Swapping sausages - TDI conversion thread

[Dave Sausages]

How many times did he call you a fucking ****?

He's a legend in his own street that man, top bloke

[Dave Sausages]

I got a new bevel and a flat knot wheel here, will pick up some tins...

Do I need to get the electrox online or will Marlow and Smale sell it?

[regcheeseman]

How many times did he call you a fucking ****?

not ME but he obviously knows YOU well.


As for the electrox - Could try Marlow and Smale - they may have something they think is similar, doubt it is and they'll probably offer you david's zinc (tell them to ram it.)

[regcheeseman]

So it's a old VW thread, has to be some welding...

Chop the old rot out with a slit disc and clean the hole up with a knot wheel in the grinder.

Then use part of an old cereal box pressed into the hole, burnishing it along the edges to leave an indent in the cardboard and cut the template out.

Copy the template onto steel and cut it out with the slit disc


I find that using a big pair of adjustables to work along the piece will form a much neater bend than just whacking it with a hammer.



Test the patch in the hole, need to fit as tight as possible, any gap over a mm and you'll tend to burn holes.



Then weld it up, welder was set a bit too high to cope with the thick patch material, so a few areas blew away



Dressed with a disc in the grinder, then a flap disc to tidy up and it's not half bad, a few pin holes were filled in, using a brass block held on the back of the hole where I could actually get to the back of the hole. The brass block stops you just blowing a bigger hole.

Another patch welded up on the other side and the welding is all done

[arfur fox-acre]

Just two little patches.....not bad at all.
Great thread Reg, keep it coming please.

[Burgmeister]

Reg, that post showing the welding was really interesting. As a T4 owner that doesn't yet weld (but have a hankering to learn) it was really useful.

More posts like this from people would be really appreciated (by me at least), rather than the before and after shots you get in most threads.

Cheers

[d-9]

Useful to know about putting brass block behind it, didn't know that.

[regcheeseman]

Useful to know about putting brass block behind it, didn't know that.

It's a good trick to know when trying to fill in pin holes that don't really warrant a patch - or at least they didn't until you took the MIG torch near them.


I'm sure most know this, but another useful trick when welding a plate is to tack it at 10 -15mm intervals using less than a second bursts of weld, when joining the tacks, if it's tending to blow holes, don't try to weld a full seam, adopt a 50% duty cycle - weld for a second, stop for a second, weld for a second, stop for a second, you soon get a feel for how much heat the join can take without collapsing and learn when to go for a full seam and when to go easy.

Not that the above are a good example - I've not welded for a while (I'm a bit rusty ) and it takes a while to get the welder dialled in on the settings particular to the job, the underside of the material I was welding was rusty and thin in places, cavity wax and under seal on the underside was also contaminating the weld.

[Burgmeister]

I'm sure most know this,

Most may, but some (at least 1!) didn't. Please keep on adding info assuming your audience are completely ignorant. In at least 1 case you will be correct!

Cheers

[chally69]

I keen to learn a bit of welding, it will come in useful now I've got a t4. Keep this advice coming please.


Sent from my iPhone using Just T4s

[Thebigredone]

I've tried a bit of welding and had mixed results, this tho will help me no end as I wouldn't of thought to clean underseal etc off the underside before welding, cheers reg 👍

Sell my T4 ? I'd rather stick wasps up my butt !!!

[gojira]

at risk of this becoming a welding advice thread, i'd add:

a good weld joins the metal front and back, so it's equally important for the metal to be bare and shiny on the side you can't see.

i like to leave a 0.5 - 1mm gap between panels so the weld has somewhere to go and guarantee penetration, and also to make room for a little expansion as you're heating the metal. with a 1mm grinder disc you can chop out a bit of mangled metal, batter it into shape and then weld it back in.

and in lieu of brass, i use copper pipe offcuts. you can hammer them into shape to put behind odd shaped panels.


now back to the engine swap. looking forward to seeing pics of all the bits other threads seem to skim over.

[regcheeseman]

No skimming on tonight's update, plenty of pics of one important aspect of TDI swaps - the TPS fitting.

But first a bit of slim-fast on the donor loom.

The big bucket is chopped out wire and connectors, the small one is the tape used to wrap the loom.



I plugged the van looms into the fuse box (leaving out the engine loom) then plugged in the tdi engine loom into the fusebox into any vacant slots. The donor loom is a complete unit and has wiring for fan, lights, wipers etc that the T4 has already catered for with it's engine bay loom, so there are several duplicated plugs.

For every duplicate I assessed what it was for and then decided if I needed to use the T4 or SEAT version - it makes sense to stick with the T4 bits except the brake light switch because the seat has extra wires in this section to use an extra brake light switch for the ECU.

Once I'd decided what could go I just pulled it out of the loom. (and kept it - just in case)


Now onto the TPS,/Throttle Position Sensor/fly-by-wire throttle....




A quick look at possible ways it might fit and then start cutting




Then a bit more CAD (Cardboard Aided Design)




Transfer the template onto steel, cut it out, bend it up and weld.



Cleaned up and mounting holes drilled




Filed off any rough edges and sprayed it satin black




Mounting holes drilled in the van




And the bracket mounted up



TPS unit fitted (thank god)




Made a hook from some stainless rod



Added a rubber sleeve from a length of pipe to prevent it damaging the throttle pedal bush and fitted it



It's a bit offset - I bent the throttle pedal arm to line it up but went a touch too far, will bend it back tomorrow....


edit - there's about three hours work gone into that loom, less than an hour to do that bracket.

[Adventure Van]

There's some top work right there! Well done Reg! 👍👍

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Just T4s

[arfur fox-acre]

Cardboard aided design......love it.