CLICK
Page 1: Engine removal, stripping, turbo and accessory fitment.
Page 2: Transmission work, wiring work, steering rack work.
Page 3: Mounts, brakes, belt/pullies, manifold spacer, throttle.
Page 4: Spacer, test fit, new stuff, injector cleaning, starter.
Page 5: EGT, final assembly, turbo flange, install engine, downpipe construction
Page 6: Intercooler/ engine & trans coolers/ radiator/ chargepipe/ intake install.
Page 7: Mostly mindless blathering, fuel system install, engine management & rad fan wiring, fwd exhaust section.
Page 8: First start up. IT'S ALIVE!!!!

Day 6:
Today marked the beginning of Trannyfest. Contrary to whatever bizzare, twisted images your sick, gutter-dwelling mind might be conjuring right now, it was an interesting day working on the transmission. I started off by cleaning the whole unit, which was caked with dirtoil mud. For this task, I spread 4 layers of vapor barrier plastic on the floor, hung the trans from the engine hoist and scrubbed it with a wirebrush and varsol. Perhaps a power washer would have been faster, but there are a few areas where water can get inside, and I don't have anywhere appropriate to do it. All the crap that would get blown off would either kill grass, coat walls, or stain driveway. In any case, it didn't take too long to have the old honey looking good again.
On to seal changing. The first task was to remove the govenor. This was very simple. There's a spring clip holding a tin cap on the top of the bellhousing. Remove the clip, pop the cap (after making sure there's no remaining dirt that can fall inside when it comes off) and with a clockwise twist, extract the govenor assembly. It became immediately apparent that changing the shift points on this trans will be very easy. So easy, in fact, that I think I'll be able to set it up for quick change adjustment points. Maybe, if I'm feeling really fanatical, dashboard adjustable shift point changes!
With the bellhousing liberated of it's govenor, four nuts is all that holds it on the trans body. The two pieces seperated with minor prying.
I changed the one-way clutch support seal (torque converter seal), and the input shaft seal.
My final drive seals are still on order, but I decided to remove the drive flanges and get them all ready to accept the seals. The manual says to remove the green stamped steel seal housing and replace it at the same time. I found I was able to gently chisel the seals out without hurting the housings. I then removed the drive flanges and was pleasantly suprised to find that they are spring loaded, much like the 5 speed manual transmissions! It even had the same brass conical washers. Suddenly, and idea sprung to mind. I rummaged about in the junkpile, and produced an unused Peloquin 80% diff locking kit. It included new seals, which was nice. So I tapped in the new seals and started piecing everything together.


I needed the torque spec for the little center screw, so I rummaged in the pile a little longer and found the instruction sheet for the kit. 35 foot pounds. NOTE: for use on 100mm flanges only!
OH.
This trans has 90mm flanges...
But, it all went together very nicely. Hmmmmmmmm... It was late in the day, but I called Peloquin anyway. No answer, left message.
Regardless, even if this kit won't work, I'll still be able to completely preload the drive flange springs for a similar effect.

Right about this point, a friend Jeff showed up with a very nice package. (refer to above gutter-minded comment)
A pair of mint, 83/84 rabbit GTI sport seats. Look at them, no rips! These seats are the best sport seats out there, as far as I'm concerned. Super comfy on long trips, excellent body grip, and unlike all those overkill "race" seats... reclineable!
Here's the kicker. $50!! Thanks to Randy, another pal of mine who moved out West and left these behind.
After enduring hours of eardrum punishment about hondas and acuras (just kidding Jeff!) I continued on the project.
I removed the differential cover, drained and cleaned the diff case.
The cover gasket is dealer-only, and I can tell you in no uncertain terms, that is $60 I'll not be forking over. I'll enlist the help of Mr. Sil E. Cone for this job.
I don't normally spend much time trying to make things look asthetically good, but this diff cover was really ugly. I sandblasted it, and painted it. It is the attachment point for the rear engine mount, so I wanted to make sure it was structurally sound, and wouldn't corrode any further. Check, in both cases.
Next on the list was to change the transmission filter.
Notice the Triads Classifieds paper in the background. Reading those is the highway to bankruptcy! I've only used it for sopping up oil slicks so far, though I've caught myself noticing the odd interesting ad.
Off came the pan. I cleaned everything up nicely, and removed the old filter. Canadian Tire listed two different filters for this car. I bought both. Luckily, one of them fit. I wonder what secrets are waiting to be unlocked in that valve body!?
The old screen had trapped a fair amount of poo.
I don't think i'll buy another filter kit. This screen is brass, and should be washable.

