Suzuki Samurai ALH swap

samuraitd

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Joined
Jan 26, 2013
Location
Provo, UT
TDI
ahu mtdi samurai swap, 1991 jetta ecodiesel
The radiator is and S&P rabbit radiator with twin fans. If you google S&P radiators it should pull up the site. They will make custom units too even one with an inter cooler made in to it but this one is just an off the shelf rabbit one with both hoses on the right. The steering box is off a 95 and back Toyota Four runner. I had to change the pitman arm because the Four Runner one has a ball joint made into it and I'm using FJ80 ball joints.
Well you should let me know how well it works. Seems kinda low to me, I would think air pockets might possibly get trapped in the head?
 

03TDICommuter

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Joined
Dec 8, 2016
Location
So. Cal
TDI
01' NB, 5spd
Nice
Did you dial indicate the runout? I had to do this to my homebuilt adaptor,then
drilled the dowel pin holes with tranny in place.Got it to within .004.
How does one measure runout? I'm familiar with using a dial indicator on a shaft while rotating it, but it won't work for this concentricity issues - or am I wrong?
 

ManicMechanic

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Joined
Oct 6, 2017
Location
Saint Cloud, Florida
TDI
03 Golf, 00 Golf, 02 Beetle
Well you should let me know how well it works. Seems kinda low to me, I would think air pockets might possibly get trapped in the head?
Will do. But I don't see it being a problem as the head is not much higher than the radiator and also if you look in the picture from the front of the truck my coolant bottle is much higher than the head. The coolant return into the bottle is right at the back of the head so any air should move right to it and end up in the bottle.
 

OregonBricky

Member
Joined
Dec 18, 2017
Location
Mill City, Oregon
TDI
00, 02 jetta alh
Basically you are correct. I made the spacers on my lathe and made the holes a snug fit to the bolts to keep them lined up. The bottom two I put shoulders on to line them up in the dowel holes. The ring on the crank is also a snug fit. After I wielded it all together I made a slug to go where the crank shaft was and bolted it down to the plate. I drilled the holes one at a time and bolted the jig to the plate as I drilled each hole. I didn't put up a picture of it but I made a similar jig for the toyota bell housing. I didn't tap any of the holes because the plate is only 3/8 mild steel and I didn't want to worry about pulling the threads. Instead I made two slugs for the bottom two holes that are threaded and go to the bottom of the dowel pin holes in the block with bolts coming from the motor toward the transmission. To get the threads for the bell housing I got wheel studs and pressed them into the plate. Two of the studs I had to remove a few thousands from on the back then I recessed them into the plate 1/8 so they sit flush with the back of the plate. Hope this helps.
Helps a ton, how did you center the Toyota bellhousing jig to the same centerline as your vw jig? I would be doing a 1 off plate for sbc, maybe 60* chevy.
 

ManicMechanic

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Oct 6, 2017
Location
Saint Cloud, Florida
TDI
03 Golf, 00 Golf, 02 Beetle
Helps a ton, how did you center the Toyota bellhousing jig to the same centerline as your vw jig? I would be doing a 1 off plate for sbc, maybe 60* chevy.
Basically the same way as on the engine side. I put the bell housing on the trans and used the input shaft to line up the jig for the bell housing pattern. Then I just bolted it down to the back side of the plate after I drilled the engine bolt holes. I'll try and get a picture of both halfs of the jig bolted together this weekend and post them.
 

BoydHowdy

New member
Joined
Jan 10, 2018
Location
Texas
TDI
1.9 ALH
Thanks. I think I'm going to need to hold on to the mounts. I might be able to make another set though. I think I would just use 1/4 plate instead of 3/8. 3/8s was over kill but it was what I had laying around. I need to check the plate run out before I go making any more adapters. I'll let you know if I make another one.
I would pay for a set of mounts!
 

ManicMechanic

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Oct 6, 2017
Location
Saint Cloud, Florida
TDI
03 Golf, 00 Golf, 02 Beetle
I would pay for a set of mounts!
Well that makes three people who have asked me about making them mounts so I guess I should get on it. To the guys asking me about making them mounts I have a few questions. If you look at the left side mount I'm running a 98 alternator with the connector on the side. I'm not sure if the newer alternator connector will hit the mount so what alternator are you guys running? And on the right side mount the turbo discharge is pointing right at the mount. I pulled the housing off and clocked it to about the 10 o'clock position. Is that going to be a problem for you guys?
 

