Three weeks of golf engined driving to update you on.  I've done getting on for 700 miles in it now, the oily patch is definately the gearbox end seal leaking quite badly.  The gearbox has taken about a litre of oil which isn't good.  I have a new seal to go in which will get done when the van goes for MOT next week along with the front brake flexi hoses which I noticed were looking a little worse for wear when it was up on the ramp during the engine works.

There's still a few glitches to iron out, after a period of driving the fuel pump gets a bit lazy, its wired into the live for the coil and we think once the coil gets hot its dropping a bit of voltage to the fuel pump so that needs re-routing.  The oil light persists although having had an oil light for 700 miles I'm now pretty convinced its nothing major LOL.   It did get me worrying though... so having got three vdo gauges off ebay for oil pressure, oil temp and voltage and a twin terminal oil pressure sender.  Fitted the guages to the underside of the dash yesterday but rain (and hail!) stopped play and I wasn't really in the mood to crawl around on a  wet road under the van running wires front to back so the gauges aren't yet wired to the senders.  Once in place we'll see the truth with the oil pressure, I'm hoping the light is a wiring fault...   I guess there will be either a joyous or a despondant post in the near future once that has been wired...   watch this space (with a small amount of anxiety).

In other news, the buggy has gone back to its previous owner and I have the remaining cash.... and four T25 wheel arches... I think its time to think about banding the arches out ;-)

The T25 has started marking its patch rather too well.

I haven't investigated really but I have a horrible feeling its the end seal behing the flywheel which means engine out again :-(

This might be because I hit 95mph yesterday at one point...  

More when I know what's going on...

I'm also bidding on oil pressure guage kit on ebay at the moment, I think I'd like to worry more accurately about my oil pressure.

OK added another half litre of oil to the engine.  This has quietened the top end down totally, it no longer gets tappy after a long run and oil isn't surging so much.  This has helped the top speed too now the valves are lifting properly :)

85 miles into shakedown and about a third of a tank used according to the guage.

Cooling is good, temperature guage sits right in the middle at all times unless the engine is really being pushed then it raises a little but soon falls when the driving calms down... perfect.

To be sorted:

- Its pinking a bit under load so need to adjust the timing a little

-  its got two oil leaks as far as i can tell so a little investigation into those, neither majorly serious but it does mark its patch on the road when you park it.

- the reverse lights come on when i brake hard...   bloke behind me in a queue at traffic lights told me

- I'd like to add an oil pressure gauge, ok usually they're worry guages but I'm not sure the T25 dash circuitry is up to all that and I've got an oil light intermittently that I think is a wiring fault so would be good to have a double check.

- add a small lift pump between the tank and the swirl pot to even out the last bits of fuel surging around 1/4 full tank

Well the wedge is now well and truly back in the fold and, after being treated far less specially than its used to, the bay is now tucked back up in its garage after a hard two months of duty in the wintery weather.

The wedge well what can I say...   it passed the acid test of going up Stock Hill without requiring a change down, and its pretty zippy off the mark now too.  Top speed has improved a bit although not been over 75 - 80 indicated yet as the weather is atrocious.  Oh and it makes the right noise, lots of induction bark from the airbox :)

So we are onto full shakedown now.  There is still some fuel surging when the tank is low, on steep down hill stretches as the tank outlet ends up lower than the inlet for the swirl pot and after a proper good ragging the top end sounds a bit tappetty but soon quietens back down again so I think the restrictor in the oil pick up pipe needs opening up just a little as the top end is seemingly getting a bit short on oil at times.

Other than that and needing to remove about 1/2 a ton of gearbox and assorted other left over bits out the back and put them in my garage... I think we're getting there :)

OK jsut bought a decent swirl pot to sort the fuel surging



Should turn up tomorrow :)

Well finally drove the T25 on a road last night....     i have to report its very sprightly and lovely and smooth running :-)

The back box took a little while to clear completely...   it had been filled up with diesel and burnt through to clear the majority of detritus out of it and I think the run pretty much cleared the rest.


