Nissan Hardbody TDI Swap

J.Klassen

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Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Location
Enderby, B.C. Canada
TDI
TDI Nissan Hardbody project, 01 Jetta donor car
Sorry about this guys, I think I might have figured the pics out. Let me know. My first few pics are hosted on the tdiclub server but I realized quickly that because of the quality and amount of pictures that I wanted to post I would run out of room very quickly.
 

J.Klassen

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Location
Enderby, B.C. Canada
TDI
TDI Nissan Hardbody project, 01 Jetta donor car
Next up was some more exhaust work.

Here it is coming from the back of the truck on the driver's side.



Crossing under the front driveshaft.





And coming up on the passenger side of the transmission.



Removed the cross over section for some final welding.





Here it is bolted to the rest of the exhaust so you get a better idea of whats going on. This is as far as I could go with the exhaust until the engine mounts were made. Then I would be able to finish the downpipe.

 

J.Klassen

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Location
Enderby, B.C. Canada
TDI
TDI Nissan Hardbody project, 01 Jetta donor car
Next issue to tackle was a reservoir for the air to water intercooler system. The main body of the tank is actually a section from an irrigation pipe that I cleaned up, and the pump is a Bosch unit I got online that is specifically for air to water circulation. I believe it was used as oem on the Ford Lightning and other supercharged vehicles that needed a good pump. I seen some people using cheap little bilge pumps, but those did not fill me with confidence like the Bosch one did.





I needed a cap for the tank and found this lying around.



Welded in a plug to turn the bicycle sprocket hub into a lid.



And attached it all to the tank with a bit of RTV under the gear and a lot of screws.





Made some ins and outs for the coolant. The lower one goes to the pump and the upper will receive coolant from the small radiator stuffed in the grille.





Mounted in the truck.



 
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J.Klassen

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Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Location
Enderby, B.C. Canada
TDI
TDI Nissan Hardbody project, 01 Jetta donor car
Scrap metal FTW indeed. Left over pieces come in handy all the time.

In this pic you can see that the jetta airbox is mounted in the corner and I started making the pipe that will lead to the turbo inlet.





A view from in the engine bay with the hood closed. Just trying to make sure that the intake pipe is going to have plenty of clearance.



Hooray, the adapter arrived. Randy delivered it himself and it was great to meet him. This was the first of the Nissan 4 cylinder trans adapters and I believe there are quite a few more out there now.



Test fitting on the trans.



Got my turbine housing and manifold back from ceramic coating. I wanted it done in white but their oven could not go hot enough to do white so I settled on gold. But then I decided I really still wanted white so I sprayed the parts with an aerosol ceramic paint.





 

A-man930

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2014
Location
St. Louis
TDI
Planning Stages: ALH Jeep MJ
Hooray, the adapter arrived. Randy delivered it himself and it was great to meet him. This was the first of the Nissan 4 cylinder trans adapters and I believe there are quite a few more out there now.
Is that one of Randy's new "heavy" flywheels?
 

J.Klassen

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Location
Enderby, B.C. Canada
TDI
TDI Nissan Hardbody project, 01 Jetta donor car
The flywheel is just a stock Nissan unit that was re-drilled to match the vw pattern. I think I posted the weight somewhere earlier in the thread.
 

J.Klassen

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Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Location
Enderby, B.C. Canada
TDI
TDI Nissan Hardbody project, 01 Jetta donor car
Put the engine side of the adapter on and it lined up great.



Then started mocking things up to see what kind of room I had to play with.







This coolant hose going to the oil cooler was going to be a problem.



Good thing there was just enough room to shorten it up.



Here is the clutch I am using.



Making sure the splines fit the disk before I try jamming it on there.



And bolted it to the flywheel.

 

J.Klassen

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Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Location
Enderby, B.C. Canada
TDI
TDI Nissan Hardbody project, 01 Jetta donor car
Thanks! I am glad I waited to post the pictures until after I had the truck on the road. It makes doing these updates easier and regular.

Here is my contraption for test fitting the engine. I used two old camper jacks so I could move the engine up and down easily and when I wanted to take the engine right out of the bay I just brought the tractor in with the forks and lifted it off the jacks. All without poking my windshield with the forks lol.





That big engine bay gets tight really fast when an engine gets stuffed in there!

This pic shows the clearance for the vacuum pump to the fire wall.



I think it would have fit but only just. So I decided to make a pocket in the firewall so that I could actually get at the pump if I had to later on.



There are two layers of metal in this firewall.



And then the sound deadening.





I use "CAD" for a lot of my parts. If any of you are following "Project Binky" on youtube you'll know what I mean lol.



 
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J.Klassen

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Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Location
Enderby, B.C. Canada
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TDI Nissan Hardbody project, 01 Jetta donor car
Now that the engine was hanging in the right location it was time to make some engine mounts. I started with the passenger side because it was more complicated.

I bolted a stock nissan engine mount to the frame rail and then proceeded to make cardboard templates to go between the mount and the plate that I made earlier that bolts to the engine.



It was going to be interesting with all these things competing for the same space.









First cardboard piece turned into metal and tacked in place.



Second piece ready to be tacked in.



Ready for welding.



All welded up.



 

J.Klassen

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Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Location
Enderby, B.C. Canada
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TDI Nissan Hardbody project, 01 Jetta donor car
Now for some pics of the driver's side mount. It was significantly easier than passenger side.

In the pic the mount is sitting on a GMC c5500 kodiak truck bumper. I got it from work beacuse it was bent and was being replaced. You can see the edge of it where I was chopping out pieces for the mounts. Those bumpers are huge and it was about 1/4 inch thick.





