may be available, just ask. The car will be gone by the end of the week one way or the other so please reply quickly if interested.

-David

speedy · « **Reply #77 on:** January 29, 2008, 02:17:39 am »

I made a big push tonight to get the bus ready to drive. Went into full ghetto mode to finish up the last few tasks - I was slicing radiator hoses willy-nilly and using sink drains for the elbows, I hung the muffler up with two coat hangers. I wired up the electric fan to the thermo switch in the side of the radiator but it did not appear to work. I grounded one side of the fan and the other went to the "low" connector in the middle of the switch. The "+" connector on the switch went to the battery. The low switch should have come on at 85C but at 95 it was still not on so I got scared and hotwired the fan to cool the engine down.

The engine took a looooong time to warm up, at least 5 minutes. Could have been ten - I was having too much fun breathing diesel fumes to notice. Coolant was squirting into the overflow tank through the small tube - is that normal? I guess it is. There were strange temperature gradients in the radiator before the fan came on - it was hot at the top and very cool at the bottom... normal? I think I hooked up all of the hoses properly but I could have made a mistake somewhere.

I also couldn't get a water temp gauge working. I have an existing VDO oil temperature gauge in the dash and was hoping it would display water temperature when hooked to one of the spade connectors at the coolant outlet (the one that has the upper radiator hose attached to it). But, that didn't work. Another problem I will have to investigate before I take it beyond the end of the driveway. I'm just too scared to go anywhere without a working water temp gauge.

Finally, I bought some 1.5" pvc pipe and a few elbows to connect the turbo outlet to the intake manifold. Home Depot even had thick rubber couplers for a few bucks which will make it dead simple to hook up. I've seen a lot of people use PVC for their turbo piping and while it looks a bit cheesy it's hard to argue with the price and convenience. So, unless someone has a good reason not to, I am going to use it for now.

Unfortunately it is now after 1am and I am not a kid anymore - I have to give up and go to bed once again with the bus still in the garage. I will try again tomorrow night to get these last few things finished up. If anyone has hints for hooking up a water temp gauge or the fan thermo switch, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks,

-David

Vanagoner · « **Reply #78 on:** January 29, 2008, 08:40:25 am »

Good progress David.
If I could flip something over on that transaxle to use it, I would, but then you would have too. I think folks who build mid-engine replicars like the GT 40 would love to have your transaxle, sturdy and high geared.

speedy · « **Reply #79 on:** February 04, 2008, 01:04:30 am »

The TD Quantum is gone, sold for scrap. :cry: I did take quite a few parts off of it, send me e-mail if you need anything.

I got the boost and EGT gauges installed and there are a few new pictures on the web page:

http://motorheads.net/vw/turbobus

-David

speedy · « **Reply #80 on:** February 05, 2008, 10:03:01 pm »

That's pretty much what it's for at the moment, just to test the routing. I am thinking about reversing the elbow on top of the intake manifold to point forwards (front is front) and running the pipe up around the front of the engine compartment, just to keep the area around the engine hatch uncluttered. I just have to make sure it doesn't get close to the hot side of the turbo.

-David

speedy · « **Reply #81 on:** February 05, 2008, 10:16:26 pm »

By the way, what are people doing for the two smaller hoses that come off of the water pump? Each has a connection to the oil cooler - one goes up to the block (bypass hose) and the other to a distribution pipe. The bypass hose is available from busdepot.com for about $22, the other one seems to be unavailable. I bought some barbed hose connectors made of thick steel from the hardware store and I was planning on cutting and rewelding them to make tees which will allow me to use the more commonly available hoses which do not have hookups to the oil cooler.

Thanks,

-David

speedy · « **Reply #82 on:** February 14, 2008, 12:51:32 am »

I have been experimenting with the boost a bit. First, I plugged the hose going to the wastegate which I thought would get me a ton of boost. Nope - went up from 9psi to about 13 with a slight increase in power. I removed the fuel screw, broke off the collar (harder than I thought it was going to be) and reinstalled it a bit further in than it was originally. When I gave it throttle, the RPM ran away on me. I couldn't reduce the idle much because there is no slack in the throttle cable to allow it. So, I put the fuel screw back to where it was originally.

Next I decided that the stock turbo-to-air-cleaner hose was restrictive, and was also starting to crack. Plus, my air filter was the old one from the Quantum which looked like it had not been changed in... years. Rather than spend money on a new hose and/or air filter, I bought one of the Ghetto-fabulous conical air filters from Autozone and cobbled together an adapter to attach it directly to the turbo (I will later weld in a fitting for the hose to the valve cover). They had white, red or blue so I chose blue. Why not??!?

Back on the road, I was disappointed to find only slightly more boost. A max of 15psi wide open in 4th gear. On the bright side, I had no trouble getting up to 65mph (3900rpm in 4th gear). On the down side, I blew another cooling hose and saw the engine briefly go to an indicated 270 degrees F. I shut it off and let it cool down to 240 before limping it the final couple of blocks back to my house. I hope I didn't do any damage to the engine.