Even the pan's rubber seal was still in good shape. It all went back together without issue, and that wrapped up this stretch of work. And yep, that's an oil soaked Triad page under the transmission. First round score: Wallet 1, Triad 0

I requested a price on a set of EARL'S braided stainless steel brake flex hoses and EBC red rear shoes. I'm going to upgrade to the bigger drums from a 3rd generation golf/jetta. Why not discs? I hate them!! Sure, they supposedly don't overheat as easily as drums, and don't tend to pop seals when the pads are worn out. But on my last autocross rabbit, I never found I was able to brake fade it's rear drums. I have a special way of modding drums to help them out in this cause though. more on this later.
Oh, by the way, the engine mounts didn't show up.

Day 7
With no new parts in stock, I decided to play surgeon today. It took the better part of an entire day (including a couple social breaks when friends dropped by) but by the end of it, I'd managed to surgically extract the Digifant I fuel injection from the donor car. Why not hack and slash it out in a half hour? The donor car is my 'new' winter car. The utility of a wagon, the versatility of AWD and soon, the economy and torque of a diesel, all wrapped up into one package. I had to pull out this FI harness and leave the car still functional. It wasn't that difficult, just time consuming. The Passat's Bentley (publishers) repair manual is a pretty disappointing piece of work, and makes no mention of the syncro AWD system. It's piss-poor regarding the far more common 2.0L 16v car even. Miraculously, however, it does have somewhat accurate wiring diagrams for the 91 AND 92 syncros.
Here's a glimpse (<-- wow, that's a odd looking word. I had to double check it in the dictionary to make sure I wasn't making it up!)
of the gaping maw of the syncro
And the fruits of a whole day's work.
I'm going to install the syncro's after run systems as well. Using relays and sensors, it will run the rad fan after the car's shut off to keep underhood temperatures close to ambient. Also, it can sense the formation of vaporlock in the fuel rail, and runs the fuel pump and rad fan to keep relatively cool, liquid fuel available to the injectors at all times. Pretty slick!
For the day's finale, I cleaned the Rabbit's engine bay. The car appears to have been religiously oil sprayed it's whole life, which makes for little rust, but what a filthy mess! I thought I was going to find intact dinosaurs in all that tar!
Before:
After:
Thanks to mypalPaul for supplying some kick-ass degreaser after the Motomaster foaming engine cleaner failed so miserably. (avoid that shit like the plague!) Thanks also to my friend Jeff for supplying a power washer.

(not the GTI seat Jeff, a different one. I'll refer to this Jeff as Smokey Jeff. He has an A2 jetta with a highly modified turbodiesel engine. It scoots pretty good, though it's very smokey. I had the detestable misfortune of being behind him climbing a steep hill last summer. I felt ill for days afterwards. Rumour has it that his friend's car actually stalled while immersed in the inky smoke cloud. Here's a video of Jeff's 1.6L turbodiesel jetta burning some Reifen. That's German for tires. I was going to put the German word for rubber, but it's "gummi" which sounds really ummm...er... well, rainbow-like.)

With all that accomplished, it was off to the BBQ for me!

Day 8

Still no goddamn parts. I suppose Victoria Day had something to do with it. I turned my attention to the rabbit. While in the dash area, I decided to remove some uneccessary junk wiring.
I had a little help from an up-and-comer in the vw tuning scene.

For those of you who aren't fluent in kidspeak, he says:
"What the heck is this!? ... yeah, what is this hack job?" Yanks out the previous owner's crappy stereo wiring.
"Monkeys could have done a better job than this guy!"
Maybe this little guy will be the designer of the monkey space cannon!

Next I pulled out the rabbit's FI harness.

