Brilliantrot 24v swap: BACK UNDER THE KNIFE!..Now with puppy content

[Nick_S]

Nice progress. Basically anything less than a beautiful sunny day with 60+ degree temps turn me into a useless sack of turds, so good job.

Haha I'm the opposite. When it's raining and crappy all I want to do is being inside working on my car.

[JCarp90]

Nice progress. Basically anything less than a beautiful sunny day with 60+ degree temps turn me into a useless sack of turds, so good job.

[Nick_S]

Hey look, I actually did something!

Didn't think to take too many pictures, was working alone. Thankfully my friend showed up right when I got there to help me push it in. We got like 3-4inches of RAIN yesterday so even the gravel driveway they have was absolutely soaked.

First I replaced my blower motor because why not with everything off the car? My old one sounded like rocks in a blender. Although it seems to be slightly rubbing on the right side, no matter what I did it didn't seem to change. I assume this isn't normal?


Again, forgot to take pictures of much of what I was doing. New exhaust gaskets and all new studs. Did this with the motor in the car. Highly recommend doing them while it's out. It wasn't that hard but the last few were a tight squeeze.


Totally forgot to heat and extract a broken stud which means that front manifold will likely have to come off again. Sweet. (the furthest one away)


Up in the air. My buddy bought this insanely bright LED light on a tripod which made working under the car so much better.


Time for clutch stuff. After finding the F1 14lb flywheel and gripforce OEM M50 setup I bought was too big for the G240, I opted to go with the OE M42 dual mass and a new M42 clutch. Have read of a few people running this and seems to hold the power of an M50 just fine. Will eventually upgrade down the road.



Flywheel on.


Clutch on. I got a bit nervous at this stem because I've never done a clutch and no where was it labeled "flywheel" side. After looking at it for a second I noticed that one was it would hit the flywheel bolts and the other way it wouldn't took a stab in the dark and mounted it up.

Mounted the pressure plate but didn't bother with any pictures. I'm still nervous if I did this right, haha. My euro 320 linkage was supposed to have shown up but is a day behind so I didn't mount the drive shaft yet so I can install that this week. Then I wrestled with getting the transmission mounted by myself. Had a trans jack but it was still a process and am really sore today, haha. One thing I noticed I hadn't read anywhere is to mount the G240 to an M50 you have to remove one of the guide for one of the bolt holes on the transmission as the engine has one in the exact same spot. After I finally got it in place, I couldn't get the input shaft to catch the pilot bearing. Another 30 minutes of messing with it and I grabbed a big C-clamp vice grip, found a couple flat surfaces on the trans and engine and squeezed and it popped right in. What a relief.

Next I got the starter in, started running a few of the coolant hoses and the wire harness.




On the firewall, the inlet and outlet for the heater core. Do I have these mounted up correct? The top one is the spider hose, the bottom is the hose from the back side of the engine. I've you can do some good damage if you mix these.


Started plugging some of the connectors and mocked up some stuff basically leaving me here. My linkage should be delivered tomorrow and after tomorrow, I don't work till Jan 6th so I'm trying to get this thing done ASAP.




Till next time

[Nick_S]

I need the car up in the air and to move a lift around and the car is on fresh poured gravel so it's a chore to even push it. Thankfully the weather is nice this weekend and I have everything I need minus the linkage so I'm trying to make a big push on saturday. I want to drive it home by the new years and I don't work from Dec 23-Jan 6. FWIW, I don't mind the cold. I worked all last winter on an M42 refresh in my garage that is basically a car port with a door.

[fourmotioneer]

FWIW, my whole 2-car garage is exploded with Alfa, so I've taken to working in front of the garage every night. I just throw on Smartwool long underwear, two sweatshirts, a jacket and a hat. I've worked in weather in the teens recently and it didn't suck too bad.

Now, I imagine that you need to be inside for cleanliness reasons, and I bet snow would get in the way of any engine lifting, but I'd encourage you to throw on a bunch of clothing and weather the cold if it helps!

Good luck with the swap!

[Nick_S]

This winter fucking blows. Calling for 3-5inches tonight and tomorrow, my buddy has so many cars at the shop currently there is no room for me. Another week wasted. I'm never going to finish this fucking car

[Nick_S]

Nothing much to report. Went up and did a little prep work on the trans. Replaced the slave and cleaned up a bit. Found out why it was leaking. Input shaft seal definitely was mangled so I replaced that and seems to be fine now.



Started swapping the linkage and found the G250 stuff will definitely not work so I ordered the euro 320 parts. Also found that despite what I had read a places. The M50 clutch/flywheel combo I had ordered isn't going to fit the G240 so I have to send those back to gripforce and I'll be running the OE M42 flywheel, clutch and pressure plate. Hopefully will hold up fine as the M50 doesn't make all that much more power. Bummer.

Despite the flywheel being the same diameter, the pressure plate is much wider on the M50 and is what is causing the interference.

M42 on top, M50 on bottom



Poor thing, hopefully soon she'll run again.

[Nick_S]

Doesn't look like I'll be able to work on it this weekend. Weather has turned to shit and doesn't sound like they couldn't get it pushed into the shop. This sucks, I'm getting anxious and just want this damn thing done!

[JCarp90]

Install the headers on the engine before you put it in.

[kingston]

lmfao at 260s being indestructible.

this

[Nick_S]

Not particularly related to my swap but...

My friends shop I'm using posted this today on the shops facebook. I thought it was an incredible gesture of kindness and makes me feel fortunate to have a friend who is so willing to give and help out others.

We had a customer come in for two tires this morning. He was a few minutes late and apologized. He then went on to say he was having a rough time because his apartment had burnt down a few weeks ago and he lost his 10yr old son in the fire. Tyler and I were crushed by his story and while we were installing his tires we decided we didn't feel right taking a penny from him. When I gave him his bill he was confused at first and once I explained it he insisted on paying. We told him absolutely not and just asked that he use the money to stuff some stockings for his other children. The point of this post IS NOT to promote an awesome thing we did, but to encourage you to do something awesome for somebody else. The smallest thing can mean the world to someone who's down on their luck. We wish everyone a safe and happy holiday and hope you can find a way to pay it forward.

[Nick_S]

LMFAO at 260s being indestructible.

GET IT DONE NICK!

Thanks man!! Saturday will hopefully be a big day. Plans are:
-install clutch, flywheel
-clean and reseal G240 with new slave
-install and/or modify G250 linkage if needed
-Mount trans, reconnect lines etc
-start to run the harness w/ adapter
-coolant lines
-mount DME
-mount intake manifold
-reinstall headers

We'll see. I plan on it being a long day especially since I'll likely be doing this alone. Thankfully my dude has a lift and a tranny jack I can use. Shouldn't be bad.

Also, in this picture. Do I have the shift lever mounted the right way?

[JCarp90]

240's suck
250's suck
260s are near indestructible.

but if i where you id try to re-seal your 240 if it shifted fine and junk.

LMFAO at 260s being indestructible.

GET IT DONE NICK!

[Nick_S]

It is killing me having this car so far away! I want to work on it so badly. Was hoping to have it done about 3 weeks ago.

[Nick_S]

As much as I'd love a ZF, I don't have the coin for it. So I'm resealing the 240, ordering the euro 320 linkage and running that. I can't see a basically bone stock m50 being to much for it to handle. So hopefully I'll have this back in the car next weekend!?