Working on the half block

The past couple days have been spent working on the lower half of the motor and dealing with some nit-picky stuff.

First off - I had to order various gaskets, headbolts, etc. to continue with the build. Had some trouble at Parts Source getting the proper parts ordered - they couldn't seem to understand how I am working with two different motors. After a few days I got some of the gaskets I need but they ordered the headbolts for the ABA head when I need them for the 16v head. The guy at the store gave me an unreasonably and frankly disrespectfully hard time with it too, going on a rant about how they can't just "order in random sets of headbolts till I get the right ones". It was odd, since he was just an employee - its not like it cost him anything anyway. Another frustrating thing about it was that I physically went into the store the day before to explain specifically how I needed the 16v head bolts and NOT the ABA bolts, and the guy at the counter assured me he ordered the correct ones. After some rude conversation he eventually said the manufacturer didn't make the headbolts for a 16v (though I think he was just frustrated and wanted me out of there) - so I'm just going to order them online - its probably cheaper anyway and I know exactly what I'll get, but it will take some time. This would be one of those times where it would be nice to live in the US and not have to worry about brokerage, duties and shipping.

I also received the parts I ordered from BBM - Dizzy Gizzy and a BBM fuel rail and FPR. I assembled the fuel rail but decided to leave the ABA distributor alone until I get the timing set with the new head on - I doubt it will matter since as mentioned earlier, I already took the timing belt off before aligning the distributor to TDC anyway - but all in all, I think I'll leave the distributor untouched till near the end - I figure the distributor will by my biggest risk of error.

Next I looked into the hoses - I have a replacement upper radiator hose that will run from the 16v head and has a coolant expansion valve return line attached to it. I then needed to figure out how to replace the ABA hose running between the water pump, oil filter and the old ABA radiator hose, since the old hose had this as one piece. Since I'm lucky and have the 16v bottom end, I realized the hose from that motor fit relatively well. I had a hell of time getting the hose off the ABA without the proper tools for the clamps, and everything is pretty tight in there. I ended up removing the AC lines from the condenser but unfortunately still pretty much destroyed the hose removing it. Eventually I got the new 16v hose in place. The heater hose running to the passenger side of the head will also need to be replaced but I have a new flange and the proper fitting hose for that already.

This is a picture of the 16v hose for the pump and oil filter:

Here is the new flange installed on the 16v head which will support the heater hose and one of the original two sensors on the ABA head. The other sensor fits into the actual head just below the gasket.

I then moved onto the pulleys - the cam gear on the 16v head I will leave alone. I replaced the tensioner and got rid of the weird ABA one. I then moved to the lower block and removed the serpentine pulley that attaches to the crank gear. Had lots of trouble with just one of the bolts in this thing - not sure why but it just wouldn't come out and eventually I stripped it. I thought about buying one of those stripped bolt removing kits, but costs just slowly creep up with all those sorts of random purchases, so I decided to just cut it off - it wasn't clean but I don't think it will matter in the end, and it got the pulley off as I needed.




I will also need to replace the crank gear and the intermediate shaft gear to fit the wider timing belt. At this point, I got pretty tired, and also realized when doing some research that the crank gear bolt is a "stretch" bolt that will need to be replaced. Luckily I hadn't placed my order for the head bolts yet so I left off there. The timing belt cover had all sorts of random little bolts and I didn't do a very good job of keeping track of where they went - so I'm a bit worried that I won't get that cover back on again.

Pulling the ABA Head

I've worked on a few things in the past couple days. First, I decided I would paint the valve cover and manifold just to make things look a bit cleaner. I disassembled the components into their individual pieces and taped off anything that shouldn't have paint on it. I used a flat black high temperature paint. It's nothing flashy but it takes away any old stains that may have been there. Here are the finished products, which I already got a bit greasy just from picking them up.

Before moving to the ABA head, I pulled the front end off the vehicle. I already had the bumper cover and lights removed, but I also cleared out the steal bumper, radiator, AC condenser and support frame, and before doing that I flushed the coolant. To do so I pulled the coolant line from the pump and drained into a  container. I had a hard time judging how much came out, but I was expecting at least four litres, so my initial attempt to flush the coolant system didn't appear to flush everything out. I thought part of the problem was the fact the front end was lifted up and thus gravity was potentially inhibiting the flow of coolant to the lower pump flange. I dropped the car which didn't make a noticeable difference and decided I had most of it out of the system.