So why can't I get more than 15psi boost? Do I need to rotate the boost pin to get to 20psi? Turn the star wheel?

Thanks,

-David

p.s. as a reminder I have a stock Quantum TD 1.6 engine with KKK K24, open-element air cleaner and 2.25" mandrel bent exhaust.

speedy · « **Reply #83 on:** February 14, 2008, 01:08:47 pm »

There is no BOV in the intake manifold so I don't think I have one anywhere on the engine. I guess I will attempt to adjust the cone - gonna be slightly scary as my experience thus far working on injection pumps has been mostly bad (as in I have just messed things up).

The coolant hoses are just old ones I was using from the Quantum. I think every rubber part on that car was rotten (except the engine mounts for some reason) and I am slowly replacing them all, but some are harder to find than others and I'm anxious to be driving.

-David

speedy · « **Reply #84 on:** February 15, 2008, 12:29:54 am »

I tried some more things tonight - the coolant hose was not as bad of a failure as I thought - one of the sink-drain junctions I had put into the 1-1/4" lower radiator hose had just popped loose. I replaced that and tightened all of the other hose clamps on the cooling system. Found that my radiator has a small leak.

But not bad enough to stop driving.

I took the top off the ALDA and lo and behold, the dot on the top of the diaphragm was already almost opposite of the notch in the side. I turned it until it was 180 degrees from the notch and put it back together. No noticeable change from that mod. I turned the "smoke screw" in three turns, still no more boost observed. Can't tell how much smoke was coming out the exhaust because it was dark out, but there was none at idle or when goosing the throttle at idle. Finally I tightened up my accelerator cable a little bit, taking the last bit of slack out to the point where it would not quite return to idle - BINGO, 18 psi with my foot on the floor. Might have been good for a little more but I smelled burning plastic so I backed off. :lol:

The bus is "quite peppy" now, definitely faster than it was with the carbed 2.0 hydraulic engine it replaced. I am enjoying the power and the whistle of the turbo. I don't think I'm going to push it any harder for the time being.

It would be nice though if I could rev a bit higher before the fuel starts cutting out. Is there any way to raise the cutout point a little bit without doing the governor mod? A couple hundred rpm would be all I need.

Thanks for the suggestions,

-David

lavabo · « **Reply #85 on:** March 17, 2008, 10:48:07 am »

This is nice!!

Im about to start the same conversion on my 1973 westy, just waiting to get the adapter plate and the snow to melt (my jetta with the 1.9td is under 6 feet of snow)

My engine is a 1.9TD...
Some people told me not to put a TD engine in a stock tranny westy, as the engine Rev is too high and the engine will be prone to heat!

I ll be glad to hear from your first roadtest ..

I was also wondering about the radiator but at first ill put it in the engine bay as you did.. well see later if i can manage better place..

keep your good work, thanks for the pictures it helps!
mike

speedy · « **Reply #86 on:** March 17, 2008, 10:22:19 pm »

Mike,

With 27" tires on my '73 with stock tranny, I am turning 3600rpm at 60mph and 4000 at 67mph. This might be considered "too high" by some but I am going to drive it for a while as-is before I make that decision. I don't plan on driving it fast because most of the time I am more interested in economy than getting there in a hurry. I think it will do just fine at 60mph.

I have a '75 5-rib tranny sitting in my garage which has about a 1.5% taller ratio in 4th gear. That's about 1mph more at a given freeway rpm. The next step up from that is the 75 tranny with .82 4th gear which would be close to 10% taller than stock. An 091 tranny would also be about 10% taller. This may be too much - again, I will drive it for a while and hopefully the solution will become obvious. I am not going to opt for a taller-geared tranny unless I have power to burn at freeway speeds and no overheating problems.

I haven't driven my bus much in the past month because I have been working on various small projects (mounting the fuel filter, glow plug relay, etc.) and trying to improve the cooling system. I have a second radiator ordered (a new aluminum one with 22" wide core, only $59 from Bus Depot!!) and depending on how well that one works I might order another one to replace the brass/copper unit in there now. The aluminum radiator has the advantage of more fin area and the sensor also mounts perpendicular to the radiator, as opposed to sticking out the end of the tank where it has caused me a lot of grief with the brass/copper radiator.

Please keep me posted on your conversion! I will be very interested in your progress and also happy to help in any way I can.

-David

speedy · « **Reply #87 on:** April 15, 2008, 12:10:33 am »

I got the second radiator installed and went for a drive yesterday. Temps stayed around 195 around town and on the highway were at 210-220. Is this normal temperature? I searched but could not find many posts from people who had numbered gauges. I could not really get it to go much past 220, maybe if I had more room or if the weather was hotter.

So what is typical maximum normal operating temperature?

Thanks,
-David