More progress, and mess. I've removed the propeller shaft and rear axle assembly, ready to rebuild them. The rear differential's viscous coupling looks to be in need of replacement because it is losing oil. The casing of the VC looks 'wet' and you can see where oil has been chucked up directly above, underneath. The drive flanges also seem to have a fair bit of play, so I am going to be on the lookout for a complete replacement differential / VC in good condition I think. Prop shaft is taken down carefully and kept as straight as possible to avoid stress on the little CV boots, just in case I need to re-use the old ones. The prop shaft is quite an interesting item to rebuild because many of the components initially seem obsolete, but details are slowly emerging of alternative part numbers that are still available. The rear prop shaft coupling 'doughnut' looks fine, but the front coupling looks like it has seen far better days. The front coupling gets quite a battering because of movement of the engine. Having removed the exhaust also I have started thinking more about how to modify the system for the 16V engine. Fitting a 16V motor into a Syncro needs a custom manifold. Either you want a custom manifold to sit between the 16V head and existing G60 Syncro / Rallye downpipe, or perhaps have a complete 4-2-1 manifold made. Now I have found it tricky finding people who are prepared to make such a thing, and in any case they'll need to have the car with them, so in the first instance I'd like to just get it running with a 'DIY' solution which could either be temporary or permanent, depending on how well it goes. For anyone unfamiliar with the Syncro's exhaust, here's a mock-up of how the downpipe sits with the prop shaft at the front. The flange is not only offset more towards the car's right-hand side than it would be in a conventional 16V MK2, but it is also rotated about 45 degrees too. Clearly this is to clear the prop shaft and limit the amount of heat getting to that front rubber prop coupling. Here's the G60 Syncro exhaust manifold. Now here's the comparison with a normal 2WD KR manifold. See the difference in position of the mating flange. You can see it would be pretty impossible to modify the downpipe to mate with that KR cast manifold, because its flange would sit right above the prop coupling. So a rather interesting solution, which was picked up from a post someone made on Dubforce, is to use a Scirocco 16V exhaust manifold. This manifold is quite hard to get hold of (I got this one from the US, but I have seen them available over here a few times). They're quite popular with people putting a 16V into a MK1 too I believe. What's good about it is that the flange is centered, which gives you a fighting chance of modifying the downpipe to mate with it. (Scirocco 2WD 16V - Golf 2WD 16V - G60 Syncro) So the plan now is to buy a few stainless mandrel bends (1.75" / 44mm) and modify the downpipe so that it will fit with the Scirocco cast manifold. I think it should be possible without getting too close to the coupling (clearly someone has already proven this can be done before) and for security I can always add in some heat shielding can't I. After comparing the Syncro and Scirocco manifolds, I think the flange would be in just the right place if I were to modify that downpipe by sort of pivoting the flange around on one of the two tubes, if that makes sense. So chop the two tubes, then rotate it approximately 45 degrees on the leftmost tube, and simply re-weld; the opposite tube would be re-built using a couple of eBay mandrel bends. By the way, recently alexisblades99 was most kind to point out to me on Germany eBay what I can only describe as the Holy Grail: an original VWM Limited exhaust manifold, which would have been just perfect. I was determined that this would be mine, at any (reasonable) cost. Well, I was outbid and the amount of money it went for was just absolutely f*cking insane. Take a look for yourself: http://cgi.ebay.de/Krummer-VW-Golf-II-LIMITED-Seltenheit-/120649095488?pt=Autoteile_Zubeh%C3%B6r&hash=item1c173f1940 :-( Gutted. On one hand, it's a VWM item and it would have been a very nice finish to the project, and saved a lot of hassle. On the flip side, it's not perfect as it seems to have been welded (confirmed by high-res pictures the seller sent to me). That kind of money could also be spent on a far superior manifold made for me, or to buy welding gear to do my own. So to do the modification work, I'm going to use it as an excuse to get a TIG welder I think and teach myself to use it. (I only have a MIG welder at the moment.) A decent AC / DC TIG (that can do alloy as well) is an absolute minimum 800 to 1000; the even cheaper AC/DC units on eBay are very cheap Chinese jobs which I'd rather avoid. I'm thinking of going for an R-tech unit, which are still Chinese but apparently are very well quality-controlled and supported by R-tech in the UK. If I don't worry for now about doing alloy and just get a DC unit, I could hopefully spend only around 400, and get something like this one: Rtech TIG200PDC Any comments on the manifold situation would be appreciated. I quite like the idea of using the original downpipe, modified, with the cast item because I like the quiet operation of VAG stuff. Am I mad not to just get a complete stainless manifold and downpipe made up straight away, or would you do similar to how I'm proposing? If I do this, at least it gets the car mobile and can be upgraded to a posher manifold later.
