...and a Happy New Year...

In't Christmas Brilliant!

By the Sunday after Christmas I was bored of the Eat, Drink, TV, PS4. Repeat... so I shuffled into work to get on with getting the  AFN in the back of my T3...

Putting it in was obviously not going to be as straightforward as pulling it out (fnarr fnarr), but by "teatime" it was in the hole, piped up and looking the part.

Not much to report here really... I fitted the bell housing to the engine first as I knew it would need a slight but of tickling with the grinder to clear the Dual Mass Flywheel.
In Reality its a tiny amount on the metalwork near the timing mark, and on the other side on the raised by that the release arm passes through.
I just fitted the bell housing and turned the engine by hand until it locked up, the removed, ground away, and refitted. It took 3 goes before I had just enough to spin the engine without it touching.

Then, simply a case of refitting the bell housing to the gearbox, and refitting the engine.
Oh... oil pump and sump were fitted before i put the engine in.

Pipework is exactly as the AAZ that came out. Ive changed the top coolant flange to lose the connection to the header tank on the Sharan, but thats about it. 

In the centre of the image above you can see the Starter Motor Adaptor.

This bolts to the bell housing and allows you to use the TDI starter motor matched to the flyweel.

The added advantage of this patented German design is that the TDI starter is more powerful than the original... bonus.

I had a mental list of jobs to do before tackling the wiring, and it was getting shorter and shorter...

Drill and tap for the EGT probe into the turbo adapter...tick

Oil Return line... this was going to need a little "bodging" to get it going, so I made one out of part of the AFN oil return and part of the JX. Joined with some oil hoses and it will do the job to get it running. I'll then take it off and have one made up... tick... ish

Its a bit "pikey" and its not the kind of thing I'd be happy with in the long term, but to get it running and tested, it'll do.

Lastly, I blanked the Oil Filler point on the sump with a Blanking Plate. I can fill the oil from the rocker cover, but I would like to refit the standard oil filler a some point. For the time being the power steering pipe onto the Sharan pump fouls it, so this is the simplest short term solution...

Now I'd done a lot of work on the loom when I took it out of the Sharan. Id removed most of the excess wiring and was left with pretty much the engine loom. I had about 12 wires not connected to anything so I set about figuring out where they all went.

Now I have 2 wiring diagrams for the Sharan ECU, one from ElsaWin and one from Autodata.
Both are slightly different, neither is exactly right, but it all makes sense once you start plugging stuff in.

I was left with some earths, connections to the ECU power relay, oil pressure sender wiring, coolant temp, glow plug light, and a couple of others I cant remember.

I figured the best way to tackle this was connect everthing up, check it starts and runs and then tidy the loom up. So I set about splicing stuff into the T3 loom. This is actually a lot simpler than you may think. VW are pretty clever with wiring and a lot of the wiring colours are the same. Theres a few "gotchas" but on the whole its obvious where stuff goes to. All the wiring connections can be made in the "black box" in the engine bay. Having said that, for the time being theyre connected to the original wiring for the sake of getting it running. I'll then work through the connections joining them in the Black Box and getting rid of the original T3 engine wiring from the engine bay.

The exception is the ECU relay, which obviously doesnt have an equivalent on the original vehicle, so ive mounted the relay and run fresh wiring.

Sounds easy when you type it quickly, but its actually quite time consuming and I'd say 4-5 hours were spent checking wiring, making connections, and double checking with a multimeter. So by 2pm, i was almost ready to fire up... I was just waiting on Yodel with a delivery of silicone hoses to join the air intake to the MAF and air box... tired of waiting I did what anybody would do and joined it all together with gaffa tape....

I plugged the immobilser unit in... with the chip from the key tie wrapped to the coil for the time being... thats for another day... and connected the battery.
No smoke, no flames, no explosions. Which is always a good thing...

So i put the key in the ignition, and turned it on. Glow plug light on, then off... flicked the starter and it burst into life!

A couple of coughs as the air found its way out of the system and then it settled down to a fast idle.

At the moment... it runs.

No exhaust, No N75 valve connected, and no intake air temp sensor. Pedal is in the engine bay, and the loom is still spread across the engine... No OBD port connected so I cant read the fault codes (which there will be lots), but it starts on the first touch of the key and idles nicely. Which considering its over a year since it last ran is pretty good.

It'll be the New Year before I see the silicone hoses now, as for some reason its still at the Yodel depot due to "bad weather"! So for the moment its running with gaffa tape and a "bad boy" noisy filter.

Next job is to sort the intake, tidy and hide the loom, and plumb the N75 in.
I'll then run some wires to the front for the pedal and the OBD port and read some fault codes.

And hopefully then go for a drive...