I also pulled the lines to the AC condenser - the condenser cracked years ago so the system no longer contained any coolant, but normally you wouldn't pull the condenser to avoid opening the system. Opening the system is environmentally hazardous, but would also require a recharge of refrigerant and potential flush of the entire AC system had it actually been working. After removing the air intake, the entire AC system is extremely accessible - I am now considering whether its worth trying to repair the AC in the car before I put the motor back together. I would need a new condenser and receiver drier, but given the whole front end has been pulled this is a great opportunity to replace these relatively inexpensive parts and try to get the system working again.

Removing the air intake is relatively straight forward. There is a confusing stretch of piping leading to the exhaust manifold. Apparently this is designed to feed the the intake with warmed air from the manifold to help with cold starts. I'll be getting rid of this - as mentioned earlier, I have a driver side intake which will require a custom air filter and I likely won't have any way of incorporating this heat exchange design. Also, the little air box on the top of the manifold is a PIA! I've always had trouble with it rattling, and it makes it even more difficult to work with the manifold when the motor is in the car - more on that later.

I started dis-assembly of the ABA so that I could remove the head from the block. Again this is pretty straight forward. One mistake I made was not aligning the engine to TDC before I pulled the cam pulley belt. This won't necessarily cause me problems, but would have potentially made everything simpler down the road. I wish I would have thought of that, but its too late now. My biggest concern is the position of the distributor relative to the crank.

I labelled as many sensors and hoses as I could - even if they seemed obvious at the time. I can already tell that as a I move things around, especially wiring harnesses, plugs and cables that once looked familiar are hard to identify when they are out of place.

I then proceeded to the exhaust manifold. I did this piece last because I was dreading it, and for the right reasons. In the car's almost 20 year life, I'm not sure the exhaust has ever been touched. As a result, the bolts are rusted round. I tried removing the manifold from the head first. I had good success with the upper bolts but the inaccessibility of the lower bolts -  below the heat box for the intake air exchange and above the motor mount made them pretty much impossible to access. I tried everything to reach this bolts - from above and below - but eventually realized it wasn't going to happen. I then decided to try and take the head out with the downpipe attached. This was a relatively good strategy but again the bolts connecting the downpipe to the cat were pretty much toast. I decided they needed to be cut, but it was hard to get any decent tool in there to cut the bolts out without cutting out the flange with them. I used a Dremel tool with the extension "snake" and a reinforced metal wheel which eventually cut them loose. I went through about 15 standard cutting wheels which kept snapping before I gave in and bought the reinforced wheels - which aren't cheap. Here is a picture of one of the easier bolts, which was still in relatively decent shape::

All in all - the head is relatively easy to get out, provided you find a way to deal with the exhaust.

I then needed to lift the head from the engine bay. Relatively simple task for most - but remember that I'm still on crutches and can't lift much of anything. I ran a rope through the lift points on the front of the head and swung them through the roof rafter above in my garage. This served as a relatively effective pulley for me to pull the head while still on crutches. I had a bit of trouble with the cam shaft pulley tensioner - apparently I have the "new type" which has some type of weird hydraulic tension application which was still connected to the lower block. I also forgot to pull out the coolant expansion reservoir return line which was odd since it was in plain site. With the head out, I disconnected the down shaft from the ABA manifold. I wasn't sure which exhaust manifold to use, but it appears the 16v manifold will match up perfectly with the ABA downpipe, so I plan to leave the 16V manifold in place and avoid replacing the gasket.

Preparing the 16v

In order to prepare both motors for the eventual swap I did a few basic things. The ABA block was compression tested and to my surprise had even 180 psi compression in all four cylinders. I then did my best to clean up the ABA engine bay and motor - in its final days as a daily driver an oil pressure sensor in the ABA motor blew out of the cylinder head and sprayed oil over everything - apparently this was enough frustration for me at the time that I bought the Volvo S60 to replace it and never did a very good job of cleaning it up. I did fix the sensor issue so the leak is no longer there, but that is redundant now that I'm replacing the head anyway.