trev, i'd try some of the drag race/hot rod places, there are loads of people out there who make manifolds. such as http://www.hauserracing.com/pages/Services.aspx they are good at this kind of stuff, much better than teaching yourself, and it might get finished then
Nice update's Trev. My VC left exactly the same trail on the chassis as yours looks to have. I got my new one from Chris off the vw Syncro forum. I suspect there are more about in germany. Shame you sold the VR6 one you had. I also found this in my research http://www.dieselkontor.de/product_info.php?products_id=3022 And this http://www.dieselkontor.de/product_info.php?cPath=58_59&products_id=3206 They will also rebuild one for 400+euro And I seem to remember finding a land rover specialist that can rebuild them, I was going to ask if they could do/attempt the VW one. I've got a spare/broken VC we could play around with. Do you have a date you want it back on the road? Look forward to the day we could convoy them to a show
I'm also stunned at the price that thing went for Trev - two weeks in the Bahamas kind of money. Prof's got a point - take your g60 syncro manifold, and a 16v manifold in, a decent place should be able to use those datum points and knock a custom job up for a reasonable price. Having said that, learning to TIG halfway decent isn't too hard. You'd be surprised what you can do with a well set-up MIG though. I had asked these guys about doing a custom job for me but ran out of time [:^(] Some of their stuff looks stunning.
I'd imaging the VC is very simlar to the 4mo set up, sure you could remove worn plates/clutches and replace with good second, one VC out of 2? is the plates still available ??
I think i've just bought a 1/18th scale model exactly the same as your car Trev!!! And Happy Birthday as well, 32?? You old *******!!!
Oh cool, get a picture up! For my birthday the wife gave me a mug with a MK2 print on it in a similar colour, with the Syncro's registration!
It might acutally be black rather than your colour but its the same as this: http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x174/scalainj/Models/Models%204/04-09-10041.jpg I got a mug for christmas with a pic of my car on!! Cool!!
Hi Trev I had the same problem when putting the 16v in my Rallye. On the original 8v engine it had a 4 branch manifold(not sure of make tho) When I looked at it, cylinder 3 & 4 of the 4 branch lined up with exhaust ports so I cut the mounting flange off a 16v manifold and had 3 laser cut in 10mm steel Then cut the flange off the 4 branch, took it to a welder mate who fabricated a jig to keep it all in the right place, cut back the manifold on cylinders 1 & 2 then welded some tube in to join the cut back headers to the new flange. Does that make sense? Here's the pics Pics arent that clear TBF but may give you some help I've got 2 flanges left Gareth keeps threatening to come for 1 but hasn't yet........ Gavin
Fantastic, thank you for posting those images. As it happens Stephcascar on here gave me a 16V head flange a while back, so I'll probably be putting that to use. I think I'll give up on the idea of an AC/DC TIG for now as I'm really not sure if I can justify the extra cost to be able to do alloys as well. If I get a considerably cheaper DC unit (e.g. an R-tech 200A DC TIG for 400) at least I can do the manifold etc.
Right, just to update this (over a year later... well, things got in the way such as having a baby daughter ) I managed to achieve building my own 16V Syncro manifold. I did a dedicated thread for it here! This is designed to be used with the standard G60 Syncro (same as Rallye) exhaust downpipe section. So that's the big hurdle of putting a 16V into a Syncro sorted. Tomorrow I'm planning to start pulling the 16V G60 engine out of my 2WD MK2. I'm determined to have the Syncro ready for summer this year...
Ah, Ian. Sell me those door / quarter trims for much cheapness. I keep umming and ahhing over them. Would send you some sexy photos in return.