However...   the fuel is surging a bit and at times that's making it hold back so there's a little more fettling to be done.  We think where its suffering is the distance from the pump to the fuel metering head so the plan is to put in an inline fuel accumulator to even out the surges.  Once that's done we should be all good :)

The new dizzy helped...   but it still wasn't right, although the old dizzy did pretty much fall apart so needed changing anyway but in the end rechecked the timing belt....   it had slipped!    This explains why it ran OK then refused to.

Sorted that starts on the button and sounds fairly lively to say the least.

The fuel leak reappeared...   Nige's mate Al turned up...   he services workshop compressors and the like and came up with some goo taht is as I write this hardening on the union and will stop far higher pressures than are in my fuel system.   That said will probably never get that union apart again.

Also one last sting in the tail ....    the backbox came off a diesel T25... a blown up one...   clearly that engine dumped a huge amount of oily clag down the exhaust in its dying moments...  once the back box warmed right through it started belching black smoke and fumes as the stuff in the bottom of the box burned off.

So jobs for sunday are check the leak, remove the back box and hang it up and apply some fire to it and get it cleared out then we should be good to go finally :)

Well i hope everyone ahd a good Christmas and New Year, there have been some sagas with the T25 engine transplant and i've been driving the bay about al lot and have bonded with it again :)

I was asked if the T25 story was finished yet ona  forum and psoted a reply, then realised I'd neglected my readers on erhe a bit so here is what I replied, some of this is new news here, some of it recaps thigns psoted earlier but it is a potted history

my T25 is now officially renamed Vivian...

its being an utter utter bastard  PMSL

nah in truth its been running for a while but not brilliantly and then xmas and NY got in the way and the dreaded manflu knocked Nige out of comission for a bit.

However here's some highlights...

It ran... it idled ok ish but there was a fair bit of unburnt fuel and it was kinda gutless... went over the engine again did the usual checks, fuel, air, spark, timing, compression etc...  no real clues apart from two plugs looking like they were running lean... decided first thing to do was get new injectors as the old ones that came with it were rather gummed up.

First injector to come out snapped off in the head... saga....   injectors changed...   then the damn thing wouldn't start at all...  ????????????

more investigation....   the previously enjoyed fuel pump (in lieu of new but broken GSF one) wasn't shutting down when it hit pressure...   theory was although working it had got weak and just wasn't producing enough pressure in the sytem for the injectors to work properly...   went back to GSF with broken new fuel pump and no reciept...  got a replacement ( thank you Trevor :)  ) put that on and had a fuel leak from the fuel line unions... 

at this point Nige decided enough was enough.... and went through the whole fuel system and even welded in a larger feed into the tank after a phone call to me that went "this might be the last time i speak to you I'm about to weld your petrol tank" ...   he didn't explode... although there is a rather funny story associated with taht...   includes a well timed lobbing of a crow scarer banger into nige's workshop jsut as he flipped his mask down...   Nige swears there is now an imprint of his head on the roof of the workshop and he tore himself another backside at the same time LOL!!!

Anyway.. it runs again... better but still not great but differntly not great....  its gone through a process of all the parts that had sat rested for a while that could object to coming out of retirement have...  it now runs lovely at high revs but totally pony at low revs...  behaving very liek the timing is out...

bit of investigation in the direction of the dizzy...  and its spat its dummy out now... so hopefully another dizzy and we're good (finally).

this may sound strange ...  but while frustrating....  its been fun too... and I've learnt a bit along the way...  and I've been driving the bay about and yes OK it needs a serious wash to get the salt off it again (yes yes i know me washing my bay.. AGAIN!!!) but it and I have been enjoying the grin :)

OK... changed the injectors, it now has brand spanking new ones and.....

it won't start at all!

Let's recap here...  it has good compression, it has spark, it has fuel, it has new parts...  plugs, leads, dizzy cap, rotor, injectors etc etc...

