The Alaskan Bull Vanagon

Mate the Engine and Tranny

Now you need to mate the engine with the transmission. You're going to hang them both in the bus together. This can be tricky since the two together weigh well over 250kg. That's well over a quarter ton! Watch your toes, eh? I recommend an engine hoist. I borrowed my buddy Jamie's. Thanks, man, I owe you a frosty one. I got the Zetec on the rails and then dragged the tranny over and rested it on a 5X10. Then I got the other end up on another plank. Use the hoist, and body language to get everything to line up. This only took me an hour or so.

Take the converter off the transmission (watch for fluid drips), and mount it to the tranny. Also, it's probably a good idea to check the torque converter bushing and oil seals, etc. If you have an early van you may need to enlarge the hole in the Bostig flywheel a tiny bit. It's just a hair too small. A few passes with a rotary file did the trick. Jim says he'll fix this in the future so it may not be an issue.
The torque converter bolted to the flywheel. You bolt the converter through an access hole in the zetec case. Rotate the crank to bring the bolt holes into view. You can't see the access hole here, but it is pretty obvious.That looks like a lot of engine and a little transmission!

Ready to hoist into the bus. Step two done, have a doughnut. You deserve it.

Installing the Breakout Box

This part was easy. Just run the cable from the engine compartment forward to the cabin. Make a slit in the boot ahead of the shifter and push it through.
Screw the box bracket into the dash and connect the cable to it. There isn't much room between the steering column and the black blower unit. You can see that the cable is sort of bent in there, but it works. You might try angling it in there better than I did.You're done with step one. Have a doughnut.

The Engine Finally Arrived

It's like Christmas. Nicely crated.I can't wait to get busy.

Overheating Problem Fixed

Bleed your radiator! I should have known this. It's hard to get the air out of a Vanagon cooling system. I was baffled because I couldn't get the radiator to fill with coolant. The problem was a persistent air pocket in the radiator. I solved it by putting the cap on the bottle to build a little pressure and opening up the radiator bleed screw. I parked on a steep stretch of my driveway with the radiator up until cooalnt started to come out the bleed. Then I turned it around so the bottle was high and a big burp came out after I took the cap off. Problem solved. I cinched the bleed screw, topped off the bottle and drove it.

It's In!

It's in! I (more or less) finished the install yesterday at about 2PM. The motor fired up first try...YEAH!



I'm only having one major problem that appears to be unrelated to the Zetec. The dang thing is overheating and I can't figure out why. I re-checked all the connections and they seem right except for one thing. Jim's manual has the radiator feed as the main coolant line on the driver's side of the two main pipes at the firewall. Bentley shows this as the return however, unless I am reading this wrong. I am not sure if this is my problem or not.

Anyway, the two main coolant hoses get hot, although the one attached to the Zetec thermostat housing gets hotter. Strangely, the coolant hoses up front at the radiator are both cool after overheating which indicates to me that coolant is not flowing to the radiator. Out of curiosity I pulled the hose and, sure enough, no coolant came out of the radiator at all and only a little from the hose. What is going on here!?!?! The only thing I can think of is that maybe the main coolant feed pipe is plugged with sediment or something. The thermostat is working because the hose running off it is getting hot.

Otherwise, the install went very, very smoothly. I had to ream out the flywheel hole a tiny bit with a rotary file to get the torque converter to fit, but it only took two minutes tops, and Jim already knows about this problem. Future flywheels should come milled a hair larger to accommodate 1.9 torque converters which seem to have larger knobs in the t-converter.

Great job Bostig guys, you really did a great job! The engine was packed well for shipping, all the wires and hoses were neatly labeled, etc. I don't think I swore all weekend! It was fun.

I took notes and pictures and will post them later.