New Engine.... Part 6 - Fitting & first start

With the engine fully built up the fitting and then engine could be started!

1. Fitting

As the engine was built on the ATV jack it is ready to be installed straight in. The ATV jack and removable valance is the way to go for installing engines. So stable, slick and quick. Especially as I have to work solo.

Engine waiting ready to slide in on the plywood flooring.

There is quite a lot of wiring and cables to and from the ECU and also fuel and accelerator cable

Finally home

A Little tricky to get fitted. Last few inches always tricky to find the right combination of height and angle.

I recalled the great words of wisdom of the late Bob Hoover.........

"If it doesn’t want to go, stop. Take it out. Think about it a while. Check everything over and tackle it again after taking a break. (This time it’ll slide right in and leave you wondering, it was so easy. Veedubs got a sense of humor.)"

After a break and a cup of tea...... Slipped straight in :-)

All home and connected up Wiring and Fuel Lines.

Welcome to your new home!

Quick check of the Accelerator cable movement Fan belt attached, removed spark plugs and filled the oil read for the oil pressure test.

Not the final oil but okay for first few hundred miles.

Oil Level checked

2. Oil Pressure Test

Following the engine warranty and instructions supplied by the engine. Removal of spark plugs and fuel & HT, turn the engine over on starter motor until oil pressure warning light goes out.

Here is the video proof.

Also timed the time for the light to come back on. First time about 30 seconds. Second Oil pressure test around 78 seconds. Not bad. Seems to be holding pressure.

Quick check for any signs of oil leaks........

All dry and clean

4. First fire!

Checked tappets.

Its odd value of 0.10mm for the tappets but the instructions said to check the push rods for either Steel or aluminium. After checking with a magnet the new engine uses steel push rods so had to go for 0.1mm tappets.

So Tappets set. Oil pressure checked.

First fire up! Took a while for fuel to pump through. Used the 1 seconds prime of fuel pump repeatably to ensure fuel was there.

She is alive!

The engine fires up. No leaks and idle and accelerator fine. Yipeeeeee!

Moving on I have to fit the rear valance - Still got to put some paint on it.

 

All sort and snug and sealed. New Valance is okay.

Valance was filled but the etch primer had eaten a small edge of the filler.

Next job is to refit the bumper - It needs some serious rust and paint work. So much for powder coating

Pre-MOT work

Pre-MOT Preparation

So Yearly MOT was due so decided a last ditch attempt to get Emissions down and running rich.

Had 3 days to complete the work.

Plan was to complete the following:

1. Remove, clean & check Throttle Body & Idle Valve

2. Replace HT Leads

3. Replace MAP Sensor

4. Check and renew all Vacuum lines

5. Re-set Mp9 ECU

6. Attempt Basic Settings

1. Throttle Body

Removed throttle body to check & clean

Spent quite a while working out what the following hole between intake manifold and into throttle body pas the butterfly valve.

Worked out it was actually not used but suspect its an idle bypass allowing air around butterfly valve. (You can see where a screw would have been to adjust idle, just not used on the Brazilian Bay Kombi)

Once sensors (air inlet temp & Throttle position sensor) where removed.

Gave the whole throttle body a good clean. Adjusted closed stop (basically you screw out screw until there is a gap. Then slip a thin piece of paper in and screw in until it touches the paper. Then screw in 1/2 a turn)

Now I decided to test the Throttle Position Sensor (TPS) as from the diagnostics should give 5 Degrees = 0.3V where I get 6.7=0.3V.

Now the specification says the Idle position resistance should be Higher than 1KOhm at idle.

So I decided to fit the new TPS which I had bought BUT it was the wrong part. It only opened to around -45 to 45 instead of the old one which goes from 0 to 90. Great yet another hard part to find.

Anyway refitted the old part and refitted second hand Idle Control Valve. 

2. Replace HT Leads

Replaced all 4 HT leads with ones from VW heritage. They are not as flexible as orginal ones and suspect they are copper and they where a bit long. Just ensure you have good sealing around tin wear as cooling air leaks are bad news for air-cooled engines.

3. Replace MAP Sensor

Replaced MAP sensor. Again it had been tested but I wanted to be sure.

4. Check and renew all Vacuum lines

Checked again for any signs of vacuum leaks around hoses and fittings. Added extra jubilee clips on the ISV pipework etc. Also replaced fabric vacuum lines from manifold to MAP sensor.

5. Re-set Mp9 ECU

After a bit of research the Mp9 has issues with some fault codes and long term memory data. So I needed to reset the ECU. I will write this up when I am sure of the details.

6. Attempt Basic Settings

OK once all work was completed and everything was put back together I ran a log of the Lambda Response again to check if the Lambda was still stuck at 0.8v (Rich)

So the Lambda is still HIGH But it now falls during acceleration and plenty of lean on de-acceleration.

So unfortunately it has only made a difference at acceleration. So nothing seems to affect it at Idle.

I then tried to carry out Basic settings. There is very little information on how to do this. I will write it up when I am sure of the details. It seems that it did not work and I also got another 00533 DTC error code during the basic setting and had to reset the ECU again.

So to conclude - All the work made hardly any difference at Idle. So Off to the MOT on Monday expecting it to fail again.