Noticeably simpler than the Digifant harness. No actual computer involved, just a few sensors and relays. Well, should have been some relays, but the monkey removed the hot start pulse relay, which in combination with the lack of fuel pressure accumulator, was likely why I needed to use Ether to start the damn thing when it was hot. Jerk.
Next I picked a spot for the Digi computer, and roughed in the wires.
In progress:
Roughed in:
I lightly bundled wires together that belonged together for the sake of tidiness. This is as far as I can go without having the engine in place. Once the engine connectors are installed, I'll know how much harness to pull through the firewall before cutting and bundling.
Next I mounted the Digifant computer in the rain tray. I made up a soft mount system for vibration isolation. The computer sits on studs tightened into the floor of the raintray, but is secured on rubber isolators.
It was a little early to call it a day, so I decided to slap in the poly steering rack bushings.
Well...
This was one of the most drawn-out slaps I've ever managaged. It was like slapping someone's face, only with crazy glue on your hand so it instantly stuck to their cheek. Then you had to follow them around for a day holding their face in your hand until 14 hours later, it finally tore away. Kind of like that, only less bloody and without the awkward night's sleep!
It's four nuts that hold the steering rack on the firewall. Undo those, pull off two brackets, remove rubber, install poly, re-install brackets, tighten up for nuts. Simple, right?
Well...
When the aluminum rack body has so much corrosion that the rubber bushings are wedged/stuck into place, not so much.
When this corrosion is so protrusive that the poly bushings will not fit in the slots, not so much.
Out came the rack.
I conmpletely disassembled it and cleaned it. Try doing that on a modern car. This car was designed and built back in the days when cars were meant to be repaired, not fixed. Back when mechanics were actually mechanics, and not parts changers. No offence, to any mechanics. I'm an aircraft mechanic, and I'm the same way. We're just products of our environment. The manufacturers build junk so that you can't actually repair anything, just replace it. So, we replace. Same on cars and aircraft. Though the reasons for aircraft manufacturers doing this is different than cars.
Here's a pic of the rack in pieces, before cleaning.

This wound up the day's shenanigans.

Day 9:

I was up really early today, looking forward to a productive day. I broke out the sandblasting equipment, and after taping over the rack's private parts, blasted the shit out of it. More like blasted the shit off of it, actually. I sprayed it with silver header paint for corrosion resistance. Next, I cleaned all it's guts, greased everything up nicely and put it all back together. I took a little time to adjust the rack preloading spring just right, and now it's verrrrry nice.
Installation was a bit of a trick, as there was weight on wheels. The real hassle was the rubber boot that protects the steering shaft/universal. It's a bastard to get the locking bolt in place with that (thick) boot fighting you the whole time. I figured out a way to beat it though. Fold the bottom quarter of the boot back on itself, inside out like. Then push the top part of the boot through the firewall, and shove it in as far as it'll go. Now, the universal is fully exposed, and easy to connect. Then unfold, and re-seat the boot on the firewall.
Here's the end result.

I also sandblasted the rusty legs of those beautiful GTI seats, and repainted them. I won't bother boring you with pics of that.
At this point, I called the dealership to find out if my replacement turbine shaft piston ring was in yet. (sounds like some sort of bastard half-breed offspring of a jet engine that got wasted in the piston engine engine whorehouse) It had indeed arrived. Figuring that by the time I got back, the engine mounts would have shown up, I jumped in the Pissat, and smoked off. At the top of the street, I saw the mail lady and asked if there was anything for me. No.
F !
At the dealer, I was disappointed to find that the piston ring (for the transmission) came with the dealer-installed option of broken-ness. Great. Order in another one. On the way home I decided to stop in the junkyard to see if I could find an appropriate throttle body inlet to replace the G60's bypass valve. No dice. No talon turbos to give up their blowoff valves either. Total waste of 3 hours. Back home, I did a little cleanup, as I tend to fixate on what is at hand, and tools end up scattered everywhere.

That wrapped up this day. In with a bang and out with a popcorn fart.