1.9ZOOK

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 13, 2015
Location
Downstream of a Volcano
TDI
ALH Samurai
If the doner car was a manual and you plan on keeping the coolant glow plugs
then you need a 120 amp alternator.If not then a 90 amp can be used.
 

ManicMechanic

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Oct 6, 2017
Location
Saint Cloud, Florida
TDI
03 Golf, 00 Golf, 02 Beetle
Been a while since I gave an update so here's whats going on. I finished the wiring harness and mounted the ecm behind the glove box. Put the OBD port inside the glove box. I added a stater relay to the relay board since the stock suzuki starter circuit sucked. Hook the battery up and tested all my wiring and scanned for faults. Only faults I have are for the intake change over and throttle pedal. Since I deleted the intake change over and the throttle pedal wasn't plugged in I call that a win. I finished building the complete intake system and boost piping. Now I'm working on moving the radiator about an inch forward to get some clearance between the fans and engine. Here's what the intake system looks like.

 
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pwm74

Member
Joined
Apr 3, 2018
Location
New York
TDI
Suzuki Samurai Conversion
Nice work. i am working on my alh samurai swap now. do you have hood clearance issues. it seams to keep the tranny mount in stock location and keeping engine level i am about 4 inch too high for hood to close. i did not experiment with body lifting yet.the highest point is the oil cap
 
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PB_NB

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Joined
Nov 20, 2007
Location
Vancouver, B.C.
TDI
1999 New Beetle
Nice work. i am working on my alh samurai swap now. do you have hood clearance issues. it seams to keep the tranny mount in stock location and keeping engine level i am about 4 inch too high for hood to close. i did not experiment with body lifting yet.the highest point is the oil cap
When I did my ABA swap many years ago, I cut out the raised section of the hood and had an extension made out of aluminum with an opening at the back. Certainly made the little truck look meaner! I did this because the ABA intake manifold stuck up a bit to high with the engine sitting at 0 degrees. A 15 degree mounting configuration would have helped.
 

pwm74

Member
Joined
Apr 3, 2018
Location
New York
TDI
Suzuki Samurai Conversion
15 degrees might be the way to go. i am sure the tranny would not mind it, just bend the shifter 15 degree. it would also push the passenger side of oil pan off the diff...
 

ManicMechanic

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Oct 6, 2017
Location
Saint Cloud, Florida
TDI
03 Golf, 00 Golf, 02 Beetle
Sorry for not getting on in so long. I've been busy with a few new projects. I just picked up an 86 samurai with with a 3.8 supercharged engine I've been working on. I made some good progress on the diesel too. I made custom stainless steel coolant lines so it will just have rubber ends and moved the radiator an inch forward to get more clearance for the fans. I did have a little hood clearance problem. I solved it by building the low profile intake and adding a 1 inch body lift.
 
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ManicMechanic

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Oct 6, 2017
Location
Saint Cloud, Florida
TDI
03 Golf, 00 Golf, 02 Beetle
After I installed my coolant line I realized that there is not really a good place for an aftermarket coolant temp gauge on a vw engine. So I pulled the upper coolant pipe back off and added a pipe fitting to make gauge install simple.

 
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Hasenwerk

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Joined
Nov 28, 2003
Location
Quesnel, BC
TDI
1982 Cabriolet (BEW|VNT17|Stage4), 1989 VW TriStar Syncro soon-to-be CR TDI (CBEA), 2001 Ford Ranger Edge 4x4 (ALH|VNT17|R520|Stage4)
What's wrong with the OE coolant temp sensor? Did you have to delete it?
 

Rockwell

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Nov 23, 2009
Location
Manchester, NH
TDI
2003 Jetta TDI (R.I.P.), 1.6TD Toyota pickup, 2011 BMW 335d, 1996 Passat TDI
Hard to make a 2 wire Volkswagen coolant temp sensor work with a 1 wire samurai cluster. That and I might go Mtdi down the road.
Couldn’t you just ground one of the wires? I’d use the host temp sensor anyways because you know it’s compatible with the indicator
 

[486]

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Mar 1, 2014
Location
MN
TDI
02 golf ALH
Couldn’t you just ground one of the wires? I’d use the host temp sensor anyways because you know it’s compatible with the indicator
resistance values vary wildly as a rule

careful necking down the heater core hose that far, with 3/4" hoses it is almost all of the thermostat bypass water flow other than the engine oil cooler (5/8" hoses)
Auto trans cars also had the A/T oil cooler (5/8" hoses) parallelled in there too. They drew off the upper radiator hose at the plastic elbow with the steam line coming off it, and then dumped into the metal water return pipe to the back of the water pump.