I removed the front bumper cover that needs to be replaced anyway, and the headlights. Then, as a first step I took as many pictures as I could of the existing motors in tact for future reference. Unfortunately, these pictures are stuck on a camera for which I cannot find the cable, so from that point on I began using my phone for the pictures.

Next step was to pull the 16v head off of the old motor. It was at this point I made the realization the intake manifold orientation was the opposite of the ABA (i.e. the drivers side). I think they made this configuration for the Scirrocco? The flipped orientation will be a bit of a problem when I try to get the hybrid motor running for the first time, since I'm not sure what I'll do for an intake and I'm not sure if I'll have problems with the throttle cable? I guess if anything, the ABA throttle cable would need to be shorter which seems like a better problem to have than being too short. After thinking about it, in the long run I'll be better off as the drivers side orientation will be perfect for intercooler piping going forward.

Dis-assembly was pretty straight forward - I started with the intake manifold, then removed the timing belt and pulled the head cover off. From there you can pull out the head bolts. All that should be left are a few hoses. I left it at that for the day.

At this point you get to see the mechanics of the 16v motor - dual cam shafts and the additional valves just make it look more sophisticated than the ABA. Overall the head appears to be in good enough shape - no obvious problems detected by me at least. Ideally one would rebuild the head and the block - I just can't bring myself to spend that much money on a motor I can't be certain I'll ever get properly running. For now, the stock internals are how its going to stay.

The original ABA:

 16v manifold - here you can see the driver side intake. Note above the ABA intake on the passenger side. I forgot to take a picture of it, but the throttle body for the 16v is also pretty awesome, it has a two stage valve .

Here is the head removed from the block - you can see the dual cam shafts and the distributor on the side of the head as opposed to the ABA distributor lower on the block. You need the ABA distributor  to run the oil pump in the ABA block, but the 16v head will use its own distributor.

After doing research I think I have a few possible solutions to this problem. Since I have the old 16v block I could install the oil pump intermediary shaft gear from the 16V into the ABA. I'd need some sort of block off for the old ABA distributor. Since removing the oil pan and potentially pulling the block of the ABA will be difficult for me to pull off on crutches, I decided to take the easy way out and buy a part designed by BBM to solve this problem - the Dizzy Gizzy, which is now on order.

 


Set the valve cover back in place.

Start of the project

I've had the old 1997 GTI with a 2.0L ABA motor for a long time - since I was 16. After a few years the car became frustrating to operate in my career as an accountant due to failed AC, being low to the ground, having only two doors, etc. and I bought a Volvo S60. Unwilling to give up the GTI, however, the car remained stuffed into the front of my garage for a few years. I was always interested in the boosted 16v ABA project, simply because the idea of combining two different motors just seemed so cool to me - the problem is that where I live, finding a 16v motor or even the head seemed impossible. After a few years of sitting, I decided it was time to get rid of the car.

As if the car gods were looking out for the old GTI, early into the start of summer 2013 I ruptured the achilles tendon playing hockey. The sad realization was that I would spend my summer on crutches. With loads of desk time on my hands and while cruising Kijiji to try and guess a price I might be able to sell the GTI for I came across an ad selling a Rabbit restoration project with a fully rebuilt 16v motor and a secondary in tact 16v motor for parts. Here was my chance to get the 16v motor I needed for the project - and it seemed like a decent project for me to work on while I was stuck on crutches for the summer. I immediately emailed the guy asking to take the parts motor off of his hands.

He emailed back saying he had a lot of interest in the motor and that it was already potentially sold. When he emailed back, however, I could see his name and recognized him as the same person that sold me the very GTI I bought years ago as my first car - what are the odds! When I pointed that fact out, he said he had a soft spot for his old car, and decided we could work something out. The next day, I had the 16v motor in my hands and against all odds the project was born!

I wasn't able to find many pics of the car in its glory:

Canoe on the racks after travelling a winding dirt road into the north:

Cleaned up for some pictures: