488 replies to this topic

[93tzlegacy]

hey Duncan we got the next container in, i have a stock tt centre section and a choice of aftermarket diff backs if you are interested.

Build looks like its coming along nicely.

thanks, Ben.

[duncanm]

Cheers Ben, I'll be in touch next week.
 
Serious progress today.
 
On the way to pulling the engine, cleared out the accumulated crap in the wheel wells -- must remember not to leave it so long in future, as I must have pulled half a kilo of damp dirt out of each side.

 
Engine is out - miminal fuss (usual pulling, jiggling and a small bit of appropriate language did the job). Old rear main seal looked like it had been leaking for a while (which explains some of the oil on the subframe).. lots of clutch dust + oil putty coating the bell housing. (this is after I'd hit it with degreaser and scrubbed it a bit - hence the shiny parts).
 
Got the handy wood-beam, eye-strap hanger idea off nasioc, I think.  Saves worrying about jacking up the transmission.
 

 
 
Have just started on the wiring. Fuse box is in, and I'm working around from there - replacing the front harness in small sections (pull a foot away from chassis, place the matching foot of new harness) which makes it easy to keep track of where the plastic clips go.

[duncanm]

Oh - and flywheel of old donk - solid mass as predicted by SubyDr and others. Saves me some coin.

[duncanm]

Big day today.

 

Had my mum's partner help - keeps him busy and was great to have two hands to manoeuvre  the engine.

Poly bushes swapped from outback rack to donor. Kept the donor swaybay as the outback item had bigger bends and looked like it would foul the turbo subframe. Kept the beefier-looking end links.

Subframe back in, new clutch installed, lots of jiggling, raising, lowering and a little swearing and the new donk is in and matched to 'box.
 

 

A couple of things immediately apparent as we tried to lower it:

 - would need to lose the passenger corner bracket thing which will foul the primary dump.  The driver's side looks like it'll clear the dump ok.

 - I will have to lose the hill-hold (or move it). It fouls the primary turbo.

 

Putting the clutch slave cylinder on - its a push clutch (matching the outback 'box) and two things ensure it won't just bolt up due to the two coolant lines which run off to the heater core:

1/ The fluid line banjo needs to be rotated

2/ The underside of the slave cylinder also fouls one - I've packed it up 5mm with washers -- will have to see if this causes it to pop off the clutch fork when depressed.

 

 

Time for a beer

 

[duncanm]

On to some of the fiddly bits last night.

 

Hill hold delete:

 

 

 

The hill holder valve interferes with the primary turbo and dump. It needs to go. You can see the cable to the clutch, big gold cable bracket and valve in the right corner on top of the white bracket thingy (same pic as above).

 

 

Here's the hill hold (8 - "Pressure Hold Valve") in the scheme of things. It just holds pressure in one of the brake channels (front left, rear right). We need to run a line bypassing it.

 

 

The outlet is from the top of the brake master cyl (just off top of this pic), which runs across the firewall to the valve, and another return to ABS input 1 (lower right of the four on top of ABS unit).

 

 

The donor cut has a matching brake line which runs straight from the master cylinder to the ABS.  Unbolt, unclip and untangle this from all the other lines (carefully without bending it), and it bolts straight in. All the clips line up - nice.

 

I then spent a good bit of an hour cutting and removing the lines which ran to the hill hold. I still have short segments trapped behind the brake booster, which I'll remove when I pull the dash out, as it'll be easier then.

 

Clutch cable pulled out. Firewall grommet removed. Matching firewall plug from cut put in its place.

 

Dummy fit of the dumps. Primary (passenger side) with the corner bracket thingy, hill hold and matching lines removed.  That brake line (front left) runs it bit further forward than the cut (which drops straight down the firewall). It used to clip to the bracket. A little judicious bending and a new clip holds it aside. I'll check how it goes with the turbo heat shield in place, but I may need to change this over, too (will check when I pull the booster).

 

 

Clutch slave seems to work ok with my stack of washers - doesn't pop off the fork.  I was worried about how much air I had in the system, and with only one pair of hands, I bled it by forcing fluid up from the slave bleed nipple with a big syringe. Seemed to work pretty well.

[duncanm]

You can just use Auto Gen 3 bits to do the delete.

 

no need -- the cut didn't have a hill hold either, so I used the bits from that.

[duncanm]

Getting to the nitty gritty

• front harness swapped over
• dash just about removed. Everything undone and instruments, passenger airbag, console, etc pulled out. Dash ready to lift

[Beckers]

Hey mate,

 

I was checking your thread on Sat night, I say to myself, should I remind Duncan about the hill holder & brackets on the rail ?

No, because I am sure he knows already. Sorry I did not let you know.

 

I lovin this thread, gives me a few tips also.

[duncanm]

No worries.

 

The passenger bracket + hill hold was fairly obvious is wasn't going to fit when the engine was hanging above the bay.  We pulled the hill hold aside with the intention of checking it afterwards, but again, it was clear that it couldn't stay.

 

I've left the driver's side there for now. It looks fine with just the dump. I haven't fitted the heat shield yet to see if it still clears.

[duncanm]

Brake master cylinder and passenger side line finally swapped over - I wasn't happy with the outback line being so close to the primary turbo, it looked like a recipe for boiled fluid.  I waited until I had the dash out before I pulled the master cylinder. Pulling and placing brake lines is a cnut of a job.

 

There's still a clip missing in this shot (that lower one is busted and should be down below the level of the turbo)

 

 

 

Dash out and harness swapped. Next job is to get a torx bit for the airbag unit so I can get the crash bar out and do the bulkhead harness.  