In the truck.







When the engine was finally sitting all by itself in the engine bay I was so happy.



There is about an inch clearance between the belt and the steering box. It is kind of hard to tell in the picture but where I have the AC pump mounted I chopped a bunch of the original cast aluminum mount away and moved the pump closer to the engine to gain some room for that belt.



Driver side mount from above.



Better view of the engine bay.



The next post will have pics of probably the toughest part of the whole swap process. Hint: Wanting to keep 4x4 was a pain, but totally worth it.
 

J.Klassen

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Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Location
Enderby, B.C. Canada
TDI
TDI Nissan Hardbody project, 01 Jetta donor car
Ok next up in the build was the oil pan mods. I spent about 45 hours thinking, cutting and welding to make this oil pan happen, phew.

Step one, mark out the general cut lines.





And then chop it.



While the engine was in the truck sitting on its mounts I clamped this reference block to the front subframe.



I had also made a steel flange with the oil pan bolt pattern in it thinking that I might make a completely new pan from steel but ended up not going that route and now used it as part of my reference system.



Then I added a bunch of scrap wood to make a framework that could be removable while still keeping my reference points.





 
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J.Klassen

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Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Location
Enderby, B.C. Canada
TDI
TDI Nissan Hardbody project, 01 Jetta donor car
Now I could move the oil pan back and forth between the truck and the shop and be able to check fitment without the engine in the way.





Let the welding and head scratching begin lol.







Test fitting my extended pickup tube in the new rear sump.

 

J.Klassen

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Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Location
Enderby, B.C. Canada
TDI
TDI Nissan Hardbody project, 01 Jetta donor car
It is quite a bit longer than stock tube.



I made sure to add a small support bracket to help with the extra stress of the pickup being longer.



Rear sump all boxed in.



Inside pics after cleaning it up a bit. I pieced this together from scrap aluminum so some of the pieces were a little ugly haha.





I needed a drain plug so took the one from the chunk that I first chopped out of the pan and proceeded to make in fit in its new home.



 

J.Klassen

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Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Location
Enderby, B.C. Canada
TDI
TDI Nissan Hardbody project, 01 Jetta donor car




Lastly I added a hose that goes from the front where the oil pump is down to the sump. I tested the pan for leaks with water and found that during an oil change there would be about half a liter of oil that would not make it to the drain plug if I did not add the hose. I also like the hose for circulation purposes, the oil in that front section would be stagnate without it.




After all that it turned out that the pan still holds the normal 5 Liters of oil and the dipstick still reads correctly!
 

Zeitgeist

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Joined
Nov 10, 2004
Location
Cascadia
TDI
'04 Variant and Vanagon mTDI
And the winner of the 2018 Most Unusual Oil Pan prize goes to This Guy!

Nice work!
 

A-man930

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Joined
Jul 29, 2014
Location
St. Louis
TDI
Planning Stages: ALH Jeep MJ
Man I'd be sure to run some kind of skid plate near that hose; if you 'wheel like me you end up amongst plenty of "objects" that can and will find there way up into the undercarriage... having that get ripped loose would SUCK, lol

You may have mentioned this at some point; I apologize if so.
 

evguy1

Vendor
Joined
Feb 8, 2014
Location
Erington, BC, Canada
TDI
2000 Jeep Cherokee TDI, 2008 Jeep JKU TDI
I was patiently waiting to see how you handled the two sump issue.
I had the same problem with a V8 Datsun swap I did years ago and solved it the same way.
 

tophergrace

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2014
Location
Ohio
TDI
Alh
good progress !!! I'm surprised you didn't try a longitudinal 06a pan, will your pan be to low for rocks etc? or will it be protected by skid plate?
 

ManicMechanic

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Joined
Oct 6, 2017
Location
Saint Cloud, Florida
TDI
03 Golf, 00 Golf, 02 Beetle
I just had a thought. In the stock configuration the oil pump chain is sitting in oil and since you put the drain from the upper section to the lower section so low this will no longer be the case. Any worry about the oil pump chain failing due to not enough oil getting to it?
 

vtpsd

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Joined
Aug 15, 2013
Location
Vermont
TDI
03 jsw TDI, audi 90 AHU swap
He should still have oil at the same level and covering the chain. The liquid should find its level, even though there are two sumps because they are connected with the hose. He stated above that his dipstick read the correct level as stock, so it should be good.
 

J.Klassen

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Location
Enderby, B.C. Canada
TDI
TDI Nissan Hardbody project, 01 Jetta donor car
Ok guys, I know its been a while since I posted last but summer got a little busy. I was working on the first round of modifications after driving it for the winter. Those pictures will come later, but first I have to finish posting the pics from the initial build.

As far as the sump being too low there is nothing to fear. It is hard to tell in that last pic but the cross member in front of and behind the pan are just a little lower than the pan, so it is protected.

And yes the oil pump chain does still sit in oil. vtpsd was correct with his explanation. The only real reason I put in the hose that connects the two sumps was so that when I do an oil change I would not need a second drain plug. the front sump would be very hard to get at. With the jig in place in the engine bay I test filled the pan with water and found that the full level does sit high enough to connect both sumps across the top. When I would go to drain it there would be 1/2 a liter of oil left in the front sump so that is what the hose is for.

Also even though the oil pickup is much longer the oil pump still primes just fine. The full level of the oil is just higher than the horizontal section of the pickup so the oil pump always has oil in it when it starts spinning.

Back to the pics, engine is in so now I can finish the exhaust.









Just got to connect them now





A little bit of wrap to keep the engine bay temps down



 
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