ALH/5spd to Ford Windstar Swap

meby

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Location
Southwest Michigan
TDI
2000 Ford Winstar ALH TDI 5 spd
Update: ALH/5spd to Ford Windstar Swap

Hello all,
I have a 2000 Windstar that we swapped a TDI into. Its functional (1000 miles logged so far) but has a few bugs we are working out of its system.
My question is this: is there a model of VW that has longer shifter cables than the ones we removed out of the 2000 Jetta 5spd tdi donor vehicle? Or is it possible to make/buy aftermarket cables? The shifter works at its present location, but would be nice if it could be moved back (lengthened) about 6". Or any distance back for that matter.
Thanks,
-Matt
 
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Jaloosk

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 19, 2013
Location
Mono, Ontario
TDI
15 Passat Sport TDI
What would possess you to put a TDI engine in a PornStar? :lol:

I had a 2000 Pornstar for 5 years and the transmission was an annual replacement item for as long as I had it. How does it drive with the TDI?
 

meby

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Location
Southwest Michigan
TDI
2000 Ford Winstar ALH TDI 5 spd
What would possess you to put a TDI engine in a PornStar? :lol:

I had a 2000 Pornstar for 5 years and the transmission was an annual replacement item for as long as I had it. How does it drive with the TDI?
Fuel mileage. needed a larger family vehicle. 39.5 mpg first tank and 34 mpg second tank. Should go up if anything as the injectors are way overdue and the turbo is stuck half open.

Drives great. A bit slow as expected, but that will be remedied eventually. we didn't keep the crappy auto, btw. Can you say manual transmission!
 

Growler

Got Soot Vendor
Joined
Nov 24, 2003
Location
Millersport, Ohio
TDI
Schmutz, 2015 Golf Sportwagen DSG & Schnurren, 2001 Golf GL 2 door 5M
you can look into the shifter cables for a 1993-1995 Eurovan 5 cylinder.
 

meby

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Location
Southwest Michigan
TDI
2000 Ford Winstar ALH TDI 5 spd
Thought i'd give an update on the project. We've got over 2,000 miles on now and are averaging 37 mpg. I expect mileage to go up a little now that the below issue is mostly fixed. I finally got the intercooler installed - had to go with a water/air cooler to make it fit under the hood. (Actually, we found a spot for an air/air intercooler, but plumbing the air tubes would have been really difficult) The coolant lines were plumbed into the existing cooling system. Which brings up the only real problem we've had this far. Due to the much larger coolant volume of the van (rear heat/larger radiator), when ambient temps were below about 65 degrees, the van would not warm up to operating temp and if the heat was run, temp would drop an extra one or two hash marks. We solved this by blocking the rad with card board, but I could have a thermostat issue as well. How much of the rad gets blocked in summer v. winter we'll have to experiment with, but for now its blocked completely without issue.
 
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spartan

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2011
Location
MI
TDI
05 Passat Wagon
Nice swap! Where in MI are you located? I am in Holland.
 

meby

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Location
Southwest Michigan
TDI
2000 Ford Winstar ALH TDI 5 spd
I am in the Cassopolis area (south near the state line).

It does drive pretty nice. The only issues are I have an out of balance wheel vibration right at 65 mph, but its real minor - almost not noticeable and it has a small amount of torque steer because we didn't balance the shafts, but again its so minor, I doubt we'll ever go the trouble of fixing it.

We kept the VW cluster, its not all hooked up yet, just essentials like speedo, rpm and coolant temp, etc. Its lit up like a Christmas tree; over the next month I hope to hook up a bunch more stuff like the fuel gauge and either remove unused bulbs or hook them up to the corresponding Ford parts. Eventually i'll make an adapter plate to mount the cluster (it sits loose at the moment) and I think its enough smaller than the Ford dash I might be able to sneak boost and pyrometer gauges on either side if the cluster.:D
 
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meby

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Location
Southwest Michigan
TDI
2000 Ford Winstar ALH TDI 5 spd
Info for anybody interested in doing a swap like this (or just curious). See photos above for reference.