 

[93tzlegacy]

looking good mate . 

[Matt]

Solid progress happening mate.....gives me more inspiration to keep chipping away at mine

[duncanm]

yeh... was getting the shits by the end of last night with the plastic clips and whatnot holding everything down.  Just need to take a break and move on to something else (there's always something else around to do).

 

Its easy to make what seems huge amounts of progress when the engine drops in and mechanical bits bolt on.. but all those clips, interior bits and wiring take a large amount of time and patience with what seems like little to no progress. 

 

Must say.. a station wagon is great for this. I sat in the front seats pulling plastic dash parts out and just hoiked them over my shoulder

 

Here's a fuzzy picture of the dash with transplanted loom waiting to be put back in.

 

[duncanm]

it begins in earnest this week.

 

Today's progress..

 

AC/blower/heater and bulkhead harness out, blower is getting minty fresh to make sure I don't get any second-hand Japanese smoke. I also made up some new foam seals with some door strip as the original had crumbled

 

 

Bulkhead harness in the process of being replaced with new harness (fuse box of which is in the foreground). It's all downhill from here

 

 

 

Started plugging stuff back in and came across a couple of minor differences that needed to be dealt with.

 

Firstly, the Outback has vanity mirror lights. The donor obviously didn't. The difference is seen in the roof cord which plugs in in the driver's side pillar. Outback is 6-pin, donor harness 4.  Soldered the vanity light into the roof-spot circuit and re-pinned, so they'll only work when the headlights are on (rather than on the Acc circuit), but that's ok.

 

Second difference is the clutch pedal and wiring. Outback on the right (pedal up), donor on the left (pedal down).

 

 

The Outback has cruise control and hill hold.

• The hill hold cable is pulled with that extra black arm.
• The cruise is deactivated with the (n/c) switch at the top of the clutch arm (green plug).

Donor doesn't have either, but it does have what I assume is a kill-start switch which is engaged when the clutch is fully depressed.

 

Solution is to use the donor pedal (we've already lost the hill hold due to the primary turbo) and transfer the Outback's cruise switch to the donor. It has a matching hole (with a bolt in it).

 

There's also a cruise-control mismatch on the brake pedal. The Outback has 2 switches to a single 4-pin plug, a n/c cruise switch, and the brake light switch. Solution is to re-pin the donor harness brake light wiring to the appropriate pins in the 4-pin plug, and then wire up the cruise to the other two.

 

Tonight's job is to split the cruise-control wiring from the Outback harness so I can wire it back into the car tomorrow. I didn't put the blower or heater cores back in yet.

 

Also removed the gearbox crossmember and have decided to partially group-N'ify the mount. It'll take a few days to cure.

 

Before

 

After:

 

[Beckers]

Ha ha, I love the updated g/box mount.

 

Good to know about the pedals also, thanks for the tops info.

[duncanm]

Bulkhead harness, ready to split out cruise control wiring.

 

 

 

What a mess... cruise control bits removed. Probably just should have snipped the plugs and wired from scratch!

 

 

[JDWhiteWRX]

There seems to be a lot of extra work when fitting a TT motor to these cars, you are doing a good job though.

[duncanm]

.. I can't see why this would be more work.. apart from the vacuum hose forest.

 

The biggest job so far is the bulkhead and dash - but that had to change so I could use the instrument cluster from the cut.  If I kept the outback cluster, then there'd be a whole bunch of splicing, which then would have been simpler with a WRX cut, I think.

 

Slow today - splicing in the cruise control to the bulkhead wiring. Still a couple of wires missing which I can't work out, as the FSM seems to differ from my CC box.  I've left these accessible for now and replaced the heater core, blower and crash box.  Its starting to look like a car again inside.

 

 

Some other mismatches to be dealt with tomorrow:

• ABS sensors are different - the outback ones poke out to meet the hub.  But of course the plugs are different, too! So I'll have to re-pin the donor harness to the Outback plugs
• transmission plugs differ. The TT merges neutral and reverse sensors into a single 4-pin plug. The outback has 2 seperate plugs
• Throttle cable needs to be swapped

 

Beckers, if you're listening and want to transfer your cruise control, make sure you do it with the harness out of the car! I had a bugger of a time leading the wires back through the firewall grommet. If you're sending it off to AMAuto, then mention the cruise, ABS and transmission plugs (depending on the gearbox you're going to use).

 

[Beckers]

 

Some other mismatches to be dealt with tomorrow:

• ABS sensors are different - the outback ones poke out to meet the hub.  But of course the plugs are different, too! So I'll have to re-pin the donor harness to the Outback plugs
• transmission plugs differ. The TT merges neutral and reverse sensors into a single 4-pin plug. The outback has 2 seperate plugs
• Throttle cable needs to be swapped

 

Beckers, if you're listening and want to transfer your cruise control, make sure you do it with the harness out of the car! I had a bugger of a time leading the wires back through the firewall grommet. If you're sending it off to AMAuto, then mention the cruise, ABS and transmission plugs (depending on the gearbox you're going to use).

 

 

 

Thanks for tips on the CC. Unsure if I will fit the CC yet !

I am using the trans from the cut, so this will not be a problem.

I will check the abs sensors tomorrow.

 

Just 1 thing for you to check, is the cable on the CC unit long enough ? 

As it must reach the rh side of the throttle body now.

Looks like the end is in sight for you now.

 

Ps I am always watching !!