1987 VW T25 ex-panel van - Hibernation

[cobblers]

I swapped this for my golf a while ago, I was bored and fancied a change (Same way all my readers rides threads seem to start)

Anyway, it looked like this when I got it home, after an early morning trip to liverpool and back (my pal who had to drive it back had to be home by 11am!)


Fairly uneventful journey other than finding out the front wheel was hanging on with one bolt when I came to try a set of wheels on it the next morning!

I'm quite ashamed to say all I've really done to it is fit a new sill, line the inside out, lower it a bit more, get rid of the square light grille and stick some wheels on.


But, here she is now:


I've tried a few sets of different rear springs, but none of them seem to lower it enough (the springs in the picture are -70mm all round!), so I bought a coilover kit from a t4, and put these on:


Which brought the back down a little. But not quite enough, really.
I've been in touch with Gaz, who are going to make me some adjustable dampers for the front with shorter bodies - anyone with a t25 that's lowered will know what I mean - It's on the bump stops far too often, even when completely unloaded.



Anyway - The reason I've finally put this thread up is that with some luck, this month the van will get some "interesting" work done. Firsto of all I'll be removing the 2.1, flat four engine (that some people love. I am NOT one of those people) and replacing it with a 2.0 Golf GTi engine. Maybe 8v, maybe 16v or maybe even a 1z TDi if I can pick a car up cheap enough.

Putting an I4 where a flat 4 went is usually a pain, but luckily the diesel versions of these vans use an I4 engine that shares a very similar block to the Golf engines, but it's installed tilted over at 45 degrees, with a strange wedge shaped sump and such. If things go to plan, I'll be collecting the engine/box/plumbing and bracketry from a 1.9d van this weekend.

The plan is, first of all to make the van a bit more economical (The last motorway run it did was to Akku towers and back and it managed about 17.5mpg).

Secondly, I wouldn't mind a bit more power (or even a "more willing" engine) - the 2.1 is mega smooth and balanced, but doesn't like to rev at all and feels breathless. I'm used to driving hot hatches.

Finally, getting parts for these 2.1 engines is getting expensive, and working on them is a black art to me. The engine that's in the van is in really good condition and runs great, and I'd rather remove it before anything does happen to it.

I've already converted the interior with a basic unit with sink and hob and a bed, but as it is with this MPG, I'd be bankrupted if I wanted to go anywhere further than Doncaster for the weekend!


Expect a few more updates soon, and if there is any interest I'll try and remember to take some photos (I wish I had taken more already but just always get too stuck in to stand back and take pics)

[sparkyt]

Aaz 1.9 td is the perfect engine for you mate unfortunately I've just sold my last one . The sumps and brackets don't come up for sale very often . Have you already got one ? ..

[sparkyt]

Nice van mate .

[cobblers]

A bloke I know is breaking a 1.9d van, We're taking the whole lot off that van to get all the stuff we need.

We converted my pals van (Jonox on here) from 2.1dj to a golf engine, and he bought all the bits separately, but after doing that and finding out just how many bits and pieces you need to go from flat four to I4, We decided that next time, we'd just find a van and buy the whole engine bay.

[Lawsy]

oo, thats nice - i'd love a t25 panel

[slackerTHEpinstriper]

will keep me eye's open for this

[Mike D]

I used a 3A 2.0 out an Audi 80 sport in my T25 - it's a great swap, mid to high 20's fuel consumption if i remember right, and I managed an indicated speedo 110!

Being a 2.1 you have the best 'box ratio to start with too

[cobblers]

Yeah, it's got an AAP box in (longest ratios of all) but I'm half tempted to lob the 4 speeder that comes with the diesel engine bits in, cos they're apparently stronger, and I can sell this AAP to someone. The 5 speed boxes have the same top end anyway, and I pull away in 2nd most of the time as it is!


I'd be happy for that MPG figure. They're hardly aerodynamic! That said, I think we got about 35mpg out of Jons grey t25 panel with a 2e (early mk3 gti) on the way to RRG11, and that was with the shortest gearbox ever!

It looks like I've found a car to rob the engine out of - 1995 Mk3 GTi colour concept, Which should be an AGG? The one without the crappy flappy airflow meter anyway. If anyone wants any bits off one (it's got leathers!) let me know cos it's gonna get stripped on my mates drive and outed sharpish!

[koenkadett]

looks like mine! but a bit better (well, a lot better actually!)

I'm looking for a AAZ swap with my original JX td (1,6) since it's using way to much oil (2l /1500km...)

will keep a close eye on this one!

[koenkadett]

by the way, does it have a double sliding door?
Or is there a window fitted on the drivers side?

oh, and you don't happen to have a spare set of lowering springs do you?

[cobblers]

Thanks - The pictures do flatter it - It's very solid and the seams are great, but it's had a cheap cellulose blow-over sometime in the last 15 or so years, so the paint is pretty flat and grimey.

The sliding door is open in the picture, so it looks as though there is a window in. I did consider fitting a door with a window (We broke a caravelle for parts) to get rid of the annoying panel van blind spot, but I decided to keep it as it is.

I've got a spare pair of rear lowering springs (approx -50mm) but that's all.

I considered an AAZ, but the decision was made by a Golf Gti being the closest affordable car that I could buy to break. If a TDi was closer, I would have gone down that road - Mainly because they are more tunable by increasing the boost and fueling.

Once I have this 2.0 in with all the diesel mounting hardware and plumbing, I can swap over to an AAZ or 1Z over a quick weekend should I fancy a change.

