Project Little Van - Daily Vanagon/Adventure Rig

[luthj]

Yeah, 80s VWs were designed to last maybe 100k miles. The waterboxer was an abomination in my opinion. Yes is quirky and somewhat cool, but created so many more problems than it solved. Before we sold our Vanagon, I went through the numbers, and was pretty close to replacing basically everything on it, swapping to a reversed 1.8T and 5 speed trans, etc.

The real killer for us, was that the AC was almost an afterthought. Power hungry space eating monster at the back of the van. That, and 90HP for a 4,000lb van... I really loved the I4 though, Though a turbo....

 

[vwhammer]

Yeah, 80s VWs were designed to last maybe 100k miles. The waterboxer was an abomination in my opinion. Yes is quirky and somewhat cool, but created so many more problems than it solved. Before we sold our Vanagon, I went through the numbers, and was pretty close to replacing basically everything on it, swapping to a reversed 1.8T and 5 speed trans, etc.

The real killer for us, was that the AC was almost an afterthought. Power hungry space eating monster at the back of the van. That, and 90HP for a 4,000lb van... I really loved the I4 though, Though a turbo....

I absolutely agree. The water boxer should have never been.
Why VW didn't install the inline gas engines the moment that they set the Vanagon up to run the inline diesel engine is beyond me.
The eight valve VW 4 cylinders are arguably the most robust and reliable engines that VW ever made and were not far off the HP numbers that the waterboxers were making for the same years.

My van is one of the lighter versions that was available but it still makes me laugh that they would put an engine that only made 94 hp or something like that in a van that will weigh at least 3500 lbs and will likely be pushing way more with a full load of people and stuff.

I look at it this way.
look how excited I am about swapping my waterboxer and going from an engine that made 94hp to one that might make 140hp if I am lucky.
This van should have been making at least 150 to begin with and the transaxles should have also been equipped to deal with such power.
For the Record the autos in the vanagon are way better at dealing with extra power than the manuals are.
If I wanted a manual I would not even think about a stock rebuild.
I would go right to the Subaru gears 5 speed swap or the reverse 1.8t and 5 speed

It will not be installed initially but I am working on parts (exhaust stuff primarily) to install a turbo on the ABA that's in my van to hopefully get me to the 170 or 180hp mark and help out a lot more at higher altitudes.

As for AC I have a totally off the wall set up in mind that hopefully does not suck.
I will cover that part when I get there.

 

[Florida Native]

Having owned 4 VWs in my time (for me, more than any other single brand that I've owned), simple is not ever a word I would use to describe them. Over-engineered for the sake of complexity, yes. Simple? No. But, man, are they fun when they're working and you're behind the wheel.

-Mike

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[vwhammer]

Wow Apparently it's been a minute since I have updated this thread.
I guess now is the time.

It does not look like I've done a whole lot but what I have done took some head scratching and a couple iterations.
I will skip most of the trial and error bits and get to the finished parts.

I guess I will start where I left off.
I made a mount for my coolant expansion tank that also functions as the mount for my PCV catch can.

Nothing special and the coolant globe sits like so.

With that out of the way I decided to put the finishing touches on my exhaust so I could pass it off to my welder friend and finish it all up.

If you look way back at my last actual update you might notice I had a longer tail pipe off of the muffler.
I decided that that put the tail pipe in a vulnerable spot so I made the call to shorten it up to keep it protected.

This also eliminated the need for another exhaust hanger that would have had to have mounted to the body.
I wanted the whole exhaust to mount to the engine to eliminate any stress on the pipe from the movement between the engine and body.
This accomplished that.
Also got my O2 sensor bung positioned.

Got the whole system back and am pretty pleased with my work if I do say so myself.

Now hopefully I got it all right and it does not start cracking and falling apart in 3 months.

The next thing to knock off the list was mounting and plumbing the engine oil and trans fluid coolers and filters.
I started with the engine oil cooler system.
First up, I needed to mount the cooler and its associated fan somewhere.
I whipped up some brackets and a shroud of sorts and tucked the cooler up close to the engine.

The cooler bracket would also serve as a location to mount my oil filter housing.

I originally had a pair of filters mounted under the air cleaner housing.

Plumbing them in this location was impossible because of clearance with the air cleaner and the fact that you can not screw two 90 degree fittings into the same oil filter housing.
I made the call and decided to simply run one filter in the new location.

The fan shroud is less of a shroud and more of a fan mount.
it's not the most efficient design but to be honest the cooler and fan are probably overkill and it's not likely the fan will run much anyway.

With the difficulty plumbing all of this I will likely do a version two in the future with new fittings and custom hoses that will simplify the install and service.

Anyway with the cooler, fan and filter mounted I needed to sort out where to put the thermo bypass for the cooler.
I decided it would go here so I made a quick bracket bolted it up and finished plumbing the system.

I am pleased with how compact the whole set up is and how short most of the hoses are.
The new design of version two will probably be able to be plumbed on the bench then the whole thing can be installed and connected to the engine.

Planning on a similar system for the trans cooler as well.

Speaking of trans cooler I did get that system mounted and plumbed as well.
Once again it's not ideal and, as I have mentioned it will be getting a version two once the van runs and drives.

I started with this plate so I could mount my dual filters sort of in the rear wheel well.

I did make sure the trailing arm does not hit the filters at full compression.

I then sorted where to mount the cooler, fan and thermo bypass as well.

Hard to tell where we are looking at in the pic but the bypass is on the backside of the filters and the cooler mounts where the vans firewall would have been had I not cut it out.

These systems were not a fun job and sucked up way more time than I wanted to spend but its together and hopefully functional for now and will get sorted better later.

For now I just need to get it running and drivable.

If there is one thing a vehicle needs to be drivable it is a fuel system.
That was next on the list.

Nothing fancy but i got the fuel pump and filter mounted and plumbed to the fuel tank.

I managed to lose my stock filter mount so I had to fab one up.

I then needed to get the lines from the tank up to the engine bay.

I started by feeding some rubber lines through the cross member and over the trans.

This would lead to a transition to stainless hard lines that run to the fuel rail.

So with the engine systems plumbed it was time to tackle wiring so I can fire this thing up.
I got about this far before I determined I needed some more wire and things like heat shrink and wire loom.

I ordered all that and parts started trickling in the last couple days.

Hopefully won't be too much longer now and I can finally drive this thing.

I have a big trip planned for the beginning of may so hopefully I can get a few shake down runs in before then.

Maybe my next update will be a vid of the thing actually running.

Until then...

 

[cj-10]

Any updates? Can't wait to see this completed

 

[vwhammer]

Unfortunately not a lot has happened lately.
I don't know if I mentioned it in this thread or not but we are working on moving to Colorado real soon so I have primarily been working on house stuff so we can get it listed.

Realistically I don't think I will have time to get it running before we move.
It depends on our closing date.
Don't fret though.
I am excited to get it running first thing once we get into our new place out west and, since I sold nearly all of my other projects, I should be able to focus on it until it's done.
The plan is to use it for a little bit while I wrap up some design work and parts gathering but I now have a stage two planned for this build that should be pretty exciting.

Stay tuned...