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Eurovan TDI Conversion: Preparing the Block

15 September 2015

We finally had rain the other day so it was a rather pleasant morning in the desert to be outside. The bus itself provides a great playpen, so I popped the top and my little helper immediately jumped in and took over "driving" and doing a puzzle.

 

 

Dipstick

 In the T4 the block is leaned quite a bit further forward than it was originally in the Passat. Because of this, the oil pan and sump have to be replaced and the dipstick comes in the back of the block rather than the front. There is a small flat area cast into the block that needs to be drilled out to accommodate this. The hole is 10mm through the block, and then a 14mm wide hole 9mm deep for the tube to rest in. 



Mounts

The T4 mount is an L shaped bracket that currently is hopefully on its way to an airplane to make its way across the Atlantic to me. It basically takes up the space from the fifth cylinder on the gasser and allows the engine to sort of hang from the mounts in the van. As such, it attaches to the right side of the block rather than the back like the A3/B4 platform cars.

To accomodate this, three holes in the block must be tapped for M10x1.5 threads. Using the metric formula drill = final_diameter - thread_pitch I should have used an 8.5mm drill. I used the closest thing I had, which was 21/64 or about 8.3mm, 0.007" off. Close enough, especially with runout.

 I was a little nervous doing this without the mounts here to double-check, but I wanted to get the metal shavings cleaned up for the next step.