This swap was not done as a "dream vehicle", but out of purely out of practicality coupled with economics. You won't see a lot of polished parts, but mostly home built by the simplest means to an end with available stuff. (Kudos to the guys building those types of dream vehicles, but this isn't one of them.) This end has been mostly achieved with nearly double the factory mpg and an out of pocket cost of under a $1,000 including the van (sold a bunch of parts off the car, scrapped the remainder and did some bartering to boot). For this reason we used nearly all factory components. The only aftermarket part to date is the inter-cooler.

The first mount we built was on the driver side. It sits directly on the frame rail and levels the engine. To set the height of the engine we took a second factory mount and cut the tail that sits in the rubber piece and bolted it together with longer bolts. Sitting this mount directly on the frame rail gives about a 1/4" clearance between the trans and the rail. It also leaves ample room on the passenger side to work on the serpentine system and left room for the air/water inter-cooler. The height of the engine/trans was determined by how far we could lower it and not have to cut into the sub-frame. The final angle of the axles are not level, but with less angle than a number of drive shafts I've seen and no axle vibration or binding. I'll post pictures at some point. Front to rear placement is directly in line with the axles. To accomplish this we had to do an egr delete - the alternative would have required lowering the engine more to miss the cowl and customize the sub-frame.

From there we straightened and leveled the engine in the bay and built the second mount on the passenger side.

The wishbone mount (see above photos) is made from a piece of junk available steel that was sitting around. Its probably overkill heavy at about 3/8" thick, but its what we had available. There are holes on the bottom of the frame rail and a brace on the right that the mount fastened to with the perfect height and front to back distance, no complicated adapting required. We used a torch to cut the appropriate notches for the wishbone on the right and the exhaust on the left. It looks a bit crude, it shouldn't ever break.

The pedals in the picture look off set, but are actually not to different - its mostly bad camera angle. The gas pedal uses part of the factory mount with minor mods to the ford brake pedal mount and the jetta mount. The brake pedal was narrowed and bent to the one side to even the spacing between all the pedals. The clutch lines up to a factory hole in the firewall (with minor mods) and uses a simple homemade adjustable adapter to position it. We even used the factory hydraulic line with some minor bending to connect the master/slave cylinders. More pictures to come later.
 

dzldoctor

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 27, 2011
Location
MN
TDI
02 Jetta 2006 Jetta manual 2004 Touareg TDI V10
That's funny, never would have expected that swap. Props to you. That is killer.
 

meby

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Location
Southwest Michigan
TDI
2000 Ford Winstar ALH TDI 5 spd
Thanks.

I didn't really expect it either. We were trying to figure out how to have a family vehicle that gets decent mileage (from a tdi owners perspective) and is able to haul stuff (we do arts & crafts shows and farmers markets on a regular basis). We considered everything from Jetta wagons (lack of third row seats) to suburbans with a cummins 4bt (be lucky to break 30 mpg and would have cost 4-5 times what we have in the minivan due to what was readily available). It was just one of those ideas that came from nowhere. Why not take the tdi that we already owned and stick it in a minivan. (I hadn't heard of any comparable swaps until after we got this one underway and wasn't really aware of how many were commercially available in other countries.) Now that we have it on the road, i'm kinda surprised not more people have done this in the U.S.
 

otty

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 7, 2010
Location
Revelstoke, BC
TDI
2003 Passat W8=>TDI swap, 4Motion Wagon, PD130(AVF) 6Speed Manual, 2006 Jetta MKIV PD(BEW) Wagon 5Speed Manual
My parents have a Windstar that they do not want to give up. Only thing is the mileage is terrible! You can fit as much in there as a pickup with the seats out.

They would buy any diesel minivan if available. They have no interest in s swap however and have watched my issues with my Passat swap with horror!

Great job.
 

meby

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Location
Southwest Michigan
TDI
2000 Ford Winstar ALH TDI 5 spd
My parents have a Windstar that they do not want to give up. Only thing is the mileage is terrible! You can fit as much in there as a pickup with the seats out.