[luckygti]

Yay, another T3 I really need to get back onto mine (In fact I'm going out there now) I have a Scooby Legacy lump to go in mine as the 2.1 has developed an intermitent fault where it loses power randomly and dies. Give it a few minutes and it's alright. The new engine is a long way away though as it is superbly rusty Anyway, love a good panel van, here's one of my old ones

[cobblers]

This turned up the other day, after a couple of risky transactions - Bought it unseen, paypalled the (slightly dodgy sounding) seller £50 deposit. Then got some random bloke off shiply to fetch it me, and bank transferred him the rest of the money to pay the seller cash when he arrived.

He claimed he was going to set off and pick it up straight away (from about 10 miles away), but I didn't hear anything from him for 5 hours or so, and when I did get in touch, He kept fobbing me off. I was about 90% certain I'd just lost my money. A few hours later the car turned up and it seems to run fine - I'm glad I ended up with an AGG rather than the clunkly old 2E with it's flappy wanky airflow meter. Clutch is mega high, but that's not a problem really

Bonus surprise of Air Con, which I'm looking into fitting to the van. I can get the hoses extended, and there's plenty of room for the Condensor, I just need to work out where to put the evaporator and hope the pump fits in the engine bay OK.

I was going to keep my existing dials, but I changed my mind - I'm fitting the Mk3 golf clocks and I'll sell the revcounter T3 clocks.

The golf clocks go in fairly easily wiring wise - Just a load of wires to extend from the back end of the van. The speedo is the main issue, being driven electronically.

Since I didn't want to pissball around with magnetic pickups, or spend hundreds of euros on converter stuff from a bloke in germany, when I can make a better version of it myself, I've ordered a universal sender that I can attach to the end of my speedo cable - this will provide around 14k pulses per mile, which I'm pretty sure is nowhere near what the golf clocks or ECU need. But that's not a problem - I'll either bodge it with a frequency-voltage chip followed by a voltage-frequency chip, or more likely just use a microcontroller and completely overkill the thing with more processing power than landed most of the apollo missions. It'll probably be cheaper, and it's a lot easier to tweak. I'll also have a load of spare IO pins to use for some other "features" like snazzy interior light control that stays on until you set off or something similarly pointless.

[Clamity]

Mar 8, 2012 9:05:08 GMT cobblers said:

Since I didn't want to pissball around with magnetic pickups, or spend hundreds of euros on converter stuff from a bloke in germany, when I can make a better version of it myself, I've ordered a universal sender that I can attach to the end of my speedo cable - this will provide around 14k pulses per mile, which I'm pretty sure is nowhere near what the golf clocks or ECU need.

Where did you get that universal sender Cobblers? I was looking for something like that a while ago to let me install a retro fuel computer in a non-intrusive way but ended up using a GPS receiver with a chip to convert the speed output to pulses.

Do like these vans and I know someone locally that converted a syncro to TDi. It was already diesel to begin with though so I guess he had everything he needed.

[cobblers]

I did a similar thing to get the speedo going in my mates van - Gps reciever hooked to an Arduino generating the speed pulses.

Took me ages to find the right "name" of thing to search for! I got the sender off ebay - www.ebay.co.uk/itm/260778921588
However, in hindsight I should have got the slightly more expensive
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/260806652194

Cos it would be easier to connect to my speedo cable. I'm gonna just use some small bore silicon tubing shoved onto the square end of the cable and the square pin on the sender to connect them together.

They're a hall sender, but I don't know if theres s schmitt trigger or anything built into the thing. I suppose I'll find out when I get it.

Dakota Digital make more "universal" ones that are probably even easier to mount, but they're even more money.

[bananasplit]

hi do you still have the square headlights if so are they for sale thanks

[cobblers]

Nah, sold them yonks ago when I was skint

[mrj]

good conversion , the AGG is a much better choice than the 2E ; the AGG has more torque in lower revs ; i have that in my T25 , too, and i wouldn't change it back, though i really liked the boxer engine ....

[cobblers]

This morning I went to pick up the parts from the Diesel van that I need to fit the AGG Golf engine in.
Set off at about 8AM with the van already loaded up with tools last night, picked my pal Jon up and after a quick MacDs we shot over to Nottingham for the bits - Off a bloke called James who runs Transporter Transformers. Cracking chap!

Turns out the donor van already had a 1Y engine fitted, which is a 1.9 NA diesel from a Golf/Passat. I bet it was a bit of a plodder, especially with the big high roof and full of tackle!

Surprisingly, the engine came out with no issues at all and was on the deck in about 90 minutes:



We split it off the box and then almost killed ourselves trying to lift it into the back of my van - It's a heavy old lump compared to the (1.9 WBX) that we took out of the Caravelle we broke!

Here's a picture of my van that I took while sat on the floor after almost shitting my spine out while lumping the engine around. I thought it looked cool but it might have been my light headedness.



Van loaded up with heavy bits, we removed the gear linkages, pipes and Jon the tight sod noticed the front brake pipes were braided ones so he took them off for his van!


Once we'd packed up and stuff, we got on our way home and realised it was only early afternoon, so I treat us to a Family Feast from KFC at Tibshelf.




We got back to the garage/Jon's back garden and unloaded the van. We thought we might as well set about stripping the golf. Jon moved it back a bit (it's final journey under it's own steam) and it started up a treat after being stood for a week, no smoke or noises or anything worrying which was nice.

I thought I'd take a photo before we started taking the thing to bits. Unfortunately, the car seems to be haunted by the ghost of a Lois Theroux impersonator. I suspect this is why it was advertised for sale as "breaking"




Jon was feeling lazy by now (He's not used to hard work), so we just got the front bumper and slam panel off, and dropped the oil and water along with disconnecting most of the plumbing. Tomorrow, I'm going to label all the wiring and we'll get the engine on the deck and start combining the Golf engine with the t25 ancilliaries.

[hamps]

Cool van cool thread