Evening 9.5

I picked up the turbine shaft piston ring at lunch today, and decided to put in a little time this evening before turning in for the night. I installed the new ring, put the turbine shaft in with the help of a mini home-made ring compressor, then mated the differential housing to the trans body.
OH YEAH! Good news! Gary Peloquin returned my call and confirmed my suspicion that with minor mods, the limited slip kit will work no problem! So I finished installing it per his instructions, and filled up the diff case with .75L of synthetic 75W90 oil. The manual states that 80W90 only should be used in the auto transmissions. I'm going to bet the farm and count on that small difference being just that: a small difference, and nothing to worry about.
I had some good momentum going by this time, and was in no mood to shut down. I sat down, and started to think about different things that needed doing. ATF cooling was at the forefront of thought, so I tackled that. I'm likely going to end up using a tranny that has cooling fittings from the factory, so a simple and functional system would suffice for now. After a shaking the rocks around inside my skull for a while, I came up with a plan. The main pressure tap next to the passenger side drive flange was an easy place to steal fluid from. It had a simple plug, which mystified me as to how it didn't leak. It's a straight thread, no sealant, no head with a copper washer, or rubber gasket or anything. And it's tightened to 7.5 ft.lbs only. In any case, my solution, while effective, is rather laughable. Using a manual transmission's pressure plate bolt, a diesel hard fuel line's 'B' nut, a wheelbolt and a brass barb fitting, I cobbled up my fluid fitting. The pressure plate bolt happened to have the same thread as the plug. I drilled a 3/32" hole through it. To it's head, I welded the diesel line nut. Then I threaded the wheel bolt into that nut, cut it flush and welded it in. Then I drilled an 11/32" (if I remember correctly) through it to connect to the 3/32" passage. This larger hole, I tapped to 1/8-27 pipe thread, and wound in the brass barb fitting. Initially, I had set up a much prettier system using a banjo fitting, only to find there was no room for a hose to go anywhere without either kinking or interfering with the inner CV boot on that side.
As for the return, There wasn't really much choice that didn't involve the risk of drill/tap shavings entering the trans body. So the simple, and again, laughable solution was obvious: Drain into the filler/dipstick tube! It was easy enough to accomplish. I welded an 8mm nut onto the bottom of the tube, used it as a drill guide and drilled through into the tube. Then I welded a 5/16" tube into that hole, and flared the end for a clamp to hold against. At this point, it suddenly occured to me that this would probably make it difficult to take a fluid level reading, as it's supposed to be done with the engine running... and the fluid pumping all over the dipstick! So I'll have to put a little shutoff valve on the plug fitting, and put the barb on that. In any case, it'll do until "the good tranny" comes into play. The only question is, will the 3/32" hole prove to be too small, too big, or acceptable? The shutoff valve would probably help determine that as well. If the tranny wasn't working well, but returned to normal operation after shutting the cooling line valve, that would likely indicate that 3/32" hole allows too much fluid to bleed out of the main pressure circuit. I'd then have to weld it over, and drill a smaller hole. Trial and error, we'll see.
Here's a pic of the assembled transmission, with supply and return fitting detail.

As for the cooler itself, Smokeyjeff donated a large unit from a dodgey scaravan. I changed one of it's fittings to the same size as the barb fitting on the transmission pressure port. This should work out so that the pressure in the cooling system remains very low, or even zero.

If I bugger up this donor tranny, it won't matter! Kinda like a med student and a cadaver. It simply doesn't matter if he accidentally stitches it back together, forgetting he left his favourite Winnie-the-Pooh Pez dispenser leaning against it's spleen for easy access while operating.
Oh, by the way, the engine mounts were mistakenly never shipped. Grrrrreeeeeeeaaaat.
Now they're on speedy delivery, and should be here midweek.

Speaking of trannies, the local MPP (mypalpaul)(no, he's not a tranny) is going to donate an auto trans to science. I'll use this one to explore the inner secrets of the valve body, and see if I can't convince the old honey to shift harder than MPP's older brother used to.
I let him drive an old rabbit of mine once, and he applied his shifting method to it rather vigorously. One of the front wheels actually came off the ground!
Here's a vid of my that old hotrod rabbit (2L 8v) doing a wicked second gear burnout:

I'm at the helm, and MPP's secondgearslamming brother is manning the cam.