They would buy any diesel minivan if available. They have no interest in s swap however and have watched my issues with my Passat swap with horror!

Great job.
I like the badge in your avatar. I took the SEL off the van and am going to replace it with the TDI off of the Jetta.:D
 

meby

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Location
Southwest Michigan
TDI
2000 Ford Winstar ALH TDI 5 spd
Update: I'm getting ready to put snow tires on van and am considering changing from stock tire size (about 27.5") to a 26'' tall tire to aid in acceleration a bit. By my calculations that would change my rpm in road gear roughly 200 rpm at 60 mph. My question is: is that to much of a jump? I don't drive much interstate - maybe 3-4 times a year.

On a side note, we broke a weld on the driver side axle. It happened close to home and it was an easy fix. Not to bad for the first 7,000 miles.

The only continuing problem we have currently is I can't get the car to warm up to temp in the cold weather. I'm thinking I might have to disconnect the rear heater core.
 

markd89

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2009
Location
Los Angeles
TDI
1978 VW Bus 1Z TDI
Update: I'm getting ready to put snow tires on van and am considering changing from stock tire size (about 27.5") to a 26'' tall tire to aid in acceleration a bit. By my calculations that would change my rpm in road gear roughly 200 rpm at 60 mph. My question is: is that to much of a jump? I don't drive much interstate - maybe 3-4 times a year.

On a side note, we broke a weld on the driver side axle. It happened close to home and it was an easy fix. Not to bad for the first 7,000 miles.

The only continuing problem we have currently is I can't get the car to warm up to temp in the cold weather. I'm thinking I might have to disconnect the rear heater core.
IMO can't see how 200 RPM would be too much of a jump.

For the heater, you could also use a heater control valve such as


You'd plumb that in near the engine so that the core and all the tubing is bypassed. This model AC Delco 15-5829 and is vacuum operated. I think it'd be relatively easy to convert it to cable operation or if you look, maybe there's one that already works off a cable.

That said, maybe there's another cause to slow warmup - like a stuck thermostat?

Mark
 

meby

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Location
Southwest Michigan
TDI
2000 Ford Winstar ALH TDI 5 spd
IMO can't see how 200 RPM would be too much of a jump.

That said, maybe there's another cause to slow warmup - like a stuck thermostat?

Mark

Thanks, I think 200 should be okay, but I wanted some feedback.

The thermostat is on the list to check.
 

SuperAdellic

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 5, 2008
Location
Beaufort, SC
TDI
None
Awesome project. I would have never thought to use a Windstar, but I generally don't like minivans anyways.
Thanks, I think 200 should be okay, but I wanted some feedback.
The thermostat is on the list to check.
I agree with markd89 that 200 is not a problem, especially if you are not above 60mph much.
I also agree with markd89 on checking your thermostat. While having a lot more coolant capacity might cause some issues, I doubt it. If the thermostat is working properly and the hoses are routed properly (outlet on the back of the head --> heater core --> to the metal return pipe that runs from the heater core to the back of the thermostat housing), there is no reason for the engine to not build heat. I had a stuck thermostat in my TDI in the winter and saw temps in the 150s on the highway (though, it rarely gets below freezing here).
I finally got the intercooler installed - had to go with a water/air cooler to make it fit under the hood. The coolant lines were plumbed into the existing cooling system.
I hope I'm misreading this quote, but are you saying that you used coolant lines off of the engine to cool the intercooler? If so, this is a bad idea. Engines like cool air in the intake tract. Air to water intercooler systems require their own separate radiators, water pump, etc. to keep the intercooler cool. Plumbing it into the engine's cooling system keeps the air at engine temp and it is generally not good to have intake air temps that high.
 