Do not want to just run a bypass hose though as then you don't get any heat or oil cooler flow, maybe grab a junkyard plate heat exchanger and run that in there for P/S cooling. 'Newer' passats (07ish?) have a real nice one front and center behind the driver's side headlight for the A/T cooler.
 

ManicMechanic

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Oct 6, 2017
Location
Saint Cloud, Florida
TDI
03 Golf, 00 Golf, 02 Beetle
I might hook up the samurai sensor too but I would never want it to be my only indicator. They are not very reliable and the gauge doesn't read temp just H and C.

During normal operation with the heater off there will be no flow in the heater core. Samurai heaters have a valve the closes off the heater core to turn the heat off. Even so I have two places the water will return to the back of the water pump. The oil cooler and the coolant bottle. If I have any problems with this setup I'll make a new bypass line from stainless steel and add a fourth line and run that line to a power steering cooler.
 

PickleRick

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Joined
Nov 29, 2017
Location
Greenville sc
TDI
05 GLS BHW sedan 5 speed conversion. BHW Carver SantaCruz in progress
I love the jig for the engine adapter. How did you go about making the hub? Curious as ive turned down purchasing few troopers and monteros due to a swap needing an entire drive train to do a tdi swap and not worth the money imho, i don't have access to a mill or lathe but using that type of jig is well within the resources of my shop to build in a couple days. The hub would could be the deal breaker
 

ManicMechanic

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Oct 6, 2017
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Saint Cloud, Florida
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03 Golf, 00 Golf, 02 Beetle
k_pt in my experience radiator height compared to the engine is all but meaning less. So long as the fill point is the highest point. I know guys that run V8 Chevys in airboats and they put the radiator under the engine. I have a v6 Samurai with the radiator lower than the engine and I don't have any problems with it. You just need to make sure you have the fill point high enough.

Not sure what you mean about the boost piping it has no mounts to the engine just rubber couplings. Also I don't know what ASV stands for.

PickleRick I made the hub on my lathe. I wish I had a mill. I have a powerful drill press that I use like a make shift mill sometimes though.
 

PickleRick

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Nov 29, 2017
Location
Greenville sc
TDI
05 GLS BHW sedan 5 speed conversion. BHW Carver SantaCruz in progress
X2 on the radiator in relation to engine question. Mid engine cars do just fine plumbing from the front bumper to the back. The Pontiac fieros didn't catch on fire too often and when it did, it didn't have anything to do with the radiator placement!



Thanks for the info on the hub. Ill play around with some scrap steel and see what i can get going!

I'll practice on some sbc stuff i have laying around the house before dropping cash on another small suv.

I really like my b5.5 passat sedan but i miss the off road capability, towing capacity and interior space.

I've always loved the Suzukis despite what Peter Griffin says about them. Great looking build!
 

k_pt

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Oct 13, 2017
Location
pt
TDI
VW MKIV TDI
k_pt in my experience radiator height compared to the engine is all but meaning less. So long as the fill point is the highest point. I know guys that run V8 Chevys in airboats and they put the radiator under the engine. I have a v6 Samurai with the radiator lower than the engine and I don't have any problems with it. You just need to make sure you have the fill point high enough.

Not sure what you mean about the boost piping it has no mounts to the engine just rubber couplings. Also I don't know what ASV stands for.

PickleRick I made the hub on my lathe. I wish I had a mill. I have a powerful drill press that I use like a make shift mill sometimes though.
ok, always thought the radiator at to be at the same level as the engine, thanks for the explanation.

About the boost piping, I don't see any rubber between the engine and the intercooler, wich means, all the vibration that comes from the engine, will go through the piping and end up on the Intercoller.

ASV is anti shudder valve, cuts the air that enter the engine, when you turn off, to avoid engine shaking when you turn off the engine.
 
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