It ran... but crap...  now it won't fire... well it kinda does but kinda not...  you know?   When you stop turning it over and exclaim "Well... it wants to doesn't it?"

Its that close its unreal...   frustration isn't the word for it!

It runs!!!

.... kinda...   there's been a lot of fun and games... not fun and not a game but fun and games is the phrase I think.

Fuel pump brand new was fitted and siezed...   replaced with a  previously enjoyed one that works fine...   which then provided slightly more fuel pressure than the union between that and the high pressure fuel filter could handle..  fuel leaks being whaht they are that took three goes to get it to finally seal properly.

Then it ran... lumpy... but it ran...   then we did some tidying up of the wires and stuff and p-clipped the fuel lines up and so forth  then tried it again... nothing.

Anyway new set of HT leads for good measure and found an earth had come detached during the tidying and clipping up...   reattached that and fired it up again...  rather lumpy but less so with the new leads...   smokey and while revving up OK... kinda gutless.  It ran OK revved up ok, idled ok just fumy like its not burning properly

Back to basics...   compression tested the engine... its fine on all 4.. and then it was running there was no death rattle or any other worrying noises from the engine.  However when doing the compression test, plug number 1 was lean as almost totally starved of fuel, 2 by compare was rather sooty the other two were OK.  This must be the source of the problem...   its sunday... called it a day early but likely causes are either gummed up injectors where they've been left or a constriction or leak in the injector fuel lines.

Its close...   no cigar just yet but to be expected trying to make a hybrid with parts of unknown age and origin.   Does sound nice though... not to "chavvy" but a nice bit of induction noise when you open the throttle :-)

Right time for an update...    been a few issues, the DG engine loom doesn't match the golf engine's plugs...   so have had to procudre a MK1 loom off jdr (thanks mate), also took the decision to get a diesel header tank for the water system as that has large bore flow and returns, larger than the one for the DG engine does.

Hopeful of starting it tomorrow now...  if not it'll be early next week.

yesterday was the day of reckoning and althought it was a tall order to get everything done in a day I was impressed with how far things got before we called it a day.

All the parts cleaned down

old engine out


old gearbox out new gearbox in
longer oil pickup pipe on the GTi engine

then a full service on it and cam belt etc...

and the whole lot at the end of the day was in the van and engine mated to gearbox, just the plumbing and electrics left to do

Dear readers, I know I've been a little slack in the updates department but there is news on the T25 front!

I managed to find (with help from Icky - cheers mate) all the other parts I need for the GTi conversion via a guy in Devon who was breaking a Diesel T25 so I just gave him a shopping list and he sent all the bits via Parcel Force (Farce)

... who promptly took it all and then dropped it all and split the box open...  then cheek of it tried to get him to go to their depot to repackage it.

He ranted they returned it all, he repackaged it and sent it via a courier on a pallet and everything finally turned up Thursday woohooo


So no time like the present...   conversion starts Tuesday morning

Right I am now the owner of this pile of junk



Which to the uninitiated is a 1800 Golf GTi engine, a T25 high ratio 4 speed diesel gearbox with a 5 speed diff fitted and assorted parts for converting the wedge to GTI power in the near future.

Additonal to the stuff here I need:

Sump and filler neck from VW JX engine
the 7 bellhousing to engine bolts from same
the 6 fine thread flywheel bolts
diesel clutch
engine support bars, cast mounts and rubbers
JX thermostat housing
JX water pipes

A new golf sump gasket

and a few bits of new fuel line and odds and sods and then we can go for rapidwedge :)

The T25 screen was cracked by a stone at the weekend so needed replacing.  Rang Trident Windscreens in Witham and was expecting them tomorrow.

Got a call earlier "are you in today?  your screen turned up this morning and I put it in the van on the offchance...   jsut coming by your now if its convenient"

When was the last time someone tunred up early to do a job???  Amazing !! :)

So out with the old plain and cracked screen and in with a nice new one with a  green top tint and dark blue border :)