1999 HDi engine swap - It works and has driven home!

[JonL]

IT LIVES!

More tomorrow after I have got some sleep, but yes she fired and ran.

[teamster1975]

Well done that man!!!!

[steve_earwig]

Woohoo!!!

[DiscoPol]

Top work fella, well done!!!!!!!

[eoin27]

Really well done mate. Hope you get a few years out of it! Wouldnt mind sticking a HDi into my coupe. 25.9MPG all city driving.

[JonL]

As promised a complete update on yesterday’s activity.

I had to travel to Heathrow to collect my mother, important as she was lending us her car, and so lost the first part of the evening (a 1740 hrs arrival resulted in a collection at 1920 hrs!). Still I got into the garage and started trying to remember where all of the wires went! I knew that i should have taken pictures as i disassembled the engine bay. The off-side was not too hard (ECU, etc) but the near-side was a nightmare. The myriad of connectors and, even more difficult, the metal brackets are a 3d jigsaw I was trying to complete without the picture. Still I managed to get it all back together with only one wire, an earth strap, which I could not place. After scratching my head for a while Malcolm and I noticed that one of the gearbox bolts had a second thread on it for a nut and realised that the wire was the engine earth. I then realised that the battery was still dead, I had meant to charge it when the engine went back in, but forgot as it was nearly midnight, so we then put that on charge. Malcolm found his starter pack, I must get one of those they seem like a good bit of kit, and we connected the battery terminals to that. With some trepidation I got in and turned the key. The dashboard lights came on, although the display did read “economy mode active” but we could hear the fuel pump and so I went to start the car. This had absolutely no effect whatsoever, no click, no whir, nothing. I was somewhat dejected and got out with a face as long as a horse to stare into the engine bay. At this point we both realised that having identified the engine earth strap we had not actually connected it!

One nut later and I was back in the car and we tried again. This time the engine turned over, but very slowly, so I stopped and Malcolm found another battery (this one was from his 8L V8 GT40 so rather large!) and we connected this one to the battery pack and, for a third time, I got back in. This time the engine caught first time and idled perfectly. I did not run it for more than a couple of seconds, I have yet to connect the exhaust, put water in the coolant system, oil in the gearbox, or tighten the rear engine mount, but it ran. I consider that a great success and called it a night at that point. Malcolm did ask if all the dashboard lights went out and I had to confess that I was so shocked when it fired that I didn’t actually look! So I am taking this afternoon off and will complete all of the outstanding jobs and, all things being equal, SWIMBO should have her car back tonight.

Many thanks for everyone’s help and encouragement and I hope that the rest of the project goes as well as yesterday. Not that I am worried that I have c0cked up the timing, clutch replacement, bought a pup of E-bay, etc, etc, etc ,etc………..

[Welly]

Nice one fella - you know you wouldn't have slept without hearing it start

[eoin27]

It'll be like a brand new engine with all the work you did to it before putting it in. Very well done fella!

[DaiRees]

Excellent work Jon, well done!!

[Doggy]

Top stuff Jon!

[JonL]

Well all is not quite as rosey as it first seemed. I have managed to damage one of the driveshaft seals as i was refitting the driveshafts themselves. A real inbuggerance as I am in the garage on my own and don't have a car to go and get new ones.

I am also having some trouble getting the top plastic radiator clips to fit over the rubber bushes. The plastic goes over the first part but then binds and refuses to clip over the rest. Is there a technique for getting it to sit correctly? I have checked that the bottom pins are correctly located but it does not seem to make a difference.

[JonL]

Well she is dead again!

There had been a loud exhaust noise coming from the car and I had assumed that it was the manifold to downpipe joint, as I hadn't fixed the collar yet. I fixed that and took out the driveshafts and turned her over and noticed that the loud noise was still there. Malcolm came in at that point and he noticed a slight knocking coming from the flywheel. The noise intensified when I depressed the clutch and we thought that i must have fitted the clutch plate the wrong way round. So we stripped off the gearbox and yes, I am a complete numpty and had fitted the clutch plate the wrong way round. The noise was the release bearing forcing the clutch plate onto the flywheel bolts. Still there was no real damage to either and, apart from the grief of taking the gearbox off, it was relatively painless. Whilst under the car Malcolm noticed that one of the exhaust manifold nuts looked loose. With the engine dropped slightly, due to the gearbox mounting not being fitted, we found that you can just, and I mean only just, get to all 8 of the nuts and I hadn't tightened any of them! Yes I had fitted the manifold and must have gone onto something else and never came back and tightened all of the nuts. Still we managed it and all seemed well until we went to start the car again and I does not want to fire. It turns over fine on the starter motor and there is fuel at the injectors but it just will not run. We only removed the three sensors on the gearbox and all of these have been refitted. I don't have any nuts or bolts left over and there are no obvious reasons why it will not start, it just refuses to do so.

I would welcome any suggestions, or a methodology for tracing an electrical gremlin. Over to you all....

[Welly]

Err, weird.....if there's fuel up-to the injector rail then something's telling the injectors to stay closed. I can only think of the big stuff like immobiliser and crank sensor that kinda thing

[steve_earwig]

Perhaps something got unplugged while you had the engine dropped for the clutch

[JonL]

Err, weird.....if there's fuel up-to the injector rail then something's telling the injectors to stay closed. I can only think of the big stuff like immobiliser and crank sensor that kinda thing

The car isn't fitted with an immobiliser, just the chip in the key, so I don't think that could be it. The crank sensor could be it, where is it?