meby

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Location
Southwest Michigan
TDI
2000 Ford Winstar ALH TDI 5 spd
I hope I'm misreading this quote, but are you saying that you used coolant lines off of the engine to cool the intercooler? If so, this is a bad idea. Engines like cool air in the intake tract. Air to water intercooler systems require their own separate radiators, water pump, etc. to keep the intercooler cool. Plumbing it into the engine's cooling system keeps the air at engine temp and it is generally not good to have intake air temps that high.
Not a misread. I've been running that way for a while. Current routing has the return line from the heater cores to the inlet on the intercooler. We thought the cold side (return lines) of the heater cores might work, but the plan is to run a separate system soon as it doesn't come out of the heater core cold enough. Now I plan to mount a spare heater core behind the grill somewhere and run a separate system like you mention.
 

meby

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Location
Southwest Michigan
TDI
2000 Ford Winstar ALH TDI 5 spd
Update: I figured I should pop in here and give an update now that we have some miles on the swap. Not a lot of progress has been made finishing up the detail stuff on the swap yet - been to busy with our farm and its been to da*n cold until recently to work on it.

We've only had one issue to date to speak of - one of the axle bushings wasn't welded properly and it snapped the weld at about 8,000 miles. It didn't damage the bushing or shaft so it was an easy fix. We now have a total of about 12,000 miles on the swap (we got it on the road Aug 2013).

Fuel mileage has averaged about 36 mpg during warm weather and about 33 mpg over winter. Not to bad, but it should go up once I get around to replacing tired injectors and a stuck turbo vanes and deleting the rear heater core (its sucks unbelievable amounts of heat off the coolant system). The swap has already saved over a $1,000 in fuel cost. Sweet!

Overall we're pretty happy with the swap.
-Matt
 

meby

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Location
Southwest Michigan
TDI
2000 Ford Winstar ALH TDI 5 spd
Update: Made some progress since the last update. We've put on about 16,000 miles since the swap and should have about 20,000 on it by the time the first year mark rolls around. Long term our warm weather mileage had been averaging about 35 - 36 mpg and winter mileage at 32 - 33 mpg. Still working on getting full operating temps out of this thing - takes about 15 min in hot weather and never in cold weather to reach operating temps with a fully blocked radiator. Changed the thermostat twice, so I don't think thats the issue. I'm thinking now that the rear heat in the van has got to go. I think the 20 + feet of exposed heater lines under the van and the rear heater core are bleeding a lot of heat - more heat than this tdi can handle. I've got a ball valve and fittings sitting here to shut it off and to see what happens. I figure this temperature issue has got to be hurting my mpg a fair amount.
On the positive side, my vgt turbo that has been stuck for a long time just became unstuck several weeks ago (Stuck half open making it sorta drive able hence the stuck for a long time). My wife was driving on an interstate and blew an intercooler boot and said when it happened it let out giant black cloud. I've never heard of a stuck vgt freeing itself, but hey, in definitely NOT complaining - saved me a lot of money and trouble. It now has normal power throughout the rpm range when before it was dropping off significantly on reaching 2700 rpm.
We just replaced the exhaust two weeks ago with a real system - the temporary flex pipe I used to hook it up during the swap broke off at 3 feet long. Note to self - if you want people to notice you have a diesel/5spd minivan, run said van for a couple weeks with 3' of exhaust attached. :D The guy at the exhaust shop said it was one of two minivans he'd seen that could be considered cool. :eek:
We also got the first tank of fuel done with the unstuck turbo and the smaller tires. I found a set of two used smaller tires that changes my gearing close to where the Jetta was originally. I don't have hard numbers, but it is noticeably easier on the clutch to launch it, accelerates better and hold interstate speeds better. First tank through was 39 mpg! :cool: (705 miles total with about 100 miles freeway driving)
Now if I can just get around to replacing the worn out injectors.


Question: i'm getting some oil through the intake plumbing that I assume is coming from the turbo - should I be worried? It has the egr delete.
 
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duwem

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2012
Location
Wi
TDI
2002 Golf GLS TDI 5 Speed
Turbo or PCV system. Some have done catch cans for the PCV.

Turbo, I would pull the suction hose off and feel for excessive play in the shaft which would be a sign its going south.
 
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